{"id":9322,"date":"2017-06-26T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2017-06-26T10:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/?p=9322"},"modified":"2022-06-26T14:54:17","modified_gmt":"2022-06-26T18:54:17","slug":"much-social-anxiety-make-presentation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2017\/06\/much-social-anxiety-make-presentation.html","title":{"rendered":"Too Much Social Anxiety to Make That Presentation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-9362\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2017\/06\/speaker-1596210_1920-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"speaker-1596210_1920\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" \/>Debbie feels anxious\u00a0about the presentation she has to make to the board tomorrow. She is trying to get a good night&#8217;s rest, but finds herself tossing and turning, her heart is racing, and\u00a0thoughts of failure run through her head. The last time she had to give a presentation to the board, she felt sick to her stomach and almost passed out. All she could think about was getting out of the room as soon as possible. Debbie suffers from a type of anxiety called social phobia or social anxiety. It is\u00a0one of the most common forms of anxiety disorders.<\/p>\n<p>Debbie began to experience social anxiety as a teenager. She struggled to give class presentations and always sat in the back of the classroom hoping not to be called on by the teacher. Her story is typical in that social anxiety\u00a0begins early in life for most people&#8211;around the age of 11 and usually manifests by age 20. A concern with social anxiety\u00a0is that it is a risk factor for depression and substance use. So it is best to treat it early.<\/p>\n<p>So what can Debbie do? Successful treatment approaches generally involve medication combined with psychotherapy. However, cognitive-behavioral therapies\u00a0have proven superior in placebo-controlled trials. And one type of cognitive behavioral therapy is worth a try. It is called exposure therapy.<\/p>\n<p>Basically, Debbie would talk with the therapist about her irrational fears and learn to identify them. Then she would practice substituting rational thoughts (this is called cognitive restructuring). Debbie would also learn to do relaxation exercises to practice in the moment of feeling anxious. Finally, she would be gradually exposed to social situations that would prompt her anxiety, working through the anxiety until the situation was over. The more Debbie exposes herself to anxious situations, the easier they become and she builds the confidence that she can manage social situations. Eventually, her anxiety decreases and becomes manageable.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, people like Debbie might start by simply imagining situations like giving the presentation, notice how she feels and work to calm down her body and change her thoughts. Once she\u00a0can stay calm and relaxed with imagination only, she moves on to real life attempts\u00a0as described above.<\/p>\n<p>A key\u00a0to making exposure work is knowing that submitting yourself to the anxious situation will allow you to eventually overcome it. The temptation is to avoid anxious situations rather than learn to power through them. But it is the exposure to the anxious situation that helps a person learn to overcome it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Debbie feels anxious\u00a0about the presentation she has to make to the board tomorrow. She is trying to get a good night&#8217;s rest, but finds herself tossing and turning, her heart is racing, and\u00a0thoughts of failure run through her head. The last time she had to give a presentation to the board, she felt sick to&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":419,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[925],"tags":[135,3836,3835,3834,137,3833],"class_list":["post-9322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mintle-mentions","tag-anxiety","tag-cognitive-behavioral-therapy","tag-exposure-therapy","tag-exposure-treatments","tag-fear","tag-social-anxiety"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Too Much Social Anxiety to Make That Presentation?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2017\/06\/much-social-anxiety-make-presentation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Too Much Social Anxiety to Make That Presentation?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Debbie feels anxious\u00a0about the presentation she has to make to the board tomorrow. She is trying to get a good night&#8217;s rest, but finds herself tossing and turning, her heart is racing, and\u00a0thoughts of failure run through her head. The last time she had to give a presentation to the board, she felt sick to&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2017\/06\/much-social-anxiety-make-presentation.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Doing Life Together\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-26T10:00:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-06-26T18:54:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/258\/2017\/06\/speaker-1596210_1920-200x300.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Linda Mintle\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@drlindamintle\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Too Much Social Anxiety to Make That Presentation?","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/2017\/06\/much-social-anxiety-make-presentation.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Too Much Social Anxiety to Make That Presentation?","og_description":"Debbie feels anxious\u00a0about the presentation she has to make to the board tomorrow. She is trying to get a good night&#8217;s rest, but finds herself tossing and turning, her heart is racing, and\u00a0thoughts of failure run through her head. 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Dr. Linda\u2019s fun personality and expertise comes through whether she\u2019s helping her audience stress less or make peace with their thighs! Dr. Linda has her Ph.D. in Urban Health and Clinical Psychology and is a national expert on mental health. She has specialized in the treatment of eating disorders, anxiety, depression and pain management. With 30 years of clinical experience working with couples, families and individuals, she brings her common-sense approach to people who want to live in positive mental health. Dr. Linda is also a bestselling author with 21 book titles to her credit, a radio host of the Dr. Linda Mintle show, professor, national speaker, winner of the Mom\u2019s Choice Award, a national news consultant, featured writer for Beliefnet and hosts her own website. Her academic appointments keep her abreast of current research in her areas of expertise. Her media experience includes seven years as the resident expert for ABC Family\u2019s Living the Life television show and regular appearances on network television and radio. It is often said that being with Dr. Linda is like having coffee with a friend. She makes the complicated issues of relationships and mental health easy to understand and applicable to everyday living. The ease she has with people, coupled with her clinical training and experience makes her a sought-after speaker on college campuses, conferences and special events. Whether she is doing a TV skit with Tim Conway or discussing teen violence with Queen Latifa, Dr. Linda will entertain, educate and integrate faith and mental health in everyday living. Check out her latest book Hope and Healing for Anxiety, a whole-person approach to eliminate anxiety. .","sameAs":["https:\/\/drlindamintle.com\/","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/drlindamintle\/","https:\/\/x.com\/drlindamintle"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/author\/lmintle"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/419"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9322"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18961,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9322\/revisions\/18961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/doinglifetogether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}