When I first got this book, I thought it was normal for a person to feel a little social anxiety, and it didn't matter. Many colleagues around me feel that this matter is very serious now. The more people use social software, the stronger our sense of social anxiety will be, including many people who are unwilling to make phone calls and many things that like to send text. That's what I do. Anything that can be solved in words can be solved in words. Anything that words can't solve can be solved by voice. If the voice can't be solved, I'll make an appointment to make a phone call. Making a phone call has become something that needs to be made an appointment and then done seriously. The reason is that we don't like talking to others more and more.

Social anxiety occurs not only at social gatherings, but also on the phone. This is a real pain, so I am willing to help you solve it. Secondly, there is one thing I appreciate in this book. He said that overcoming social anxiety is actually an opportunity to learn. You should know that social anxiety is something that helps us grow. You should correctly look at the growth it brings to you. This is a growing mentality.

A very important phenomenon brought about by this social anxiety is called "self-escape". So if you want to know how serious your social anxiety is, you should look at how serious your self-escape phenomenon is. What is "self-escape"? A group of friends get together and everyone is chatting. You pretend to be looking at your mobile phone. "I have something to do and I'm busy." You are anxious to look at your mobile phone. This is a phenomenon of self-escape. Also, when you go to other people's homes to play with other people's cats, you think other people's cats and dogs are particularly fun. Because it is difficult to talk to people, it is better to play with dogs, which is also self-escape. Then our family will get together for the New Year, and many people will take the initiative to wash dishes and avoid chatting after dinner. This is all an act of self-escape.

There are three levels of social anxiety, the most common of which is called social embarrassment, that is, sometimes it is a little nervous and it is not appropriate to speak. Once, a waiter brought food and said, "Please enjoy your meal." Then the man said, you too. This is the result of habit, that kind of tension and discomfort.

The most serious is called extreme shyness, which can lead to social anxiety. As you know, social anxiety disorder is a mental illness, ranking third among all mental diseases. The number of people suffering from social anxiety is second only to depression and alcohol dependence. Then what kind of performance proves that you have reached such a serious level? If this kind of anxiety brings you pain and makes you feel that this is a very serious problem in your life, then you have suffered a lot from it and often struggle for it. This is social anxiety disorder.

But here you should know that social anxiety is also beneficial. Mahatma Gandhi is a typical patient with social anxiety, but he gradually overcame it and became a national hero in India. Gandhi said that looking back on his mistakes and social anxiety when he was young, he had developed a pleasure. In other words, it also has its shy beauty and fun, and we should treat it correctly.

So how did social anxiety come about? Here is a case: Jim is a person with serious social anxiety. Even when he sees the girl he likes in town, he will suddenly squat behind the car and refuse to see the girl. He likes people, and he knows that the girl may like him, too, but he will crouch behind the car and hide. It was not until later that the girl moved and left the town that he felt it was a lifelong regret. Later he grew up and met this girl. The girl said, do you hate me? Jim said: no, actually I like you very much. I like you too, but I thought you hated me, so I left.

How can Jim have such social anxiety? When he was a child, he went out every day, and his mother would tidy him up and say that you must be decent. Once he leaves home, his mother will ask: Who did you see today? What did people tell you? What did they say about you? What did the wife say? Is that his mother will ask others what they think of their family during the day. This is the first source of social anxiety, called heredity. For example, it is not clearly written in the gene that you will be timid, but if you are bullied at school and then you become timid, this timid feeling will be passed on to your children.

So when you have such a mother, she is particularly concerned about what others think of you. Everything she does will worry about what others say and think, and this feeling of anxiety will be passed on to her children. There is no objective evidence for this anxiety. You can't see it through physical phenomena. Let's find a brain lesion to see this thing. This is a self-report, which is what all of us say: I feel very anxious and I feel very painful.

Another source is acquisition. For example, like Jim's mother, she probably didn't learn it through her grandmother. She was judged by others in her life, and then she became anxious. This process is called acquisition, and it is acquisition. It is a very important reason for our social anxiety.

The essence of social anxiety is fear of exposure. What are you afraid of exposing? Fear of exposing our anxiety, our appearance, our personality and our social skills are the four things that we are most worried about being discovered by others. Once others find me ugly, once others find my legs thick, once others find that I can't say hello at all, once others find that I can't tell jokes, that's it, I will be judged by others. Worried about the exposure of these four situations is the essential driving force of our social anxiety.

So Jim decided to change, because he had escaped for so many years. So he later chose to find this author for psychotherapy and finally became a very popular man.

We also need to know the benefits of social anxiety. The first is that "social consciousness" cannot grow wildly. Just like the apple tree, if the apple tree is not pruned and nobody prunes it, it will grow as tall as it wants, and the fruit will generally taste bad. You must prune it to produce good fruit. If the social consciousness is crazy, there is no constraint, and you want to associate with everyone and meet everyone, then this person is probably crazy.

Social anxiety can bring group harmony. Imagine that if a person cares about what others think of him, then this person is at least a good person, and this person is at least a person who cares about the eyes of others, so he can bring group harmony.

So group harmony may also bring personal security, that is, when you use the method of escape, when you care about your image, it will bring you a sense of security. Then people with social anxiety are often better partners, and they are more likely to understand other people's feelings and become better partners. 1980, Harvard University conducted an experiment on children's behavior inhibition: they found many children, and the experts who participated in the experiment explained many interesting games to these children and observed their performance. Later, they found that some of them had "behavioral inhibition". What is "behavior inhibition"? Even the child will be curious, but he will hide behind his mother and watch, and some children will take the initiative to participate in the activities of this expert. There are two kinds of children, one with child behavior inhibition and the other without.

Then slowly watch these children grow up. When they reach 13 years old-as we all know, 13 years old, this person has entered adolescence, grown up and grown taller-they have a boundary. What is the most typical feature of this boundary? There seems to be no obvious difference in their IQ, study and popularity, and children's behavior inhibition is only manifested in social anxiety.

In other words, after 13 years old, children with childhood behavioral inhibition have more social anxiety. Its data is more than three times that of children without behavioral inhibition. 34% children with behavioral inhibition have social anxiety, while only 9% children without behavioral inhibition have social anxiety. This is a very significant difference. So, what are 66% children with behavioral inhibition but no social anxiety? Behavior inhibition has penetrated into their bone marrow, but they still feel normal. Why? Because these people have found another name for themselves, called "introverts".

Please pay attention to the distinction, an introverted person can have no social anxiety-I am only introverted, but I have no social anxiety. I don't want to take part in those activities, but I won't be afraid. However, an introvert or extrovert may have social anxiety and fear, which is good. And if a person really becomes an introvert, there is no need to change.

There are only two ways to change social anxiety, and this is the point. The first is called practice, and the second is called "cognitive behavioral therapy". These two methods can effectively change our social anxiety.

First of all, we need to know how a person with social anxiety will react. In fact, there is a three-second difference between people with social anxiety and those without anxiety. What's the difference between three seconds? That is, when each of us meets a stranger, the amygdala in our brain will react: Oh, I am nervous, there are strangers, and I need to show them.

At this time, if a person has no social anxiety, his cerebral cortex will immediately correct the amygdala and say: it's not that serious, just chat happily with others. The cerebral cortex is responsible for reason and the amygdala is responsible for excitement, so when the amygdala is excited, the cerebral cortex immediately comforts it and says, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. For people with social anxiety, the cerebral cortex will also comfort this amygdala, but it will be three seconds slow. It is this slow three seconds that makes this person may choose to escape.

So don't think that having social anxiety will have much impact, just three seconds. This three-second delay will lead to a change in our behavior. We may become embarrassed, we may become evasive, we don't want to talk, we may play mobile phones or slap cats.

Psychologists have specially found a group of such people to carry out cognitive behavioral therapy for four months: when negative language appears in your mind, learn to correct it immediately. After four months of training, compared with the control group, the researchers will find that the brain scans of people receiving cognitive behavioral therapy are much calmer. His cerebral cortex is becoming more and more active, without a three-second delay.

So social anxiety can be treated, just like I used to be nervous when I spoke in public. When I was in college, I took part in a debate contest. When I stood up to speak, my legs shook so badly that the table was almost kicked over, and I snorted. Later, my companion pressed my leg, and I was able to talk well.

However, with my repeated debates and speeches, I still didn't tremble in the face of thousands of people's speeches. Even before I came to power, I began to write my thoughts, and I thought about what I would say today. No problem. Because your brain is calm on the stage, you don't need to recite words on the stage. How do you do it? It's a lot of practice, in fact, it's a lot of cognitive behavior correction, which calms my brain down. I can do it, so can everyone.

There is also a principle here, that is, "say there is not enough food." The ancients in China said "We don't have enough to eat"-let's have dinner at noon today, eat big cakes, steamed buns, what to eat ... We talked a lot, but you are still hungry. This is called "we don't have enough to eat". So what should I do to get full? You have to really eat, so practice is very important.

Then we enter the process of how to learn.

The first thing we have to deal with is the internal judgment in our minds. The fundamental source of social anxiety is a voice in your head, which has been judging you: you are terrible and you will be laughed at by others. The author himself is a serious social anxiety. Their children go to kindergarten. Once there are activities, every parent has to do some tasks to help the kindergarten do some volunteer work. Her task is to help the kindergarten purchase, that is, to buy food for the children in the kindergarten. As a result, she needs to buy a lot of bananas in the supermarket. With so many children, she bought a basket of bananas. She thinks it's weird and really embarrassing. Who will buy a car full of bananas to go home? She began to judge herself: it's a shame.

Just then, an acquaintance suddenly came and called her name. She suddenly blushed and was so nervous. This scared my acquaintances and asked me if I had done something wrong. No, she actually bought a lot of bananas and was seen by others. Buying bananas can make a person particularly nervous. The reason is that we like to judge ourselves too much and say that you are so strange. You are really different today. You are so strange.

I remember when I was a child, as long as I wore new clothes to school, I would be nervous and think that others would look at us. In fact, people often don't notice that you are wearing a new dress after a whole day. This is a typical internal judgment. Internal judgment is good for us, but it is counterproductive. Internal judgment had hoped that we would not make a fool of ourselves and that we would be more popular, but it backfired. We are more exposed because we are too afraid of exposure. So when we are anxious, we will think of many negative words.

The author did a very simple experiment, that is, recited many words for two groups of people, including good words, bad words, anxiety-related words, normal words and positive words. After memorizing a lot of words on both sides, the researcher asked one group to give a speech later, and then the other group sat and watched. Therefore, the people who are going to give a speech are obviously anxious, but the people who are responsible for watching are not.

Next, the researchers tested which words they remembered, which was a very simple psychological experiment. You will find that people who are going to give a speech in the group will remember more negative words in their minds, that is, bad words, nervous words, painful words, stressful words, unconfident words, and those sunny words and positive words will be easily filtered out. This is how anxiety makes us feel.

If you want to know what you are most sensitive to and prone to this kind of internal self-judgment, you only need to complete this sentence:

When I am _ _ _ _ (anxious about social occasions), it is obvious that I am _ _ _ _ _ (internal judgment points out my problem).

For example, when I meet a strange woman, obviously I am unattractive, obviously I am embarrassed and don't know where to put my hand, and so on. You can see where your weakness is. The characteristic of internal judgment is to underestimate yourself and overestimate the importance others attach to you.

Once we get involved in online struggles, for example, if you are scolded by others online, you will feel extremely uncomfortable. But in fact, those who scold you are a drop in the ocean on the internet and can be ignored. But as people involved, we will feel particularly painful. The reason is that internal judgment will amplify these words, so he will tend to underestimate himself and overestimate the importance others attach to this matter.

What is the image that I often comfort myself? When Mrs Thatcher visited China, she fell down in the Great Hall of the People and fell there with a bang. If you were a customer, you would think you would never forget it, wouldn't you? But if you are not a party, you will feel that this does not prevent her from making a film called "Iron Lady: Firm Tender Feelings" as a politician and people.

But people's judgment of themselves is completely different from others' view of themselves. So what do you need to ask yourself when you have such inner doubts? Is "does that work for you", that is, is this inner self-judgment useful for you?

If you are not sure, you can try the experiment for two days: on the first day, you leave all your anxiety until the next day, and you say that I will think about this anxiety tomorrow, but not today; Then the next day, I took out all my anxiety, predicted it, and thought it over and over again, as if I couldn't get it back without thinking. When you recover, ask yourself, which day will you enjoy it more? Which day is more effective? I bet you don't want to repeat the experience of the next day. In other words, many of our worries and anxieties about what others think of us have never happened. If you immerse yourself in it, it will backfire. It wants to help us live better, but it doesn't make us live better.

How can I overcome my inner judgment? Here are two very effective methods, which I have tried. The first method is called replacement. Substitution is not inexplicable anxiety. You have to point out-the word used by this author is "point out, point out, point out"-use three "points out" in succession.

For example, if you feel confused, you say that my performance that day was terrible, and everyone will laugh at me. I'm finished. I can't see anyone after school. At this time, you need a voice to stand up and say: Who will laugh at you? what he would have said？ Are there many such people? How many/much? On what occasion? Under what circumstances? What would he say? When you look for the direction of the "reference" very seriously and make it concrete, you find that the worst case is nothing, which is "substitution"

Let it go. Clear the area first. What we often worry about is a vague feeling. Just like my wife said at home that day that they would introduce a new policy, these employees will definitely have opinions, which is so annoying. I just read this paragraph, and then I asked her, who? Who has a problem with that? What's the opinion? what he would have said？ Then she thought, thought for a while, and she said, it seems nothing. You see, this is a typical replacement method, that is, when you can find out what the worst result will be in a prescribed way, who will say what will happen after he says it? This is called "catastrophe".

The idea of disaster is a vague feeling, that is, inexplicable irritability, and I don't know what to do. But once you ask clearly, it will be disastrous. Even if it happens, only one or two people will say one or two ugly words. It doesn't really matter. Has not brought much change to our lives. This is the first move, very effective, called replacement.

The second trick is called "hug". What is "hug"? Imagine that you enter a swimming pool and see two coaches teaching children to swim. A coach is here, yelling at the child: you idiot! Can you swim? Come back here! And punish him. What do you think that child can learn? When I was a child, I accompanied my children to learn swimming. Three or four children dropped out of school and stopped studying.

But there is a coach over there. He can understand the child, he can tell how the child feels, and then he can guide the child to do the next move and teach him step by step. We find that there is often a grumpy coach in our mind, and the guidance given by this grumpy coach is called counterproductive. It is he who has been accusing us. He has no sympathy for us at all. He makes it more and more difficult for us to change, and often makes us give up something, making us feel: this is it, this is my life. Just like you always nag a person for being late, you always accuse him of being late, and as a result, he will be late, which may never change.

So what can really change effectively is to embrace our anxiety, that is, you should learn to sympathize with yourself and build that understanding coach in your mind. How to realize self-pity? First learn "mindfulness". Mindfulness is very important. By seeing something, smelling something, touching something and listening to something called color, sound, smell and touch, these things can bring us back to mindfulness and bring us back to the present. You will find that there is not so much trouble back to now, and we are often troubled by many things that have not happened. Therefore, learning to maintain "mindfulness" is the first step to calm us down.

Then I often do some self-friendly behavior, that is, tell myself in my heart: you are making progress, this is an opportunity to learn, and you have worked hard. And you did better than last time. I believe you will do better next time.

The third is to tell myself that human nature is * * *. I probably understood this when I was in college. I often make a fool of myself when I take part in debates, and then suddenly I find that no one can remember the part where I made a fool of myself. How did I realize this? It's because when I watch other debaters argue, I find that what I remember is often the best time of this person-this person is very good, this person is very good, and it was really good at that time-but I can't remember when he lost, when he said the wrong thing. Later, I thought, since I am like this, I am afraid that others will be like this. So I slowly felt the goodwill of the audience, which is called understanding that human nature is * * *. Just as you will treat others, others will treat you often, so if you can do it and make yourself a kind person, you will be more aware of the goodwill of others.

We always do "eat melons" and always feel that it is a very painful thing for a person to be "eaten melons". But in fact, if you really understand human nature, you will find that you are tired of eating melons for two days. As soon as these two days passed, this matter passed and that person returned to be a normal person. In this way, you will know how so many big stars who have been "eaten melons" finally return to normal life step by step, and he finally becomes a normal person. This is "human nature is * * *".

Understand these three things-mindfulness, self-friendliness, and understanding the universality of human nature, and you can learn to embrace, and you can learn to be kind to yourself and refute your inner judgment.

Finally, summarize the internal judgment. The author said: "Internal judgment just wants you to do your best, but it lets you know this in an ineffective way, so please reason with it, tell it how powerful you are, and remind it that friendliness is better than criticism. You have to tell your inner judge. Now I have to forgive myself and face some fears. "

If we are dominated by this inner judgment all day, we will not have the courage to face the real fear, and we will not be able to deal with the real problems and think about how to say proper words in social situations, because you are fighting the voice in your head. Where did that sound come from? It may come from your mother's inheritance when you were a child, or it may come from your childhood experience. So all these things run through it, let us know how to solve the inner judgment: learn to replace it, make it clear, and then learn to embrace it. At this time, you will be more gentle and kind to yourself.

Then there is action, that is, what should be done to solve this problem? For example, a man named Brandon set himself a goal. He said that I would shoot many people on the streets of new york, and he set himself the goal of shooting hundreds of people on the streets a year. You know people on the street do everything. Some people are begging. It is very impolite for you to walk over and take pictures of them. So he wants to discuss with someone: can I film you? This is a stressful thing for a person with social anxiety. Think about it. You walk into the street and meet an old man. Say, uncle, can I film you? It takes courage.

But this Brandon said, I have to work hard. He finally got over it. He found that the proportion of YES was much higher than he expected. I just haven't met anyone who suddenly pulled out a gun and said I'll shoot you if you dare! It's in his head. Most people say, okay, come on. Even if someone refuses, it's not that embarrassing.

So the author said: "How to act? You have to pretend that you can do it first. " If you tell yourself in your heart that you just can't do it, then you probably can't do it; But if you pretend you can do it first, you have a chance.

There is another case: people ask a famous talk show star-his talk show is very humorous-and ask him: Why do you like being noticed so much? He said it was because I was shy. Do you think these two sentences are contradictory? You are shy. How can I hope to be noticed? In fact, there is no contradiction at all, that is, there are many such people who perform well in front of 10 million people, but are shy in front of10 people.

This is a very effective method called "the importance of structure", and the structure is presented by the role. Here is an experiment: a group of people are waiting for treatment, some have social anxiety, and some don't. At this time, an actor was arranged to come in, and this person was responsible for chatting with everyone. You see, people with social anxiety don't like chatting with people. So at this time, when you ask him how he feels, those people say that they are very annoyed and really emphasize to chat with me. He will feel uncomfortable.

But if we assign a task to everyone, we say that you need to know the family characteristics and their occupations of the people around you while waiting for treatment. When you assign such tasks to each patient, you find that everyone's anxiety is greatly reduced. Why? Because he has a role, he has a structured arrangement that will make him feel comfortable.

So you understand blind date. Why is there an eight-minute date? If you put this group of people here and say, let's make ourselves comfortable, have some cocktails and chat! It is a disaster for introverts, and only those extroverts will feel happy. Many people can't speak, which is very painful. But you turned around and said, okay, eight minutes. Change seats. You find that no matter how introverted a person is, he can talk to Kan Kan because he has solved the problem. This is his task, and he must chat with each other in these eight minutes. Therefore, this structured method can effectively help us solve our inner anxiety and make your anxiety drop rapidly.

So how do we apply this technique? No matter where I go, ask others to arrange eight minutes for me. No, you need to learn to find a role for yourself. It says that there is a girl who works in a hospital. She is very introverted. You know, the biggest disadvantage of introverts is having meetings. Whenever there is a meeting, others are arguing, talking and talking about their views in Kan Kan, and she thinks my voice is weak, so forget it. Needless to say, you will feel very uncomfortable and painful, and many opinions have not been expressed, which has become a small transparency of the company.

As a result, one day she got a feedback from a patient. The patient said, thank you very much for the last thing you helped me fight for. Very good. Thank you! This incident gave her great inspiration, so she added a role to herself, called "I am the spokesperson of patients". When she defined herself as such a "patient spokesperson", she suddenly dared to speak at the meeting because she was willing to say: I would like to say a few words on behalf of patients.

The arrangement of such a small role makes you relax your judgment on yourself, because you don't represent yourself, and you have someone else in your heart. Then do you know why Confucius said that "the benevolent does not worry"? "Worry" is anxiety. Why don't benevolent people worry? Because the benevolent has others in his heart, I am speaking for others. Why should I be anxious? At this time, this role can effectively help us reduce social anxiety.

If you feel uncomfortable at first, we need to set a structure for ourselves: what role am I here to play? When you are here in this role, you will easily feel at home.

Finally, the author gives a core suggestion, that is, you don't have to worry about what others think of you. What you need to do is be kind to others and open your heart. This is very important.