Disclaimer: The Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health providers with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Please note: this is just my personal story. Donāt take it as advice, make your own educated decisions about your life alongside professionals & experts.
In 2015 I was so depressed, socially anxious, and really at rock bottom. I had no idea what to do in my life. I felt stuck, trapped in darkness and it felt like I was withering away.
I went to my College campus health center and told them what was going onā¦
It wasnāt 10 minutes before a Doctor prescribed me medication.
I went home and googled the medication and found a long list of side effects, one of them included being suicidal and more anxiety, which didnāt make any sense.
I didnāt take the medication and began searching frantically for alternative solutions.
While this viewpoint may be considered taboo, I have absolutely nothing against medications. Other than the fact that itās often claimed as the only solution.
What Iāve learned is medication can be used as a temporary crutch.
When you go to a doctor and break your leg, he or she doesnāt just send you out on your way. They give you crutches to help bridge your recovery.
Medication works the same way.
Sometimes your brain is so hurt and inflamed you literally canāt do anything because of it. Giving you a chemical temporary crutch can actually really help depending on the person. In fact, I have seen miracles occur with medication all the time. I also sometimes see adverse effects. Both are possible.
I am not a doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist, therapist, etc. This article is not meant to be taken as medical advice and please consult a licensed healthcare professional.
If you make the educated decision to follow a similar path as meā¦
Here are 4 ways to manage social anxiety without medication.
1. Mindfulness Meditation
A study from 2017 found that mindfulness meditation is equally efficacious in treating social anxiety disorder as CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy).
In fact, researchers at Stanford found that itās not just about relaxing. Meditation helps people with social anxiety and their public image via a study done in 2009, head researcher Philippe Goldin states: āThe idea is that if a person has the psychological flexibility to shift freely from one mode of thinking to another mode, then that is a sign of health. It's when we get stuck in certain thinking patterns that our beliefs become maladaptive. Often people will subsequently show up in their 20s or 30s with depression or substance abuse and then if you dig below that you find that what preceded all of that was internal anxiety about performing in social situations.ā
PS. My 45 Day Program walks you through exactly how to do this and specifically includes a custom social anxiety meditation to help you reprogram, learn more here.
2. Psychotherapy
Mayo Clinic reports - Psychotherapy improves symptoms in most people with social anxiety disorder. In therapy, you learn how to recognize and change negative thoughts about yourself and develop skills to help you gain confidence in social situations.
Seek a healthcare professional if you are interested in psychotherapy.
3. Exposure Therapy or Fear Challenging
I donāt recommend doing exposure therapy as your first-ever method to treat social anxiety if youāve never tried anything else prior. If you have read up on social anxiety, most professionals might start off with exposure therapy.
However, if you have a crippling nervous system inducing anxiety as I had, you canāt exactly talk to people even if you tried to... you have to start with physiology, gut microbiome, and neurotransmitters first.
Exposure therapy is breaking down social anxiety into multiple definable layers.
For example, being socially anxious about your physical appearance, and tracing back to different moments of your past that made you anxious about your looks, and step by step exposing yourself to those fears in a safe and comfortable way.
Personally, this completely changed my life when I started doing this by myself back in 2016 as I was trying to climb out of the intense pits of social anxiety.
FYI - My affordable program also features an entire week of exposure therapy and walks you through how to expose yourself to each layer and gives you a plan of action you can get started on instantly.
4. Donāt Dismiss Natural Medicines
Itās easy to think every supplement and tea is a scam. Some are, but some arenāt.
Personally for me, understanding the power of nutrition, supplements, teas, natural extracts, etc has been paramount for me and my journey towards healing.
For example, something as normal as Chamomile, and its active compound have been shown to decrease overall anxiety if supplement regularly long-term in various studies.
Additionally, the Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience launched a study titled āHow to increase serotonin in the human brain without drugsā and showed the power of going outside in the sunlight to help properly synthesize vitamin D and serotonin.
Both of these are huge factors when it comes to mental health, and for managing social anxiety on a regular and long-term basis.
While nothing is a magic pill, donāt dismiss this, as it has helped many people.
PS. Iām running a virtual event this Wednesday, learn more here.
Can I help?
Over the last several years Iāve devoted my life to helping introverted, shy, socially anxious creators, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and professionals move these mental health obstacles out of their life so they can get busy being their real selves in front of anyone.
If you are interested in potentially inquiring about my services for yourself or someone else, please fill out this form below.
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