How to Overcome Social Anxiety | Dr. Nick Epley

Social anxiety is something we really can help people with. Essentially, the strategy is very simple. If you are afraid of talking with a stranger or having a deep conversation, the way to get over that is not to simulate it or to imagine. It's not like you get up and you you give a pretend speech. That's what psychologists were doing for years.

It doesn't work because it's still pretendings. It has to be real. You send people out in the world and to do the thing for real. You're worried about getting rejected. Go out and start asking people for help.

And you'll learn that your fear is misplaced, that you get accepted more often than you might guess. Exposing people to that thing that they are anxious of when the belief is misplaced and with social anxiety, it is usually wildly misplaced. That's what we find over and over again is a mistaken barrier to connecting with other people. That's how you you ease that social anxiety and get rid of it. Not because you do you dull your anxiety so much, it's because you change your beliefs about what other people are like.

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