A short, clinician-led monologue offering a single, practical technique to reduce social anxiety: shift attention away from self-evaluative judgments and toward curiosity about others. Dr. Aziz explains the mechanism (self-focused evaluative attention drains energy and raises anxiety) and prescribes focusing on another person with genuine curiosity to improve connection and reduce anxiety.
Here's a surprisingly simple fix for social anxiety. There's one pattern I've seen in all the clients I've worked with over the years. When you're feeling social anxiety, you're doing two things. You're focusing heavily on yourself and an evaluative way in a judging and a determining if it's okay, good or bad kind of way. And when we do that, it drains our energy and our ability to actually focus on others and really connect with others. And so here I am looking at myself, either directly or through your eyes. I'm imagining you looking at me, judging me. And that kills my confidence. It skyrockets. It's anxiety. And so one of the simplest fixes for social anxiety is to get out of myself. That means focus on another person, be curious. What do I really want to know about them? And when I focus on that person, I'm not doing it in an evaluative way. Are they good or bad? It's more like, who are you?
