At the workplace, social anxiety are the problems you face when you communicate with your colleagues or managers. It stops you from expressing your true thoughts and takes you in an awkwardly reserved mode where you are anxious and the idea of interaction is painful.
Social anxiety can bring your career progress to a complete stop, taking away valuable growth opportunities from you. Your siloed working as an example, makes you miss key work productivity. Meanwhile, you miss career jumps such as team lead roles and keep stuck at the same position you were a year ago.Â
Set your intention today and follow these simple tips to beat social anxiety. These tips are science backed and are extremely simple to follow.Â
But before diving into the tips on how to cope with social anxiety, it’s really important to know what exactly is social anxiety and where this fear of social connection stems from.Â
What’s Social Anxiety?
Social anxiety is a mental and physical state that exists in the form of fear and stress. This fear and stress arises from social situations because you think people might be judging you negatively.
Social anxiety causes you to have low self esteem, lack in assertiveness, negative self talk, poor social skills, and low employment achievements.
What causes social anxiety at the workplace?
At the workplace, it’s very natural for everyone to face social anxiety in one form or the other. An employee might struggle being assertive all the time, or they might abnegate themselves for being inadequate in work. But social anxiety disorder is serious among some employees and that needs attention.
Social anxiety at the workplace might emerge from one or more factors. These factors include:
- Shy temperament– your natural capacity to restrain from social interactions might make you feel that your shy disposition couldn’t help you deliver an adequate response. This makes way for anxious thoughts in your mind, curtailing your ability to interact confidently.
- Negative experiences– your past experiences in life have a profound effect on you as you encounter new social interactions. People who’ve faced a great deal of negative experiences as children– bullying, teasing, and ridicule, are more prone to social anxiety at the workplace. They are accompanied by low-self esteem, negative self talk and poor social skills.
- Encountering new things– when you encounter something for the first time, such as appearing from an interview, or delivering a presentation at the workplace, its natural that your mind feels overwhelmed with fear of judgment.
4 practical tips to cope with Social Anxiety at workplace
Tip # 1: Make a habit of staying in relax mode
When you stay relaxed, your brain functions to minimize stress signals by creating an abundance of logic that helps perceive the scenario as less fearful. Â
According to neurology, two parts of the brain activate in anxiety– the cognitive brain that’s located at the frontal side of the skull and the emotional brain placed at the bottom location.
When a person encounters anxiety, a marble sized part of the feeling brain: the amygdala becomes active and releases stress hormones (cortisol). These signals for amygdala are received by the cognition brain whose one part (named dorsal anterior cingulate cortex dACC) amplifies these anxiety signals. Hence the feeling brain overpowers the cognitive brain halting the ability to think clearly while baking an emotional outburst. In social anxiety situations, a person is unable to respond normally because amygdala and dACC make it difficult to manage emotions.
However, the brain also knows how to cope with social anxiety. Within the cognition brain, there’s another part (the prefrontal cortex) that also activates in anxiety. Just like dACC, it also receives anxiety signals from the amygdala but does the opposite– instead of amplifying those signals, it works to dampen them. The prefrontal cortex of the cognition brain thus helps minimize stress by making it appear less fearful.
Staying relaxed– a kind of behavioral therapy, is a proven way to help people cope with social anxiety that activates the prefrontal cortex to manage your emotions.Â
Tip # 2: Practice active listening
When you listen ‘actively’, that is with a silent mind, that helps you put all your anxious thoughts to the side and focus on the subject in front of you. It helps you think with your cognition brain, and curtails the intrusion of the emotional brain. Active listening enables you to use all your focus on thinking logically and presenting an idea that is intelligent and makes sense.
Even if you don’t come up with a logic immediately, active listening still helps you in building a nice communication caliber making you appear attentive and responsive. This attention later helps you in devising a wise response. Remember speaking is not everything when it comes to communication. In fact listening is the most pivotal element recognized by great communication experts.Â
Tip # 3: Invest in your outlook and intellect
One big reason for social anxiety at the workplace is one’s low self-esteem (including body-esteem). When you don’t like yourself– the way you appear, the way you speak and the way you think, that makes you anxious and run away from making interactions.
Fortunately, with little effort you can get rid of the self-esteem troubles and become willing to volunteer in meaningful interactions. For that, you need to build yourself, and invest in your outer appearance, and intellect. The following tips can help you improve your self-esteem:
- Develop and follow a fashion appeal. Spend time searching for matching outfits, and design 3-5 looks inspired by your favorite influencers. This helps you dress up nicely and bring a good view of yourself.
- Exercise and workout (at home or gym) to bring your body in shape. Building your body enhances the energy in you and brings a power element in your personality.
- Take care of your hygiene and eat clean. When you feel good in your gut, that’s when you feel good on the outside.
- Spend time improving your speaking skills with language apps or book reading. Read out loud and accentuate correct pronunciation. Honing your speaking skills helps you influence your audience as you speak later to them.
- Read books on ranging topics and develop views on subjects of your interest. This trains your mind and you become quick witted in exchanging your views in discussions at workplace meetups.
Tip # 4: Take feedback
As you follow the above 3 tips, notice how people react as you interact with them. Initially, it might be tough for you, but at that time take feedback from your system and use it to command your next moves.Â
Remember, learning effective communication is not a revolutionary thing, rather it takes time and an unrelenting willingness to reach a level where you master it.
