10/01/2018

Five Books You Should Read If You Have Social Anxiety

There are a number of things the socially anxious can do to reduce their anxiety

For people with social anxiety, interacting with other people — a necessary part of most people’s daily lives — can be fraught, and even terrifying. The socially anxious live in near-constant fear of overstepping imagined social boundaries, and often spend way too much time imagining the social consequences of that one slightly weird thing they said. Not that I would know anything about that.

Studies have found that there are a number of things the socially anxious can do to reduce their anxiety, including seeking out ways to be kind to others, playing video games, talk therapy and exposure therapy, specifically in the form of embarrassing oneself in public, and watching as the world (and one’s life) does not fall apart. Sometimes, too, it’s nice just to witness someone else going through what you do, which is where a few of the following book recommendations come in.

Because here is one good thing about being socially anxious: plenty of time to read. Whether you’re trying to move past your social anxiety, or just make peace with it, here are five books (fiction and non-fiction) you might want to add to your list.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The Cut.