Instant Genius - Social anxiety, with Dr Ellen Hendriksen

Episode Date: March 13, 2023

Research suggests that – unless you’re a psychopath – you’ve experienced anxiety about a social situation at some point. But why? What is it that makes humans afraid of others? And how can we manage these worries? To answer these questions and much more, we’re joined by psychologist Dr Ellen Hendriksen, a world-leading expert on social anxiety and author of How To Be Yourself: Quiet Your Inner Critic And Rise Above Social Anxiety. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Audio.com to learn more. And welcome to Instant Genius, the Bitesize Masterclass in podcast form. I'm Thomas Ling, digital editor at BBC Science Focus magazine. Being the human you are, you've probably experienced anxiety about social situations before. Whether it's public speaking, meeting strangers at parties, or just parties in general. The good news, thanks to a growing body of research, there are now simple, achievable ways of managing this anxiety. To talk me through this and much more, I'm today joined by psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendrickson, a world leading expert in the field of social anxiety, and author of

how to be yourself, quiet your inner critic and rise above social anxiety. How are you today? I'm doing well. Thanks for having me. Fantastic. So I'm going to start from the top and ask, what is social anxiety? Is there a different? between shyness, introvertedness, and social anxiety? Yes. So social anxiety, colloquially, is self-consciousness except magnified, like self-consciousness on steroids. And shyness is really just the colloquial way of saying socially anxious. However, we can also move along the continuum, and we can get to what I call capital S social anxiety, the diagnosable social anxiety. And there, in my experience and in

researchers experience, that is more of a sense that there is something wrong with us. There's a perception, and I want to emphasize that word perception, that we have a fatal flaw. I'm boring. I'm awkward. I don't deserve to be here. I'm going to screw things up. Something like that. And we have to work really hard to conceal and hide that perceived fatal flaw, or else we will be revealed to everyone around us and be judged and rejected for it. That is the heart of clinical social anxiety. So are you saying that this flaw normally just doesn't exist? Sometimes. So absolutely the perceived fatal flaw might not exist. So for example, like in imposterousal which is essentially social anxiety at work or school. Usually the most competent deserving people

have the worst cases of imposter syndrome. So there really is not true at all. But there are certainly cases where there's a grain of truth. So folks who have social anxiety around blushing, for example, or maybe going blank sometimes when they're in conversation, that actually might happen. But the response that they're expecting is usually greatly disproportionate to what might actually happen. What are the true consequences of blushing or any other kind of visible anxiety? In social anxiety, that fear is disproportionate. If the fear of response actually happens, then it's not social anxiety anymore. Then you might be in an unhealthy relationship or that might be time to set some boundaries.

but when it's when it is social anxiety, that's a disproportionate response. So how many people are actually estimated to have social anxiety? Sure. So it depends on how we frame it. So 40% of people identify as shy. So again, that colloquial way of saying, you know, being familiar with social anxiety, you know, having that be part of their life, 80% of people's, you know, being familiar. So, you know, having that be part of their life, 80% of people say at some point in their life, they were dispositionally shy, like characterologically shy. So they might have been very anxious as a child. Maybe they felt ridiculously, conspicuously awkward as a teenager and have perhaps outgrown that. But again, that's a huge chunk of people.

80% of folks are like, oh, I know what that's like. I identified with that. But then, again, in the UK, 12% of people will cross that threshold of being able to be diagnosed of having clinical social anxiety. And that threshold is when it crosses the line into distress and impairment. So I can define those in a moment. But that's so 12% of people in the UK will be able to be diagnosed with social anxiety at some point in their lives. And a big old 99% of people can at least identify with having had a socially anxious moment at some point in their life. And this is totally normal. It is completely normal to be anxious before a job interview, before a date. Like, it's part of life. And it, given this, you know, the 99% is totally normal. The 1% you may be wondering that's

left over there is actually a psychopath. The 1% of people who have a total lack of insecurity, that's actually a sign of things gone wrong. So what is that threshold that you mentioned of actually getting diagnosed with a more serious form of social anxiety? Distress and impairment, absolutely. So distress essentially means you suffer. So it could mean that before, again, it's totally normal to be anxious before, say, a work presentation. But if we lose sleep for a week, before that work presentation. If we throw up beforehand, something that, again, is sort of disproportionate, then that crosses the line into distress. Impairment is when social anxiety gets in the way of living the life we want to live. So I give this example every time, but I think it's worth repeating.

So impairment would be when a student decides that they're just not going to raise their hand in class and they're going to forego that 20% of their grade that is class participation. Or, for example, somebody might pass up a promotion because it would make them give work presentations or they would have to travel to satellite offices and meet new people as part of their job. So foregoing a promotion like that would get into the impairment category and be able to push people sort of over that threshold into diagnosable territory. Now, this might seem like a stupid question, but why is it that people actually feel socially anxious? I mean, like giving a presentation to a room full of people sounds horrible. And I think unless a person has a particularly tough crowd, that presentation isn't actually going to kill them.

So why does it feel like it might? Why does it feel so awful? Absolutely. Insecurity is part of the human condition. It's actually necessary. So a healthy dose of self-doubt helps us monitor ourselves and our behavior. I would argue it's necessary to spark some introspection. It motivates us to grow and change.

And I like to say that we doubt ourselves in order to check ourselves. So we essentially want to keep ourselves in line in order to get along better with our fellow humans and remain part of the group. Even the most introverted introvert needs love, community, and belonging. So, and like I said, you know, not only is insecurity part of this human condition, but a total lack of insecurity is a sign of things gone wrong. So like narcissism or psychopathy. In addition, our brain processes threat, whether that is physical or social, whether it's external or internal, the same way. So when we see a bus hurtling towards us on the road, imminent physical threat. Our brain reacts in much the same way as when we are standing up in front of a crowd about to give a toast or a speech or a presentation.

That is a social threat. Again, there's no snarling dog running at us, but our brain interprets a threat as a threat. And when there is kind of a primitive risk of being rejected or thrown out of the tribe, that indeed is a dangerous situation to our brains. If you're not a psychopath or comatose, you're not in that 1% and you're the 99% of people that actually do experience social anxiety,

what's going on in your brain? What's happening in someone's brain when they're gripped by social anxiety? So picture a Steve Martin arrow through your head. Now, draw two lines back from your eyeballs back through the back of your head. where those lines intersect lie a pair of what I call neural nuggets. That's your amygdala. And your amygdala is part of a lot of different systems, but it's the linchpin of the fear system.

And in social anxiety, again, when we encounter what our brains decide is a social threat, the amygdala sounds the alarm. And our prefrontal cortex, so the part of our brain right behind our forehead, which is responsible for, or like higher order thinking, planning, reasoning, et cetera, can talk down the amygdala. So, you know, a classic example is our friend doesn't text us back. Our emigdala goes, ah, she hates me. And our prefrontal cortex says, you know, she's probably just busy. She's probably in a meeting. She'll get back to us shortly.

That's the tug of war that's happening. Our amygdala sounds the alarm and is often set through genetics or experience or our context is set just a little too sensitively. And so we'll go off for actual threats, but we'll also go off for the equivalent, this burglar alarm will go off for the equivalent of diff breeze or squirrels, things that are not actually threats, but our brains are, if we're a little oversensitive to that, they will sound the alarm for those things as well. Okay, I can't hold it off anymore. And I think it's time to delve into what I think what most people really wants to know about, and that's how to manage social anxiety. And I know you have many, many sort of different methods, but let's start

with a concept you've written about I love about the inner critic. And what is the best way to handle that voice in your head that says, I can't give this presentation to all these people. I'm going to mess it up. How do you deal with that? Sure. So with the inner critic, we have two big buckets of tools. We have change, which is the analogy here is you get into the boxing ring with your inner critic and you go a few rounds, you push back. But then the other, to mix my metaphor, to the other bucket of tools is acceptance. And there, that is the equivalent of taking a front row seat outside the boxing ring and watching your inner critic throw swings at you. So it's still there. But you're just watching.

it from a distance. And we can get into mindfulness later, but essentially all the acceptance-based strategies are seeing the inner critic for what it is from a distance and not having to get tangled in it. So

let's go back to change. With change, we can question what our inner critic is screaming at us. So if we're in front of a group about to give a talk and the inner critic tells us, they're going to hate you. We can say, really, let's turn the tables.

If I was in their situation, would I be kind of lying in wait for the presenter to make a mistake and ready to pounce? No, probably not. I'd be probably like planning my day or like thinking about what I'm going to have for lunch. So we can push back and ask ourselves, like, is this truly a catastrophe? If it is, how would I cope? What's the percent chance that my feared outcome might actually happen? we can really kind of logic our way through some of the comments of the inner critic. Then with acceptance, we can try to, again, see those thoughts for what they are, which are simply

thoughts. A nice way to do that is to put the prefix phrase, I'm having the thought that in front of our inner critic's thoughts. So, for example, I'm having the thought that everyone's going to hate me. It's subtle, but there's a real difference between everyone's going to hate me. And I'm having the thought that everyone's going to hate me. And so just letting those thoughts be without having to take them too seriously, without having to think that that means something is wrong with us, can be very freeing if we see the thoughts simply for what they are. For like, oh, this is what my brain does before a presentation. To give you a personal example, Whenever I get invited to a party or, you know, especially a work event, my brain automatically goes to, I don't want to go.

But I actually like my colleagues. Whenever I do go to work events or parties, I'm inevitably glad I went. I find something that's interesting to do there or somebody to talk to. But my brain beforehand will come up with all sorts of excuses. I'm underdressed. It's cold out. Parking's going to be a disaster. I'm going to miss dinner with the kids.

I don't even like these people, which is not true. And so I've just learned that this is what my brain does. And rather than listen to the chatter, I follow my values, which is to spend time with my colleagues or to spend time with my friends and connect with people. And that allows me to walk out the door, even as the inner critic is saying, but, but, but, but, you don't even know half these people. So that's something that I've learned to do in terms of acceptance. with my brain in its chatter.

But does even somebody like you feel an enormous amount of relief if a meeting gets cancelled last minute? Yeah, I mean, I think so okay. Yes. However, I think that's okay. And we can talk about doing the thing. Go forth and do to gain confidence and to gain experience and evidence.

However, we should push ourselves to do the things that we value and the things we want to do. If we've always hated networking events and don't think it's actually going to help us, and it doesn't really pertain to our career, I don't think we should force ourselves to just eat our vegetables because it would be good for us and to go. We should judiciously push ourselves to do the things that would make our lives, lives better that we value and that we want to do and would be doing were we not anxious. So, for example, like, I get a lot of offers to do public speaking, and I've taken many of them, and I still don't like it.

I can do it. I can do it. It's fine, but I just don't like it. So I've done a lot of wrestling with, okay, am I just turning these down because I'm anxious? And I finally come to the conclusion that, no, I think it's because I really. really don't like it. I'm a writer. I would really prefer just to sit behind a screen and make the words line up. So again, I think it's important to think about what you value and what you want to do if you are not anxious and to push yourselves to do those things, not just anything that

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Visit focal powered by name.com for more information. love the idea of sort of getting in the ring with your inner critic. And what does that mean practically, though? So say if you have sort of five minutes before you had to give that big presentation, is it best to be sort of writing down these thoughts and challenging it that way? What's the sort of the best way to box your inner critic? Yeah, that's a great question. So this is not a cop-out answer, but I think it depends. So I think, you know, for those of us who journal, I think writing it down can be very powerful. For, you know, for those of us who simply need to lock ourselves in a bathroom stall for a few minutes beforehand and, you know, talk myself down, I think that can work.

I think one way of thinking about it also is thinking about if we have any past experience, say, again, I'm going to use the giving a presentation example. How did that go last time? probably the first few minutes were the hardest, and then maybe we got our stride, maybe we felt terrible the whole time, but then we got some nice feedback to think about what is the most likely outcome to this scenario? So that's one thing, what's most likely?

Because our brains will jump right to what's the worst case scenario, but usually those have a pretty low probability of actually occurring. We can turn the tables. We can think, okay, if I was in the position of, of an observer or somebody else in this situation, like in the audience, how would I feel? And that often gives us some perspective and can take some pressure off. We can look at what are the rules going through our head? What are these either unwritten or unspoken rules in our inner rule book?

Does it say, I can't make a mistake? I need to be scintillating 100% of the time. I need to hold the audience in rapt fascination. And oftentimes those rules are set too high of a bar and really turn on the pressure. And so if we can rethink some of those rules and dare to be average or dare to be even simply excellent as opposed to perfect, then that can really lower the pressure as well. So it's a lot of social anxiety rooted in this need to be perfect then? Oh, I'm so glad you asked that. Yes. So perfectionism is the heart of social anxiety. And perfectionism is a little bit of a misnomer because despite the name, it's not really about striving for perfection. It's more about never feeling good enough. And so in just let's get out of the presentation example. And more generally, in social anxiety, we have a long list of roles in our head for how we should be or how we should engage or how we should behave. Like, I have to carry conversations.

I have to make sure everyone is having a good time. I can't make a mistake. I have to sound cool or witty or smart. And again, all those rules just increase the pressure and make us freeze up. Or they make us overthink things and then feel bad about ourselves when we inevitably make a mistake simply because we're human and interacting with other humans. So do you have any sort of practical advice there? So do we need to identify these rules which might not be correct and sort of get them in the ring again?

Yeah, well, I think it's helpful to try to lower the pressure. So not lower our standards. I think those of us who have a dash of perfectionism often will identify with those high standards. Those have gotten us really far. But I think lowering the pressure is really important. And to, yeah, we can get in the ring with those thoughts and think, you know, I think it's okay not to speak in perfectly smooth, articulate sentences. It's okay to have an awkward silence or two. Our social life isn't like a laser maze. You know, if you make one mistake, alarms are not going to go off all

around you. And the one thing that I think is important is that people actually appreciate imperfection. Those of us with social anxiety often think that people are looking for competence and confidence in us, that we have to exude both of those. things when really people are looking for warmth. They're looking for are you friendly? Are you trustworthy? And like think about who like what in your friend group or people you'd like to be friends with. Are you attractive to them because they're really good at what they do or because they exude confidence or are you friends with them because of how they make you feel and how just kind and nice they are? We're looking for friendliness and warmth.

And the little blips and bloops of social interaction that happened because we're human, we can overlook that when we're connecting with people. So imperfection is really humanizing and endearing. And it actually makes people like you more. When people present too perfectly, it can be a little alienating or a little unrelatable. But when there are, again, these blips and bloops of kind of normal human interaction, it brings people from a level of superhuman to simply human, and that makes us connect and like them more. So it's the goal essentially, if you are going to give a big sort of work presentation, coming back to our example, to give a goodish presentation.

Is that the best way to think about it? Yeah, I think, well, here, to stick with our perfectionism example or topic, I think that's something we can toggle off and on. There are things that we do want, okay, so if this is a really important, you know, I don't know, annual board of directors presentation, that we probably do want to raise that bar and have it be really, really good. But I think if we are, you know, giving a happy birthday toast to our friend at a, you know, just an informal gathering, we don't have to worry so much. And we can really, you know, press the gas or press the break on our perfectionism. And I think there are more situations than not where a good-ish presentation or a good-ish social performance is the most appropriate. Again, having those little blips and blips of imperfection make us relatable and humanized

and draw people to us. Okay, so for example, I have a friend who has a beautiful house and it looks like it's straight out of a magazine. But whenever I go over there, I'm a little afraid to sit down. Like, everything is just so artfully arranged. And so I don't feel comfortable. I don't feel at home. And then I have, I mean, she's lovely and the house is beautiful. And it makes me feel awkward. I have another friend whose house is always a little bit of a mess. I have to, you know, maybe like brush some crumbs off the table before I sit down. There's like a pile of overdue library books in the corner. Her kids have, like, found some tadpoles and they're in a tank on the

floor. And it feels great. I am, I feel totally at home. I feel like I can sit down and put my feet up and connect. And so if we, if we apply those examples to our, to, well, here, to what we think people are expecting of us, if we present a little too perfectly or are trying really hard not to show any mistakes or any flaws, it can actually be off-putting and keep us disconnected from others. What about sort of after the social event itself? So, you know, many people after giving this big presentation might feel as if it was the worst talk in the world and everyone is judging them. What can a person do in that situation? Yeah. So that is so common. It has a name. So that is called post-event processing. And that is essentially reviewing the

low light reel after you know after a presentation or a conversation it's when we're thinking oh my gosh why did i say that or like oh no i that probably offended her or oh like i can't believe i went blank we're highlighting we're putting the spotlight on all the mistakes and flaws that occurred and really letting that color our experience like a drop of ink in a beaker of water so what we can do there is use some mindfulness and to really try to broaden that spotlight to include not just the mistakes, but also everything else, to try to bring to mind and to see the whole presentation or the whole conversation and to see things in context and observe it like we would, for example, like a play on stage.

So maybe in our socially anxious moment there, the spotlight is pointing solely on the villain, but we can turn up the houselights, we can turn on some more spotlights and really highlight everything else that occurred there to put our mistakes in context and to see the whole thing for what it is. So that's one thing. In addition, we can give ourselves some permission, not. to be so perfectionistic. We can say, okay, in a presentation, how many mistakes am I allowed to make? And the answer can't be zero because that's not realistic. Or, you know, on a date, how many

awkward silences am I allowed to have? Again, the answer can't be zero because that's not realistic. So just giving ourselves a little bit of wiggle room and moving from zero mistakes are allowed to something, even if it's one, it makes a big difference. And lift that weight from our shoulders. So those are two things we can do when we're stuck in that that terrible feeling that is post-event processing. So you mentioned the big M word there, so mindfulness, being aware of your surroundings. So there's a lot in the literature at the moment suggesting that this can help with anxiety. But how can you apply mindfulness in a conversation? So I think most people would regard talking to someone as pretty much a

mindless zone? Mm-hmm. That's a great question. Yeah, there is a lot of research showing that mindfulness can be very helpful with anxiety. And so I want to bust a myth that mindfulness, the goal there is not to experience no anxiety or not to get rid of your discomfort, but instead it's more of a willingness to feel that discomfort and then do the thing. regardless. I think if we are willing to notice and observe our anxiety, willing to have some anxious physical sensations, willing to let those inner critic thoughts float through our mind and turn our attention to the person we're talking to, you know,

turn our attention to the task at hand, I think that is true mindfulness in action. Now, that's harder to do than it is to talk about. But I think there are some strategies. So when we're in a socially anxious moment in a conversation, our attention naturally turns inward. I'll use that spotlight analogy again. So our spotlight tends to turn inward and highlight either our anxious thoughts, like, oh, am I boring her or highlight our body? Like, oh, gosh, like, how do I stand to look more casual? What do I do with my hands? And so all that internal focus and internal monitoring really eats up all our bandwidth

and leaves us with very little room to notice and be mindful of what is actually happening in the moment. And when all our bandwidth gets eaten up, that's when we make those awkward mistakes like stepping on someone's foot or like spilling our wine or things like that. So what we can do is consciously try to turn our attention outward and focus on the task at hand. If focusing, if we're in the listening part of a conversation, that's our task. And to focus on what the other person is saying, listen to them. If the task at hand is us telling a story or it's our turn to talk, we can focus not on our performance. So like not on

on like how entertaining am I being or how, you know, what's my body doing, but more on the transmission of our message, are like just sharing the story, connecting with the other person. That is our task at hand. And when we consciously focus outward on that task at hand, on the other person, then our anxiety actually decreases. it naturally goes down when we focus on essentially anything except ourselves. So that's another thing we can do in the moment, on the fly, to help reduce our anxiety.

So what are some of the biggest, most damaging myths about social anxiety? Sure. I will give you two things. So one is that social anxiety is just universally bad. and something we need to get rid of. Because social anxiety actually comes bundled with a lot of really excellent superpowers. It is a package deal. And people with social anxiety are often empathetic, altruistic, good listeners, and highly conscientious, which has been shown through research to be the number one personality trait, conscientiousness

that is for both objective and subjective success in life. So really good things. And luckily, those wonderful things do not fade even as social anxiety does. So I always want to point out the positive side of social anxiety or the other things that come bundled along with it because they are some really wonderful things. All the people I treat in my office with social anxiety often come in thinking they are anxious, awkward failures and are some of the most lovely, wonderful people I have ever met. And so I really, I wish folks with social anxiety would give them some more credit.

So that's one. The second is that avoiding the things we're scared of is the solution. That is a myth. Avoidance is what maintains social anxiety. So not doing the thing, canceling the plans, opting out makes us feel safe and makes our anxiety go away in the moment, but long term, it underscores the two lies of social anxiety, which are the worst case scenario was bound to happen, and I couldn't handle this. Because when we opt out and overtly avoid, then we don't get the evidence and the experience that that worst case scenario was not likely to happen. And even if it did or even if like there were some challenges along the way, we could probably handle things.

And so then when we have this dearth of experience and evidence that we're capable, that things can work out, it makes the things that we're avoiding even bigger and scarier. and that makes us more likely to avoid them more. So that transitions then to, I think, the most important thing we can do to overcome social anxiety is, in the words of Dr. Rick Heimberg, who is the kind of granddaddy of social anxiety research, is to go forth and do, to go forth and to do the very things we're afraid of. Does that mean we have to go speak in front of a thousand people? No.

to the it's more important to push ourselves just a little bit out of our comfort zone to do the things that make us a little bit anxious. We don't have to push ourselves into terrified, overwhelmed, you know, hair standing on end zone. That sets us up for failure. But we can push ourselves just a little bit out of our comfort zone and do the things that make us a little anxious. And then iteratively, as we do that again and again, that circle gets a lot wider. And we gain confidence and a sense of our own competence along the way. That was psychologist Dr. Ellen Hendrickson, author of How to Be Yourself, Quiet Your Inner Critic and Rise Above Social Anxiety.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Instant Genius, brought to you by the team behind BBC Science Focus magazine, which you can find on sale now in supermarkets and newsagents as well as your preferred app store. If you've enjoyed this episode, please make sure to subscribe to the podcast and check out more features on social anxiety at sciencefocus.com. This podcast is sponsored by Name, Audio and Focal. The texture and emotional depth of music can be lost through digital sources or poor signal. Name Audio believes you can have digital precision with analogue warmth. Alongside French acoustic specialist focal,

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