What Causes Social Anxiety & Shyness?
When I first started to understand I might have social anxiety over 6 years ago I was so surprised.
How did this happen? Why am I like this? What can I do about this?
I went down the rabbit hole of learning why and how this happens so I could reverse-engineer it out and get my mind back.
While nobody knows for sure 100% there are some theories we can examine…
1. Evolutionary Biology
Our brains have evolved to detect dangers to ensure the survival of the entire organism, AKA you. Some say people with social anxiety naturally have bigger amygdala’s which is the part of your brain that detects fear.
Dangers aren’t just immediate threats like somebody assaulting you or stealing a possession. Much more complicated dangers, combined with our neocortex (where imagination lies) are able to create vivid predictions of future dangers based on intelligence, which is your memory of past experiences.
An example threat could be not hitting your sales quota at your job, which means you might not be able to pay all your bills, which then relates to the very safety and well-being of not just yourself but your whole family. Most of these complicated future threats involve our individual interactions in society alongside other people who also have brains.
Meaning, your brain doesn’t just detect threats in physical reality but has evolved to detect psycho-group identity threats. As well as involving the experiences of the past and future with other people in your society. Meaning, your brain detects potential threats from other people’s brains that send them potential threats..
Humans were able to survive and become the dominant species on this planet for many reasons, one of them being is that we know how to work together in groups better than any other species.
Without exception, if you were not a part of a bigger group and outside in the wilderness you were more than likely captured, killed, or even eaten alive. Groups are essential to our survival and our minds know that and have developed the cognitive hardware to communicate at a very deep level even passed words and language to the other human. Including other humans that are highly dependent on each other for survival during ancestral times.
Often times there was a village elder or leader and if you disagreed with him or her you would be reprimanded beyond any modern-day justice system.
What happens if you speak up to the village elder?
What happens if you do or say something wrong to your village?
What happens if someone doesn’t like you because you said something?
You get exiled. You get kicked out of your group.
Which is cognitively synonymous for you are going to die in nature by yourself. Or even worse, you get kicked out with your family with you and your little children are forced to come with you, or even worse you are separated from them and the village punishes them separately. Abandoned to die in the wild because you opened your mouth...
This is the very simple version of how our evolutionary biology sets the pathway for social anxiety.
In today’s modern world it’s not just the village elder, it could be a teacher, the most popular kid at school, or even your dad in the family. If you have social anxiety and struggle to talk to people. It’s not just you being shy. Your entire brain and body are triggering an immediate fight or flight emergency response protocol that if not aware of can’t be controlled and you have no choice or freedom in your life.
Combine all that with our species past experiences of recorded memories stored in the cell of our bodies, and now your biological chemistry is working against you.
2. Childhood / Upbringing / Past
“everyone’s been bullied.”
“it’s the past, who cares?”
These are often phrases said by people who are unknowingly trying to dismiss and discredit and therefore not accept their past lives.
Other examples which might trigger social anxiety:
Your parents or another family member has social anxiety
You’re in a culture that’s oppressive & suppresses you
You get kicked out & humiliated by your friend group, religion, etc
You’ve been bullied, abused, discriminated against
You’re a minority, whether it’s skin color or gender, or if you hit puberty late
You feel like you’re the only person who’s similar to you.
Personally, for me, it was a combination of bullying, discrimination, and poverty.
3. Your Brain’s Biochemistry
What often happens when social anxiety first begins when you’re a kid or teenager…
Is every thought, every emotion you experience is also being expressed in your body.
Fear, nervousness, worry, these aren’t just thoughts in your head. Your body & nervous system create a series of chemical chain reactions.
After experiencing anxiety for years and years, and for some of you decades, your brain hardwires these connections, making it easier for your mind to follow the same behavior again and again like an algorithm. Social anxiety sets the foundation to create more social anxiety in the future. Similar to a self-replicating virus.
What was maybe a traumatic moment of social betrayal and anxiety…has now created the foundation for more social anxiety for the rest of your life, unless you go through a recovery process.
Experiencing a mental health trauma is similar to breaking your leg, instead, it’s your brain. You must go through a recovery process to heal your brain and uninstall the virus of social anxiety.
It’s simple, but not easy, especially day after day when you feel alone and by yourself.
PS. This is exactly why I started a mental health group where each week over the course of 2 months we will address each layer and foundation of anxiety and how to manage it and find root cause solutions to rewire and restore.
Early bird pricing ends this week! We address each week how to rewire your mind and brain. Only 5 spots left!
Learn More: www.markmetry.com/group-coaching
💬 Have any questions? Feel free to respond back directly to this email :)