[dropcap]Have[/dropcap] you ever been in a situation like JD Thrope? She said in the article ¨9 Social Anxiety Symptoms That Are Actually Kind Of Darkly Funny¨ she says, “[Oh no, a] person I know is coming towards me on the street. I do not want to talk to them. I don’t know what to say. I can’t escape. Oh no oh no oh no. Wait, I can just escape by pretending I can’t see them! Strategically employed sneeze that means I can plausibly not notice them without being rude: GO.” Like JD Thorpe many people find that having a conversation is challenging, With social anxiety or any type of it, a lot of people have a problem with communication. If you have not been a similar case like JD you may think that anxiety is only something in their head.

Ok, you might think this is an overstatement, but lots of people, especially teens, have a hard time speaking in general, I can be a prime example. One time to avoid talking to someone in the halls I took a different path. This route took a minute and a half longer to get to my class. Another example is any time the cashier asks if I have a membership I just say no even though I do because it cuts ten seconds off of the conversation. At this point, it’s a problem, but I’m not the only one that experiences this. As in ¨Teens Are Feeling More Anxious Than Ever¨ by Laura Nott says that it “affect[s] 25 percent of all teens,” that is a good portion of today’s population. So why do teens feel like this? How do you help your anxiety?

by Graehawk CC0 Creative Commons

What makes communication difficult with anxiety

• Distracted thinking– You may be thinking right now that no matter how bad could this be. As The CalmClinc says in “How Anxiety Can Impair Communication“  Calm clinic claims that,” You may find yourself thinking anxious things, or find you overly focused on the way you feel, or find yourself stuck on a thought you’re trying to shake.”  When this happens to you, you feel like there is no point in you even trying in that conversation anymore because it feels useless. Often people think that that person is not listening or with my experience and that only makes it worse for the person your talking to.
• Overthinking- Overthinking is probably what most people are the most familiar with a because a broad spectrum of people suffers from it. But overthinking can go a lot deeper than, CalmClinic says in “Anxiety And Difficulty Speaking“,“The more they think about it, the more they have a hard time putting the words into sentences and sharing them out loud. ” With over thinking comes the fact that it is hard to think of something to say that wouldn’t offend the other person that you are talking to.
• Mouth Movements- Anxiety just doesn’t affect you mentally it also can affect you physically. As in “Anxiety And Difficulty Speaking” by the Calmclinic, state that it can “make it feel harder for you to move the muscles in your face” and that it can “cause some of the movements that you used to be natural to become unnatural, and some of the automatic movements to become more manual. “This means that anxiety can make talking feel unnatural. This also makes the movements we find to be normal become the hardest thing for people with anxiety to deal with.

How Does It Affect Teens

Copious amounts of teens have anxiety even if they look as though they are mentally collected. Every teen deals with anxiety a little differently, some shaking, others start crying, and/or others keep it to themselves. Well, many teens can talk for short amount of time but then it becomes extremely awkward. Many teens feel like it is a lot easier to talk online then to their friends face to face and/or call them.

This is what you would call social anxiety; social anxiety is when you have a hard time communicating with others. You would think this can’t be that big of a problem well it really is as Adaa.org says in their article “Social Anxiety Disorder” they say that around 15 million people in the U.S. have social anxiety but for most of them they developed it when they are about 13.

with our generation teens are always nerves or on edge because they have high expectation for themselves. This itself causes a lot of anxiety within teens, but with the added weight of conversations is only making things worst. While in a short amount of time a conversation takes can make a teen feel like the did everything wrong, even if all they said was hello.

How to help your anxiety

As I said earlier not everyone deals with anxiety the same, but here are some tips that have helped me out over the many years I have had anxiety.[perfectpullquote align=”right” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The only opinion that matters is your own.[/perfectpullquote]

• Talk about it to others- The best way to help with your anxiety is being able to talk about it. it may seem difficult but when you do I feels like a weight has been lifted from your shoulder.
• Brain Yelling- OK, this sounds a little weird but I work sometimes. In the article “How Anxiety Can Impair Communication” by calmclinic, they say that the purpose of it is to overpower the rest of your thoughts. This should help you focus more on what the other person is saying.
• Don’t Over Think- Telling someone to stop overthinking is a lot easier said than done, but by being nervous about saying dumb or silly you are making yourself look more nervous. It is a lot easier to just talk about what is going on than keeping it to yourself.
• Exercise- By exercising helps get all of that pent up anxious energy out of your system. It also can help clear up some of the troubles that you are having. It helps me a ton to just stop think about what I have said to people and just go for a walk or go on a run

I hope these tips help from one person with anxiety to another.

 Conclusion

For all of you teens that are struggling with anxiety, just breathe. This point of your life is just a small portion of life, there is so much more to experience than just anxiety. Life gets easier. don’t worry about what others think because, in the end, their opinions don’t matter. The only opinion that matters is your own. For people that don’t think that anxiety is a problem or that they think it is just something in that person’s head, as many parents think it is just an excuse to not talk to someone; you have no clue what is going on through their head at that time. Mental illness isn’t a choice and they are already having a hard time so just support them no matter what.

If you are having a hard time and just need to calm down here is a good song to help with it.

Featured image by johnhain || taken from pixabay