Social anxiety can range in severity from mild (dodging invitations) to severe (agoraphobia, which can imprison people in their homes). Just about everyone, however, gets nervous in high-stakes situations such as a job interview. "If you're alive, your nervous system is going to be going full throttle, or close to it, when you get up to present yourself," notes Ron Hoff in I Can See You Naked.
It turns out that even staying cool under performance pressure is a learnable skill. Six studies compared two groups of people during a hair-raising event such as an impromptu speech: One group said that their bodies were freaking out and another group said they felt calm. In five of the six studies, there was no physiological difference between the two groups. Everyone showed similarly increased levels of autonomic activation, such as sweating and speeding heart rate. "People who are very socially anxious tend to pay attention to their bodies and magnify that response, perceiving it subjectively to be much greater than it actually is," says James J. Gross, director of Stanford University's Psychophysiology Laboratory.
The extraordinary fact is that you can create a crisis of confidence by overreacting to your own normal heightened alertness. But if you can work yourself up simply by misinterpreting your body's signals, you can chill yourself out by reading them correctly. The irony of misreading your nervous system's cues is that far from harming you, your natural excitement can enhance your performance.
Increased activation is not a sign that you're failing, but that you want to do well and your body is ready to help. Professional violinist Airi Yoshioka, for instance, has clammy hands and makes multiple bathroom trips before every concert. She's come to respect her nervousness as a source of expressive power in her music.
Like artists and actors, athletes know that increasing their physiological arousal—getting "psyched up"—actually gives them an edge. "That's why we have cheerleaders and fans—we try to create this atmosphere to work these players up, so they'll perform at a much better level," says Carducci.
When our bodies rally before an event, our hearts beat more forcefully and our muscles tremble. But this intensity does not continue indefinitely, because the parasympathetic nervous system soon kicks in to restore normal functioning. If our physical responses feel excruciating, we can encourage the body's self-calming process with techniques such as shaking joints loose and conscious breathing. If the thudding of your heart still makes you want to bail out, focus on how your participation helps those around you.
Feeling allegiance to a larger cause can make your discomfort more tolerable—a principle demonstrated by Carolyn McCarthy. McCarthy was a quiet and reserved nurse until her husband was killed and her son wounded in a mass shooting on New York's Long Island Railroad in 1993. Her desire to galvanize the public to change gun laws led her all the way to a seat in the House of Representatives. When she makes a speech, her knees still shake, but, she says, "I know I have to do it, because I want to reach out to as many people as I can."
Your Self-Esteem Helps You Navigate Social Waters
When socially confident people start to feel anxious or awkward, they focus on putting their conversational partners at ease.
According to Mark Leary, director of social psychology at Duke University, our way of thinking about self-esteem has been backward for decades. Instead of regarding low self-esteem as an anathema—and trying desperately to pump up self-esteem to stratospheric levels so that everyone feels super about themselves all the time—we should instead recognize that self-esteem provides a gauge of how we're doing in our social interactions. "Self-esteem rises and falls, acting as an internal barometer of how well you're faring, telling you to fix this problem here, and helping you understand that you don't have to worry about it there," says Leary.
That barometer can go haywire in people whose self-esteem was damaged early in life, say, by hypercritical parents, by bullying, or by abuse. Such people need to work at shedding their constant belief that they're failing, preferably with the help of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which has been shown to be effective in treating social anxiety disorders. Yet for most people, fluctuations in self-esteem provide information that's useful in navigating social relationships. For example, if you're talking and someone yawns, your self-esteem drops, signaling you to switch the topic. When you tell a joke and people laugh, your self-esteem rockets up. If we didn't feel bad when we bore or offend—or gratified when we delight—we'd never be motivated to change course.
Frank, a retired restaurant-chain owner whose son has been in charge for decades, takes pride in the success of the family enterprise. But when he notices people rolling their eyes at his boasting, he wins them back with a joke at his own expense. "My son told me he was planning on making me a sex consultant for the business," he says. "When I asked him what he meant, he said, 'When I want your f***ing opinion, I'll ask you!' "
Mastering social skills requires tuning in to your self-esteem. But instead of being self-conscious and fixating on your anxiety, work on creating positive interactions that make the people around you feel engaged and happy. Focusing less on yourself and more on others will yield big payoffs in expanded social opportunities.
Tags:
awkward silences,
bernardo carducci,
borrego springs california,
charming devil,
endless supply,
execs,
friend joe,
george clooney,
indiana university southeast,
natural storyteller,
praying mantises,
raffetto,
rednecks,
short order cook,
social interactions,
talking to strangers,
virtuoso
