Understanding Social Anxiety Disorder – Signs & Treatments At A Glance

Social anxiety disorder is one of the more common anxiety disorders with an estimated 20 million Americans alone being affected by it. Often referred to in the medical profession as “social phobia”, social anxiety is a fear of social environments and situations.

Social anxiety disorder is still very hard to detect and diagnose as the symptoms are likened to other common psychological disorders such as clinical depression or even extreme shyness. It’s actually estimated that patients are mis-diagnosed 80% of the time which is why I wanted to put together this short post to help you better understand social anxiety disorder, the causes and available treatment options at a glance.

Signs of Social Anxiety Disorder

The problem with understanding the signs of social anxiety is that it’s not really publicized or documented; this means that sufferers continue to live with the disorder without even really acknowledging that they are experiencing social anxiety to some degree. Therefore they don’t think it’s necessary to alert any medical health professionals of their worries and socially related anxieties.

It’s important to understand the signs of social anxiety so that you can better determine if social anxiety may be having an impact on your social life. If left untreated social anxiety will gradually worsen and can have a negative impact on your day to day life. The following are a few common examples of social anxiety signs and symptoms.

Psychological signs and symptoms

Psychological signs may include but are not limited to a fear of being the center of attention, feeling uncomfortable and nervous around new people, fear of being watched and judged by others, reluctance to maintain eye contact during conversation, easily embarrassed, some people may even develop more obscure socially related anxieties such as a fear of eating in front of others.

Physical signs and symptoms

In more extreme cases, usually termed “social anxiety disorder” or “social phobia” it’s not unusual for patients to experience physical symptoms which include but not limited to blushing, sweating, trembling, palpitating, shallow breathing, dryness in throat, increased heart rate and blood pressure and more..

Common Treatments for Social Anxiety

Although social anxiety is generally still being researched there are a number of available treatments that proven to be effective in treating social anxiety. It’s always best to consult with your doctor or physician if you’re considering pursuing a course of treatment for social anxiety as they can deliver a plan best suited to your needs and circumstances.

As a whole though there are generally two areas of treatment that are considered most effective for social anxiety and anxiety related disorders in general as a matter of fact. These forms of treatment are therapy based treatments and medicinal based treatments.

CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) is usually the recommended therapy treatment to help patients deal with social anxiety. If medicinal treatment is required then a patient will usually be prescribed anti-depressants, beta-blockers or anti-anxiety prescriptions (sometimes a combination may be issued).

It’s also not uncommon for therapy based and medicinal based treatment to be recommended to help patients overcome social anxiety, this would usually be overseen by your therapist based on their qualifications. As a long-term means for treating social anxiety therapy based treatment is the way to go, medicinal treatments only mask over the problem and don’t deal with the root cause as therapy based treatments do.