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Disclaimer: My content is NOT a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. When in doubt, ask a therapist!
You’re about to head out…
and your heartbeat starts to rise.
Rapidly.
It’s Mr. Anxiety knocking on your door.
“I knew you were gonna socialize. So I thought I’d say hi…”
Why does this happen?
The reason you get anxious before social events
We are biologically wired to be social: to communicate and cooperate with others, and to care about what people think about us.
And if you’re Asian, you might care even more: research on Asian American college students shows that they have higher social anxiety than non-Asian Americans, possibly due to concerns of “face loss” (negative impact on one’s social reputation).
But how does caring about what others think lead to higher social anxiety?
Because there’s a risk of being disliked or rejected, your brain scans for possible social threats, even if they are in the future.
This is known as anticipatory anxiety.
According to Sally M. Winston, PsyD, and Martin N. Seif, PhD, anticipatory anxiety is the anxiety you feel before a difficult situation or decision.
Dan W. Grupe and Jack B. Nitschke added:
"The human brain, it has been written, is an “anticipation machine, and ‘making future’ is the most important thing it does”.
The ability to use past experiences and information about our current state and environment to predict the future allows us to increase the odds of desired outcomes, while avoiding or bracing ourselves for future adversity.
This ability is directly related to our level of certainty regarding future events – how likely they are, when they will occur, and what they will be like. Uncertainty diminishes how efficiently and effectively we can prepare for the future, and thus contributes to anxiety."
If you’re more socially anxious than average, the anxiety is amplified. Here’s why:
How your brain changes during anticipatory anxiety
In a study, subjects with social anxiety disorder were instructed to give a two-minute speech. The experimenters also told them that the speech would be evaluated for fluency and eloquence.
While they waited to give the speech, fMRI scans revealed that their amygdala and insula went into overdrive.
The amygdala is highly involved in the processing of your emotions, while the insula helps you process sensations and associated emotions.
Even more interestingly, the ventral striatum — the part of the brain that’s responsible for reward and motivation — was deactivated.
Researchers suggested that these individuals did not perceive the upcoming speech as an opportunity but rather as a threat, amplifying their anticipatory anxiety.
👉 Recommended article: What happens to the brain during social anxiety?
How anticipatory anxiety maintains and worsens social anxiety
Anticipatory anxiety leads to anticipatory processing, which is a fancy way of saying that you will go into worry mode.
You might worry about any of the following and more…
- What might go wrong (and what the worst-case scenario might be)
- What others will think of you (usually negatively)
- How bad you will come across
- How you screwed up in previous situations
- How you can avoid the social situation
But isn’t worrying the logical thing to do? Worrying can certainly feel productive, but it turns out that the more you worry, the more anxious you become, according to research.
As David M. Clark, a leading anxiety researcher, wrote back in 1995:
‘‘As they start to think about the situation, they become anxious and their thoughts tend to be dominated by recollections of past failures, by negative images of themselves in the situation, and by other predictions of poor performance and rejection. Sometimes these ruminations lead the phobic to completely avoid the situation’’
Anticipatory anxiety can also lead to safety behaviors like excessive mental rehearsal.
How to cope with anticipatory anxiety
- Acknowledge your anxiety: It’s totally normal to feel anxious before a social situation. One relevant ACT technique is Say Yes.
- Accept your anxiety: Try accepting your experience as is. Acceptance can be much harder than acknowledgment, of course.
- Challenge the anxious thought: In other words, cognitive restructuring.
- Practice big sky meditation: By broadening your attention, you will be less trapped by your anxiety. Here are the meditation instructions
- Get a Pride Power-up: Take 5 minutes to write down a list of things that you’re proud of yourself and your life. Researchers found that pride was strongly negatively correlated with social anxiety.
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