How to help someone with anxiety
Helping Someone With Anxiety
Social anxiety is common. Therefore, you are likely to have someone in your life who struggles with this issue. This page provides information and tips to help a friend, partner, or family member affected by social anxiety.
Topics in this article:
Anxiety education
The first way in which you can help someone with anxiety is to have an accurate understanding of this issue. There are lots of misconceptions about anxiety so be wary! Here are some key points to bear in mind:
Social Anxiety Disorder is an extreme form of social anxiety.
Anxiety is normal, our brains are hardwired to produce this psychological state. However, some people experience excessive levels of anxiety that go beyond what we would normally expect. This is when anxiety becomes a psychological issue.
Anxiety has four primary components: Thoughts, emotions, physical responses, and behaviours. Successful anxiety management requires strategies for each of these elements.
The main anxiety-related psychological conditions are social anxiety, generalised anxiety, panic disorder, and specific phobias.
Social anxiety focuses on the ‘fear of negative evaluation’ by other people. This fear occurs in situations where there is potential for public scrutiny.
A specific phobia is an intense fear of a particular object or situation.
Anxiety and relationships
Relationships are central to our lives. Those with good social support networks have better mental and physical health (1). Social anxiety impairs our ability to feel connected and get the most from these health benefits. Reducing social anxiety is therefore an important goal.
This breathing technique can help people get through uncomfortable social situations
One of the most important social anxiety management strategies is to reduce avoidance of feared people, places, and situations. Avoidance often becomes the go-to strategy in social anxiety because it gives immediate relief. But this relief is short-lived forcing people to increase avoidance over time. We want to bring socially anxious people back to these activities, but in a gradual and manageable way. One way you can help is to encourage the anxious person to start returning to situations they’ve been avoiding. This will feel uncomfortable initially, but should never be overwhelming. Support the person to stay with the anxiety-provoking setting until anxiety levels start to decrease. This teaches the brain that predicted negative outcomes often do not occur.
Socially awkward
Thinking patterns heavily influence how we feel. People with social anxiety tend to engage in ‘mind reading’ and ‘catastrophising’.
We engage in mind reading with thoughts such as ‘I just know she’s thinking I’m an idiot’ and ‘He finds me boring’.
Catastrophising is expecting worst-case scenarios to play out in; ‘I’m going to be humiliated in this meeting’ or ‘I will never find another friend if I mess this up’ for example.
These thoughts become a replacement for reality. You can help someone with social anxiety by supporting them to examine such thoughts, rather than accept them without question. Some useful questions for these thoughts include:
Can you actually read minds? If not, what could you say back to this thought?
What are some other possible outcomes, other than the worst-case scenario?
Does this thought help you tackle social anxiety? If not, what might be a more helpful thought?
What’s your actual evidence for this thought?
What would you say to me if I had this thought?
Make sure you ask these questions in a kind, supportive way!
Dating someone with anxiety
Relationships can be challenging at times. When one person has social anxiety, this can create additional relationship stress. Common features of social anxiety within a relationship include:
The anxious partner may assume the other is making negative judgements about them.
This person may also be reluctant to attend social events, or be heavily reliant on the non-anxious person for their social contact
The anxious partner may ‘need’ the other person to always accompany them in social settings.
Here are some suggestions to help an anxious partner:
Providing excessive levels of reassurance is not a good long-term strategy. Instead, encourage your partner to question their assumptions of negative evaluation. Also, try to let them know when you are unhappy about something. This can increase confidence that any problems will be declared, rather than hidden.
Consider setting some time each week where you both visit other people. Encourage your partner to arrange this themselves.
Support your partner to take on challenging (but not overwhelming) tasks in social settings. This could be going to the supermarket or other type of shop.
Encourage your partner to tell you when their anxiety increases. This reduces the chances of side-issue being blamed for relationship tension.
The non-anxious partner also needs support. Talk about your relationship needs and how your partner can help get these met.
Anxiety art
Psychological difficulties are often expressed through artistic mediums. Discussing the ways in which anxiety is represented through art (or music, film, etc) can help open up a conversation on this topic. Here are some anxiety art examples:
Here is a wider discussion on art in the alleviation of anxiety
Poems about anxiety
As with art, poetry on an anxiety theme can help you understand this mental health challenge. A range of examples can be found at Poem Analysis.
What not to say to someone with anxiety
“Just relax”
“Don’t worry about it”
“Well that situation doesn’t make ME anxious”
“Don’t think about it”
“Get a grip”
“Have a drink”
“Here we go again”
“Just don't worry about what people think of you”
Instead, here’s how to ask if someone is ok, and the Resist, Gather, Validate, Ask approach.
We are Coaching & Clinical Psychologists with extensive experience helping people conquer a range of wellbeing and performance issues at home and in the workplace. We can also help with anxiety using evidence-based tools. Read more about our work, watch practical skills videos or browse other articles. Get in touch anytime.