On this page we are going to discuss two key behaviours for people struggling with social anxiety: avoidance and safety behaviours.
They are part of the process that keeps social anxiety going – see our page on the social anxiety maintenance cycle.
If you feel socially anxious, or anticipate feeling socially anxious, it is understandable you may feel you want to avoid situations. Or, if we cannot avoid a situation, we might engage in specific actions called safety behaviours (these are discussed further below).
The physical feelings and emotions associated with social anxiety are often very unpleasant to experience see – fight-or-flight-response
Avoidance
Not going into a situation, or leaving a situation, due to feelings of anxiety is called avoidance. If you feel socially anxious, or anticipate feeling socially anxious, it is understandable you may feel you want to avoid or escape the situation.
There is no complete list of the types of situations we might avoid, but they might include:
attending appointments, meeting new people, small talk conversations, going into a cafe or shop alone, eating or drinking in public, shopping or queuing, asking for help, making a complaint, sharing your real opinions, talking to people in positions of authority, talking to people you are attracted to, speaking up in meetings, making or receiving telephone calls.
Avoidance might be tempting, and very human, however, there might be some unintended consequences to avoiding anxiety-provoking situations. In the short-term avoidance can reduce our anxiety, but in the long-term it can maintain or worsen levels of social anxiety for a number of reasons:
- We don’t have the opportunity to find out what may have happened if we stayed. If we stay in a situation, we might find out our negative thoughts weren’t accurate. We might learn that our fears rarely occur and instead that things often turn out better than expected.
- We miss out on positive experiences, if we continue to avoid social situations we have no chance of having positive social experiences that might mean we actually want to engage even more.
- We might start to avoid more and more situations, for example at first, we might only avoid larger social groups but as time goes on we start to avoid smaller groups, then going to shops, or seeing friends.
- Avoidance and a loss of social interaction can mean we feel worse about ourselves – we might feel less confident and may start to have feeling of low mood or depression as a result.
How to reduce avoidance
Two of the evidence-based ways of reducing avoidance are through CBT techniques called behavioural experiments (link to be added) and exposure therapy and hierarchies.
The techniques above help you to tackle avoidance with a plan, a purpose, a structure rather than jumping in at the deep end. They are a way to gradually face some of the situations that you have been avoiding.
Example 1- You avoid shopping except when it is quiet
You might create a hierarchy, a plan, to go at slightly busier times. Build up slowly, deliberately try to do go when more people will be there. Go with an acquaintance if it helps, then seek busier times, or busier places.
Example 2- You avoid ever giving your own opinions at work
Start slowly. Share general ideas with a trusted colleague, then say a few words at a work meeting or to a more senior colleague.
These are just initial examples – see more detailed hierarchies at exposure therapy and hierarchies.
Please also see this article www.cci.health.wa.gov – Overcoming Avoidance
Safety Behaviours
Sometimes we are not able to avoid the situations that cause us social anxiety. To manage going into these anxiety-provoking situations many people engage in a specific type of avoidance behaviour called a safety behaviour. Safety behaviours can either be something overt (that is visible to others) such as avoiding eye contact or scrolling on your phone, or covert (something we do in our minds) like planning out what to say or having excuses ready. Each person might use different safety behaviours to help them cope, here is a longer list of potential safety behaviours:
asking constant questions (to avoid having to speak about yourself)
avoiding eye contact
avoiding giving opinions
avoid doing anything to bring attention to yourself
being monotone or unanimated when speaking
finding a task to look busy
going out at the quietest times of day/night
having an excuse to leave if anxiety gets too much
hiding visible signs of anxiety (a jacket to cover sweating, make-up to hide blushing, sunglasses to avoid eye contact, hiding your tense or shaky hands)
keeping quiet
people pleasing
playing with your phone
rehearsing each sentence before you speak (in case you get tongue-tied and reveal yourself as nervous or socially unskilled)
staying close to someone you know
staying on the edges of a group
sticking to safe subjects (like work)
talking too much or too fast
talking softly (so other people won’t really hear what you are saying)
using alcohol or recreational drugs
there are many others too….
Safety behaviours can help us to feel less anxious in social situations, but much like avoidance are only helpful in the short-term. There are usually unintended consequences to using safety behaviours and they play a role in maintaining social anxiety long-term. Safety behaviours keep us socially anxious for a number of reasons:
- Having to use these behaviours to cope reinforces the idea that social situations are dangerous
- Safety behaviours can backfire for example avoiding eye contact or being quiet might draw attention, or mean that others come to think we are unfriendly or evasive
- They prevent learning that the social situation may have been okay anyway
- We believe that it is only because of the safety behaviour that we got through the situation (thus reinforcing the need for even more safety behaviours!)
- Safety behaviours make us focus more on ourselves, on “managing” our anxiety, causing even more anxiety (also called a feedback loop)
How to reduce safety behaviours
Firstly, you need to identify your own safety behaviours which may differ depending on the situation.
Try using the My Safety behaviours Worksheet.
Once you are more aware of your safety behaviours, the next step is to try and reduce them. This can be hard at first, as you may have come to depend on your safety behaviours to manage your anxiety.
Two of the evidence-based ways of reducing reliance on safety behaviours are through CBT techniques called behavioural experiments (link to be added) and exposure therapy.
Example 1 – if a safety behaviour was to avoid eye contact you may deliberately plan to meet an acquaintance and – at least for part the time – deliberately make eye contact. i.e. as an experiment to see what happens and how you feel.
Example 2- if your safety behaviour is always to wear headphones when on public transport or walking down the street (to avoid conversation) you could try, just for 2 minutes at first, see how it felt without them. Then, over time wear them less, then not at all.
Example 3 – if your safety behaviours was never to talk about yourself (because it makes you feel self-conscious or you assume the other person wouldn’t be interested) you deliberately reveal something about yourself – perhaps as simple as what you are doing at the weekend – and see what happens. Did the other person show interest? What did you learn and how can you get better at speaking about yourself and your interests?
You can find out more about dropping safety behaviours here www.cci.health.wa.gov – Stepping-out-of-Social-Anxiety Safety Behaviours
Please also see these links to international websites:
www.aboutsocialanxiety.com – Safety-behaviours
www.nationalsocialanxietycenter.com – The-silken-trap-of-safety-behaviours
