Medication

How to overcome social anxiety and social anxiety symptoms with self-help or social anxiety medication

You are here for one reason, to learn how to overcome social anxiety and all the social anxiety symptoms. You want to know what social anxiety medication options there are and what alternatives there are to using medication. You’re in the right place. Read on.

If you want to learn how to overcome social anxiety, you probably already know what the social anxiety symptoms are. If not, click here.

The research on how to beat social anxiety symptoms would suggest that the best approach is a combination of the SSRI drugs (like Prozac, Zoloft, and Celexa for example) and methods that increase your confidence and exposure in social situations. By exposure, I mean methods that gradually expose you to situations that you learn to master by building your sense of confidence in a hierarchical fashion (starting easy and getting harder as you become less self-conscious and anxious). It sounds scary, but with the right set of mental tools you can do it. If you are too scared to do even the simplest forms of purposeful exposure, you may benefit from short-acting minor tranquilizers like Xanax, Ativan, or Klonopin. But if you only have stage fright, you should go for a beta-blocker like Propranolol or Atenolol, as these medications only target the physical sensations of anxiety and are less likely to make you sleepy.

You should be aware, though, that social anxiety medication may actually interfere with your attempts to overcome social anxiety symptoms. Here’s the reason that some researchers have suggested to explain this research finding: Certain individuals who use both mind-methods and social anxiety medication end up unconsciously making the assumption that it was the medicine that caused their gradual improvement in confidence in social situations. As a result, when you go off the medication, you feel less confident and end up regressing. So if you want my best advice on how to overcome social anxiety symptoms, I would suggest that you bite the bullet and go for the mind methods first.

If you need to see a psychologist to get you going, then do so. But if you are the kind of person who is organized and sets goals to steadily attack a problem, then start with the less expensive option of using a full fledged anxiety self help program like the one you can review by clicking on this social anxiety self-help page.

Whatever you do, don’t spend your life wishing something was different. Take action now to build the kind of life you want to live. Action is the most important ingredient for a life well-lived. You are a wonderful person and you should invest energy and time in overcoming barriers to other people getting to know you. Good luck, and don’t forget to post questions on the “ask your question” page.

Be courageous!

Dr. Snyder