Anxiety and Avoidance
Anxiety can prevent us from gaining confidence and developing social connections.
Avoidance and Anxiety
Most people have some level of anxiety in their everyday lives. Anxiety, as well as the feeling of excitement, can make us more alert and focused on a task and can help us perform better. When the level of anxiety is too intense it can degrade performance and cause people to avoid situations and opportunities. People who avoid miss opportunities to gain confidence and grow.
QUICK FACTS
If you want to adapt and be less anxious, avoidance is the least helpful thing you can do. The anticipation of the event still causes anxiety, the avoiding can cause consequences and the sense of competence is lessened.
Like phobias, the more often a dreaded situation is avoided, the stronger the fear becomes.
Avoiding is the opposite of what you need. On the other hand, doing anxiety-provoking things is an opportunity to gain experience and build confidence.
Avoidance behavior can create secondary anxiety, which is basically anxiety about anxiety. People who have had panic attacks or episodes of extreme anxiety fear being anxious. When you fight the signs and symptoms of anxiety it escalates into a larger force that is generalized and difficult to understand or pinpoint. Anxiety that could have been useful and energizing is paralyzing.it can lead to the false belief that you cannot handle the situation. Secondary anxiety leads to physical symptoms like stomach ills, rapid heartbeat, sweating, and shakiness. Physical symptoms further convince you that something is really wrong like you are having a heart attack or dying. This type of anxiety can become such a large issue that you lose track of what caused the initial anxiety in the first place. People in this situation become anxious much of the time and panic episodes feel random. Negative thinking and avoidance increase even more.
There are two errors of thinking that are typically related to anxiety. The first is that people overestimate the stressfulness of an event or situation, and the second is that they underestimate their ability to handle the situation. When it comes to reducing anxiety relief comes from action and not avoidance.
Check to see if the anxiety is in proportion to the situation. What is the worst that can happen? Is this likely? You may need to give yourself a pep talk and summon inner resources. It is realistic to expect that in first-time situations you will be wobbly and less than perfect. Remember even if you feel anxious this is not typically visible to others. The experience of conquering your internal fears will set you up to be more confident, Pushing through anxiety will help you handle challenging situations and approach other new situations with much less trepidation.
Action cures terror!