Phone call anxieties are a very common fear among those with social anxiety. Despite spending most of our time within arm’s reach of our phones, many of us dread actually making a call, taking a call or even just listening to the recorded messages.

Phone anxiety – or telephobia – is the fear and avoidance of phone conversations: both receiving calls or making them. Anxiety can often be exacerbated if other people can overhear your call in either work or social situations.

When you talk on the phone, you may experience social anxiety symptoms just as if you were physically there in person e.g. fear of rejection, racing thoughts, increased heart rate (and other symptoms associated with the fight-or-flight response). The fact that it’s “just a phone call” can make you feel all the more foolish and self-critical.

So why do people with social anxiety find phone calls difficult?

• A phone call can come out of the blue or when you are not ready or prepared for it
• the time pressure of questions or decisions you arent ready for
• You fear you are “bothering” the other person
• You fear you sound boring, unintelligent, odd, nervous or weak
• Anxiety may make you mix your words, fall silent or inadvertently cause offence
• It’s hard to know what the other person is thinking
• It’s harder to know when it’s your turn to talk – or how to end the call
• The worry about what you did or didn’t say after the call ends

Phone anxieties are not uncommon

Remember, it’s normal to find phone calls difficult. A 2019 survey of UK office workers found that 40% of baby boomers, and 70% of millennials, experience anxious thoughts when the phone rings [see ref 1].

Modern life with its social media and instant messaging means that it’s easy to avoid making or taking actual phone calls. Like other social anxiety challenges, the less you do, the more doubts and fear can take hold.

What can be done about it?

As anxiety provoking as it is, some phone calls are unavoidable. To make things easier it can help to work through specific practice scenarios – targeted at the phone call situations that you find difficult.

Start gently – a few ideas:

• Practise talking on the phone with someone who knows about your social anxiety – or someone you feel relatively comfortable with. Talking with someone who already understands some of your problems can make the practice calls much easier
• Although it feels foolish at first, you can ‘role play’ simple telephone conversations by putting the phone to your ear and talking to yourself (e.g., pretending to call a friend to tell them you’ll be running late). Just saying the words out loud can help you for when you do it for real
• If you find it helpful, or you get stuck, you could mention ‘I get a little nervous on the phone sometimes’.
• Try some practice calls in lower risk scenarios – some suggestions:
  • Ring a shop and ask “what time do you close today?”
  • Ring a restaurant and ask if they do deliveries
  • Ring a company and ask if they sell a particular item
• Then, when more confident, you might:
  • Ring people you know to deliberately work on extended phone skills e.g. ask multiple questions, practise changing subject, small talk, or ending the conversation early
  • Role play more complex real-life phone scenarios with a trusted friend
  • Practise making small mistakes and saying ‘sorry, I sometimes get a bit nervous on the phone’
  • Deliberately mispronounce a word to get used to the flush of embarrassment and coping with how it feels
  • Deliberately pause and say “sorry I forgot my train of thought”
  • Ask someone to repeat and clarify what they mean – even if you understood the first time

  By practising some of the scenarios listed above – where you deliberately allow yourself to feel a little awkward or embarrassed you can build your coping skills for mistakes or issues with real-life (non-practice) calls.

  Prepare ahead

  • It’s often helpful to think what practical questions the person may ask so at least you are a little prepared.
    If it’s a medical appointment, might they ask about your symptoms? Is it urgent? Do I need to bring anything?
  • If it’s an order you are making, they may need mobile phone numbers, availability dates, card or bank payment details etc. Thinking about practical things you need to have to hand helps you feel prepared and have more time for the unexpected questions that may occur.
  • If its a social call it may be helpful to make a few notes about things you need or want to mention. Don’t over prepare – the communication can feel too scripted.
  • If you are worried you may be bothering a busy person you could check with them if it is a good time to take a call. If they are busy, try and agree a specific mutually suitable time in the future.

  Making telephone appointments

  Many times, people with social anxiety just take the first appointment that they are offered in order to end the phone call more quickly. However, it can be a good habit to ask if other dates and times are available. Sometimes there are, sometimes there aren’t – but it is normal and ok to ask for other options so you get a date and time that works best for you.

  Put your doubts and fears down on paper

  Use one of our thought record worksheet to write down your doubts and fears. You may well be able to rationalise or mitigate some of the fears. Keep a record after the call. What went well? What didn’t go so well? Were things better than you expected? What could you do better next time?

  Further helpful tips

  • Go somewhere private if you are just beginning with making more phone calls. In time you can build up to more challenging situations. See our page exposure therapy and hierarchies.
  • If the phone call involves a difficult question or decision, it is common and helpful to ask if you can have some time to think about it. This can stop you feeling forced into decisions you don’t feel ready to make. Try saying “I need to think about this – is it ok if I call you back?”. Having this option can take the pressure off the call itself.
  • If you lose your train of thought try saying something like: “my mind’s gone blank”, “can you remind me where we were?” or “can you say that again as I am not sure what you meant”.

  How to end a call

  If it is time to end the call, some phrases that can be helpful depending on the context could be:

  • Well, I’d better let you go
  • I really must go now
  • It was great catching up
  • That’s everything I need, thank you
  • Anyway, I really have to go, good talking to you

  Most people will recognise phrases like this mean it is time to end the call. However, be mindful that ending a call isn’t always easy, consider what would be most helpful for your specific situation and experiment with what works best for you.

  Experiment with the dreaded voicemail

  The thought of having to leave a recorded message can be daunting. You may worry we will lose track of our words or sound stupid. If you have access to a second phone, or can borrow, you could experiment with dialling your own phone and let it go to voicemail. Leave a message and then listen back to it. Practise again if it doesn’t go well – are there things you need to change e.g. tone of voice? conciseness? How did you come across? What can you do better next time? Remember, we all sound super strange to our own ears when we hear the sound of our own voice!

  Making Phone calls at work

  Making and receiving calls at work can be intimidating for those with social anxiety. Phone calls can be a source of dread if you struggle with this issue, especially in open plan offices where others will hear. Some of the links at the end of this page may help with phone anxiety at work. See this article at www.xant.ai – 5 Best Practices To Deal With Phone Anxiety.

  Young adults and phone calls

  See these external links that may be able to suggest some options www.childrenssociety.org.uk – overcoming phone anxiety.

  Social media

  Smartphones mean you are never far away from social media apps. You may worry excessively about each message, post, likes, dislikes. You may double and triple check any message before you send – or dread opening new ones. If you are someone who struggles with social media messaging, it could be helpful to work through some of the issues in a structured way e.g. behavioural experiments (link to be developed). These may include making low-risk deliberate mistakes such as spelling mistakes (and not correcting them) or deliberately taking a much longer time to respond to messages or posts.

  Remember

  Be gentle with yourself – phone calls can feel difficult – many people – with and without social anxiety struggle with them.

  Please also see these links to other websites:

  www.bbc.com – scared of the phone here’s how to overcome that fear

  www.counselling-directory.org.uk – telephone-anxiety

  www.verywellmind.com – afraid of making phone calls -tips

  www.no5.org.uk – do you get anxious talking over the phone

  www.xant.ai – 5 Best Practices To Deal With Phone Anxiety As A Sales Rep

  Ref [1] Wikipedia -Telephone phobia