How can I change my behaviour?

by Prof Dr. Bilal Semih Bozdemir

How can I change my behaviour? Changing what you’re used to do is the most useful way to get rid of social anxiety. We’ve already talked about how behaviours like staying away and security measures may reinforce your social anxiety. It makes you to have a clear idea of the behaviours you are obliged to deal with. The following example may help you to find the real reasons of your self-protection and safety behaviours.

Running away: - Not going to places in which you would meet people (write the list here). - When you foresee that you’re going to be obliged to meet people you want from other people to do certain things for you. - Not speaking with the people you would like to talk to. Safety behaviours: - Avoiding looking people in the eyes - Talk a little or allow someone else to talk. - Plan in advance what you’re going to say and memorize your speech. - Holding tight things around you. - Going to a safe and secure corner or place. - Looking the other way. - Trying to look busy. - Speaking very fast. - Not talking about yourself. - Finding somebody with whom you feel secure. All of those ways of running away and safe behaviours lead to the perpetuation of the problem.

This is very important. : - Slowly reduce your habit of running away and face things you’re afraid of. - Make a list of things you planned to avoid, and your whole avoiding and safe behaviours. A bit later put on the lower stair step the easiest goals and on the highest one the most difficult ones. This example may be useful for you: Avoiding to speak in front of a group of people: John, is afraid to speak in front of a group of people. He used to use methods such as not looking to people’s eyes, looking busy, speaking fast and staying near a very talkative friend of his, to get rid of his fear.

These last days because of his fears he abandoned going to the club. He really misses it. He made the following anxiety stairs: 6th 5th 4th 3rd 2nd 1st The freakiest. Speak more and more slowly in the group. Instead of meeting with his close friends, try to get used of seeing other people. Look at people for the time they are in a group. Observe one self’s symptoms and ideas. Try to mostly spend time with other people instead of occupying oneself with too much work. Going to the club by their own and meet friends inside. Have an appointment with a friend and then go to the club together. The less frightening John, starting with the first step, will slowly proceed to the 6th step. By gradually reducing his safety behaviours and ensure himself he’s not starting new ones. Try this on yourself and establish an anxiety staircase (ladder).


Do things on this list one by one at a specific time. By using the abilities learnt in the other chapters, you will regularly apply the methods to get rid of the thoughts symptoms of anxiety and physical symptoms. You will slowly learn to deal with social events and feel comfortable. It is important to remember some other people are anxious in social situations but anyway they don’t make it obvious. This means you’re not the only one facing those difficulties. How can I reduce my physical symptoms? - Reducing physical symptoms - Relaxing. To reduce the violence of the physical symptoms early identifying the symptoms and characterizing them without knotting may be very helpful. After early identifying tension symptoms, you may avoid the anxiety to come to a more serious level by using relaxation techniques. Some people can relax with exercise, by listening to music, watching TV and reading books. For others on the other hand, being able to watch people exercising themselves is useful. Some people may find relaxation and yoga lessons more useful for others bowling or recorded tapes are more helpful.

You can also buy a relaxation tape. Relaxation is a skill just as any other things that need to be learnt. And it takes time. The following exercise teaches the deep muscle relaxation. And several people find it useful in the reducing of tension and anxiety at every level. Deep muscle relaxation It’s very helpful to read the instructions first and then learn them. First start choosing a comfortable, warm and disturbance free place. Lie down on the floor and relax, close your eyes. Focus on your calm breathe for a couple of minutes: 2-3 breathe in and 2-3 out. While breathing say these words to yourself: “calm down” or “relax”. The exercise of relaxation will teach you to tend and to relax, and bring you to different muscular groups. As you’re lying down and contracting muscles you should breathe in and breathe out while relaxing. First of all, start holding both of your hands tight. Now imagine it’s causing your arms and forearms tense. For a couple of minutes, try to get really tense and relieve your arms and relax. Pay attention to the difference between tension and relaxation. You may feel like you’re having pins and needles. For doing progress this a good start of relaxation. Try now to do the same thing with your other hand.

When you relax muscles groups, think about how they are when they’re free. Don’t try to relax, just allow the tension to quit. Think about the feeling you have when they’re relaxed and the one you have when they’re under tension. Now, do the same thing for the other muscles of your body. Every time, for a couple of minutes try to contract and then relax. Work on what the technique of feeling and allow them to be tense. It’s useful to make muscles work simultaneously when you’re working out a group of muscles. - Hands: first contract them and then relax. - Arms: bend your wrists and tighten your arms. Especially feel the tension in the upper side of your arms. Remember you have to do this for only a few minutes and then relax. - Neck: Bend your head to the back and slowly make it turn around on its axis. Notice how the tension is moving around. After that bring back your head to its normal position. - Face: There are several muscles there. But thinking about your forehead and chin is enough. First stretch your muscles and go progressively to the bottom.

Release your forehead. Besides, you may also move up your eyebrows and then release them. - Chest: Take a deep breathe, hold your breath for a few minutes, feel contracted and then relax. Now try to breathe normally. - Belly: Try to contract your abdominal muscles as much as you can and then relax. - Buttock: Close your buttock and then relax. - Legs: Check your legs and bend them towards your feet. End it up with your toes or foot fingers moves. It may be helpful for you to have a friend who will read the instruction as you’re trying to follow them. Don’t do these things in too much tough way, only try to make it happen. To use relaxation in a more efficient way, you should do these: - Have daily practices. - Start using the relaxation techniques in your daily life. - Learn to relax your muscles before they become too much tended. - Try to use the relaxation in the difficult situations for it to help you come over them. For example, taking breathes slowly. - Try to adopt a comfortable lifestyle. Your relaxation tapes may include these kind of relaxation exercises. Remember the fact that relaxation is also a skill and its learning may take time. Write down which kind of anxiety you felt before and after the relaxation exercise, and give an appreciation from 1-10. Controlled Breathing Breathing too much: It is very common that someone anxious has some changes in his breath taking.

They may start lacking of air or breathing more air just because they think they would drawn, This leads to a feeling of dizziness and generates more anxiety. If you are used to do that, try do notice it and to slow down your respiration. As soon as you reach a rate of 2-3 breathes in and 2-3 breathes out in a regular rhythm, your respiration will return to a normal speed. Some people find useful to use a second watch to chronometer their breathes. For the respiration to be back to normal at least 3 minutes of slow breathes are required. Focus one self’s Attention to other directions When you really try remove the symptoms from your mind, you will notice their frequent absence. Try not to look around. Try to analyze certain things in details, such as what kind of shoes people wore, the registration numbers and people’s speeches. Before reducing the symptoms you will need at least 3 minutes of loss of attention. While relaxing, techniques of self-distraction such as breathing and similar may be very helpful. It’s very important for you to realise that the anxiety isn’t harmful or dangerous. Even if we don’t use these techniques, nothing freaky can’t happen. Anxiety can’t harm us however, it may disturb us.

These techniques may help you to reduce these disturbances. Summary – Getting rid of the Social Anxiety Teach to understand each and every part of anxiety, physical symptoms, thoughts and beliefs and safety and avoidance behaviours. Try to struggle with and eliminate negatives thoughts by finding ideas that you mistakenly thought of and deal with them. To create a clearer image about yourself, try to use balanced thoughts. Stop negatively criticizing yourself and analyze your personal thoughts. Look at people around you. While reducing your safety behaviours, try gradually to face situations you’re afraid of. Take a closer look to the symptoms of your social anxiety by applying the relaxation and similar methods we described. From where can I get more help? We hope you will apply the techniques we suggested here. They may help you to go back to a normal life and get rid of your social anxiety. If you feel you’re not quickly making progress or if the problem you’re dealing with is getting worse try to look for help to solve it.

Your specialist (advisor) is the best person to address to. Your specialist may advise you therapy or drugs or both of them. In order to help you deal with your problem it may be advised to see a specialist dealing with mental health. If you so stressed that or have so thoughtful that you may harm yourself, immediately go see your doctor and explain him how you feel. Your specialist, nurse and health care agent are really aware and well informed of these kind of services.