Wearing a face mask has become second nature for many people during the pandemic. But as states lift mask mandates and more people get fully vaccinated for Covid, you might find that going mask-less in public and transitioning back to “normal” makes you feel out of place or even a little awkward.
Social anxiety is characterized by an intense, persistent fear of being watched and judged by others, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. People with social anxiety tend to be really worried about behaving in ways that conform to social norms.
Coming out of the pandemic, we may notice that our anxiety level about interacting with people is a bit higher than normal. For example, you might feel like your social skills are rusty or you might feel self-conscious about being around other people and without masks. People with social anxiety may experience renewed fear and anxiety about behaving awkwardly or inappropriately.
For people who struggle with social anxiety, having a break from social obligations and showing your face in public might have felt comforting. Beyond a face mask’s purpose for containing Covid, wearing a mask almost serves as a security blanket that relieves some of the social pressures that come with social anxiety.
Being stuck at home and isolated from others mimics avoidance, which is a common coping mechanism for anxiety. Avoidance and anxiety tend to go hand in hand, though if we avoid the things that make us anxious, it may feel like a relief in the short term but can lead to more anxiety in the long term. And if we feel more and more anxious, we are going to find it harder and harder to get over that avoidance.
Though it might be uncomfortable at first, many psychologists suggest that you push yourself to participate in social situations as much as possible rather than continue to avoid them. Try to catch yourself when you’re choosing to avoid a situation and interrupt the pattern of anxiety.
Pattern Interrupts
You can think of having an anxiety attack as being stuck in a loop, or a pattern. If you are able to break that pattern, your mind has a difficult time finding its way back into the anxiety loop.
A pattern interrupt is a way of changing a person’s mental, emotional, or behavioral state or strategy. Imagine someone clapping their hands very loudly in the middle of your sentence and being so surprised by the noise that you forget what you’re saying. Your mind fell off track, and couldn’t find it’s way back right away - leaving some space where you can choose to change direction.
A person can learn to create their own pattern interrupts easily, and once they are learned, they can become automatic.
Step 1: What's the Pattern?
Here is where you can start to look at what the specific pattern of anxiety is. Think about what triggers your feelings of anxiety. Is it a physical thing, like pain or shortness of breath? Or is it a thought, like fears or worries? Identifying these triggers allows you to recognize what’s happening and lets you feel more in control..
Step 2: Where Does It Derail You?
Here is where you can try to pinpoint the moment when you get thrown off. This is the moment when you may feel like you don’t have control over what’s happening, when the autopilot takes over and you are just along for the ride. And this is the point where you can introduce a new behavior, to interrupt the pattern.
Step 3: Create an Interrupt to Break Out of Your Old Pattern
Once you’ve got an idea of at what point things go sideways, you can begin to install a new behavior. What can you do in that moment that is different from what you have done in the past? You can choose almost anything, like reciting a short nursery rhyme, singing a song, standing up, walking backwards, doing multiplication tables in your head, clapping your hands. You get the idea.
Step 4: Implement It
The next step is to practice as often as possible. Close your eyes and take a few deep abdominal breaths and let yourself remember some of those past times when you experienced anxiety, but this time, play them through in a slightly different way. Play those memories like a movie clip in your mind, and when you reach that moment when things get derailed, add in your pattern interrupt. Let yourself imagine that you are using your pattern interrupt and seeing how quickly and easily you are able to calm down.
This method allows your mind to see a new option with a more desirable outcome, and the more you practice it, the better you get at it, until you are using your pattern interrupt automatically.🍥