The older a person is the more likely they will think that there is no hope of them being able to turn their social anxiety into social confidence. There are several lines of logic that result in people thinking this, but they are all based on mistaken beliefs. Three common beliefs that back up ‘too old’ thinking are described and diffused below.

I’ve been this way too long…

Many people think that because their social anxiety has developed over so many years that it will take an almost equal amount of time for them to undo it. It is true that a person’s social anxiety may have developed over many years or decades, but this does not matter. The mistake made with this line of thinking is that social anxiety has to be unlearned. Because of the way our brains work, it is fairly impossible to unlearn anything. Overcoming social anxiety is actually all about learning new things and therefore it does not matter how long you have been socially anxious.

You can’t teach an old dog new tricks…

Well you actually can teach an old dog new tricks, and people too. Many people believe that the older they are the more difficult it is for them to change. It is true that children learn new things faster than adults, but adults can still learn new things as a very reasonable speed too. It is true that older people will have more deeply ingrained habits, but since overcoming social anxiety is all about developing new habits, change is very possible. The extra motivation that older generations have to change along with their added maturity easily makes up for any decreased ability to learn.

I should have got over this by now…

As the years go by and no progress is made with reducing social anxiety, many people start to feel more and more embarrassed about the fact that they have struggled for so long. This embarrassment can prevent them from seeking help as they do not want to appear stupid or inadequate in front of someone else (a common social anxiety fear). Without additional help or information, it can be very difficult to overcome social anxiety. This is because many of the things that feel like they should help, actually make the problem worse and keep it going. Because of it’s paradoxical nature, very intelligent and capable people can still end up being stuck with anxiety or depression for many years. Do not beat yourself up for not having overcome these issues yet. The most intelligent thing you can do now is seek help. As you may have learnt by now, social anxiety does not easily disappear with age.

Better late than never…

Older generations tend to be less open to dealing with emotional difficulties as they have been more of a taboo subject in the past compared to the present. This, along with the above, prevents those who have seen a few decades from reaching out for help, but as has been explained, it should not. Regardless of how old you are, it is extremely possible for you to go from social anxiety to social confidence, so do not let your beliefs about what you can achieve hold you back. They may not be as well supported as you think.

Are you an older person with social anxiety? Leave a comment sharing your age to encourage others to seek change.

As with blushing and sweating anxiety symptoms, shaking and jerky movements are caused by the increased sympathetic nervous system activity that occurs when we get anxious. During this process adrenaline is released that causes our muscles to become ready for physical activity. A side effect of this readiness is trembling or shaking. In addition to shaking, sufferers may also experience muscle tension. This tension can cause us to have uncoordinated clumsy movements that do not flow as naturally as they normally would. During very strong anxiety individuals may also experience involuntary jerks or spasms due to this muscle tension.

Shaking

The shaking some people experience during anxiety is usually most noticeable in the hands. Since social anxiety sufferers are often very self-conscious about others noticing their anxiety this can be a problem. Wobbling teacups, peas jumping off forks and shaking speech notes all make anxious shaking more visible and this can lead to sufferers avoiding these things when around other people. Shaking legs and quivering lips are also common visible symptoms.

The main worry of sufferers is that people will see their visible anxiety symptoms and then make a unfavourable judgement about them. The feared judgements will typically be that the sufferer is weird because of their odd movements or that they are weak because they are feeling anxious.

People will often do their best to try and hide their anxious shaking, but this tends to only worsen the situation. Anxiety sufferers are nearly always caught in vicious cycles where the ways they try to manage their anxiety only serves to worsen it. Fears about starting to shake in front of people leads to increased worry about the onset of shaking. This worry then increases anxiety levels during social situations which in turn leads to the actual shaking they are trying to avoid. Self-consciousness is increased because of this visible shaking which leads to more worry and more anxiety and more shaking creating a distressing vicious cycle.

In addition to this, sufferers will try to hide or control their anxious shaking, but this only adds fuel to the fire. A common strategy is to tense up to try and keep movements still, but this increased muscle tension only exaggerates the shaking. Another strategy is to try and hide shaking through avoidance or keeping hands out of sight, but this too will worsen the situation. Avoidance strategies like these reinforce the idea that we need to hide these symptoms and that revealing them could have negative consequences for us. They prevent us from finding out that, most of the time, revealing our anxiety will nearly always have no negative consequences for us and that doing so will prevent the anxiety from occurring in the first place.

Tension

Jerky uncoordinated movements resulting from anxious tension can cause social anxiety sufferers to find it difficult to move naturally. It can be harder for them to coordinate their movements and this can, in part, lead to them feeling self-conscious about the way they move. This increased self focus can then further interfere with coordination because it reduces their awareness of the space around them. For example, a suffer may be feeling self-conscious about how they are acting and then end up knocking over their drink. They become so distracted by their anxious thoughts that they are less aware of the objects around them and accidents are more likely to happen. An accident such as spilling a drink can feel very embarrassing for a social anxiety sufferer and this can mean more even anxiety and distress which can further interfere with they ability to function well in social situations.

As with shaking, often the very things we do to try and improve unnatural anxious movements tend to only serve to worsen them. Over the years I have heard many social anxiety sufferers report feeling self-conscious about the way they walk. They worry that other people think they are walking an odd way and have trouble moving naturally when other people are watching them.

This was also my experience, especially when walking in the streets around the general public. I used to worry that people would be making fun of the way I walked and would possibly laugh at me or think that I was odd. My strategy to deal with this at the time was a logical but unhelpful one. I used to make a conscious effort to walk more naturally. The problem was that natural movements come from unconscious behaviour, rather than conscious behaviour, and therefore rather than improving my walk, I only made my tense anxious movements even more uncoordinated and unnatural.

With all anxiety symptoms, including blushing, sweating, shaking and tension, they all disappear once the vicious cycles that keep them going are adequately broken and new ways to feel confident are learnt. In the product I am producing I will explain these vicious cycles in more detail and clearly show how to overcome them and gain that all important confidence.

Please note that shaking, muscle spasms and other physical symptoms mentioned in this article can be due to other medical conditions. If you are uncertain if your shaking relates to emotional states then you should seek the advice of a qualified medical practitioner.

How do anxiety symptoms such as shaking interfere with your life?