Newswise — Going to university or college can mean more pressure students put on themselves to achieve perfect grades. Or students who are painfully shy may feel anxious about not being able to make new friends or speak to their professors. To put these students' anxiety and worries to rest, a Ryerson University professor offers these tips:
Feeling Anxious
1. Get to know your anxietyBefore you can take steps to reduce your anxiety, it is important to understand the nature of your discomfort. Here are examples of a few questions you can ask yourself:
•What triggers my anxiety? Are there particular situations that make me uncomfortable? Making friends at school? First day of classes? Giving presentations? Being stared at by others? Speaking with my professors?
•What thoughts and predictions contribute to my anxiety? Do I worry what others may think about me? Do I worry that others may view me as stupid, boring, or unattractive? Do I worry about being embarrassed or humiliated?
•What physical symptoms do I experience in social situations? Do I blush, sweat, shake, or lose my train of thought, for example?
2. Challenge your anxious thinkingRather than assuming your anxiety-provoking beliefs and predictions are true, treat these thoughts as guesses about how things may be. Next, look at the evidence for your anxious thoughts. For example, if you assume that other people will find you incompetent, what evidence do you have for this belief? Is there evidence that people don’t find you incompetent? So what if a few people do think you are incompetent? After all, nobody is liked by everyone! How might you cope with some people not thinking you are perfect? Is it really important to be liked by everyone, or is that belief just your anxiety talking? Try to shift the way you think about social situations and look at them the way someone without social anxiety might think about them.
3. Don’t avoid situations you fear - confront themWe all avoid situations that make us nervous. We make excuses to get out of doing things we don’t want to do, and we find subtle ways to protect ourselves in situations that make us uncomfortable (e.g., sitting at the back of the class to avoid being called on by the professor). Unfortunately, avoiding situations and relying on safety behaviours helps to keep your anxiety alive. One of the most powerful ways of overcoming anxiety involves purposely exposing yourself to the situations you fear, over and over again, until you feel more comfortable. Of course, doing this means being prepared to feel uncomfortable during the first few “exposure” practices.
Perfectionism and Worry
Because perfectionism is associated with standards and expectations that are impossible to meet, perfectionists risk having events not turn out as desired and therefore develop the perception that they have “reason” to worry.
Perfectionistic worry can be associated with the belief that it is better to do nothing than to take a risk and fail. Students who believe that a term paper must be perfect may be inclined to procrastinate and put off starting their papers because they know that they cannot possibly meet the impossible standards that they have set for themselves.
People who believe that the only way to avoid making mistakes is to check and recheck their work may never learn that they could probably get by with being somewhat less careful. Is it better to have one perfect assignment or several good assignments? Is it better to finish a test or to perfect the part you completed? Chronic worry can be lessened by learning to relax. Meditation, yoga and mindfulness training are good relaxation exercises, as are progressive muscle relaxation, slow breathing and picturing calm images.
When you find yourself overly worried about something, force yourself to assess the situation more realistically. For example, if you are worried that you will fail a test, consider the following questions:
Do I know for sure that I will fail the exam?
•Have I done well on past exams, even when I thought I would fail?
•Did I study less than I usually do for similar exams?
•What is really likely to happen if I fail the exam?
•Are the results of a single exam likely to have a huge impact on my overall average?
•Is it possible for a person to fail a single exam and still do well in life?
Learn to tolerate uncertainty and ambiguity. Create a list of possible outcomes for the situation you are facing and consider ways of dealing with each one. Accept your inability to control the outcomes, but recognize that you can control your reaction.
Expert available for interviews:
Martin M. Antony, PhD, Professor, Department of PsychologyAuthor, Shyness and Social Anxiety Workbook and 10 Simple Solutions to Shyness: How to Overcome Shyness, Social Anxiety, and Fear of Public Speaking
Media contact:
Suelan ToyePublic Affairs, Ryerson University
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