If you tell yourself that you want to overcome social anxiety but don’t take concrete action, then the problem is going to persist. Many students are busy with assignments and other tasks, but in order to make improvements, they have to find a way to incorporate exposure practice into their schedule. Think of it as like exercising. Nobody gets in shape if they keep putting off exercising. Similar to exercising, exposure practice should ideally take place several times a week.

After the initial surge of anxiety, the longer you stay in an exposure situation, the lower your anxiety will become. You will also start to realise that many of the feared outcomes don’t eventuate. For this reason, longer exposures are typically better than shorter ones. Suppose you are afraid of going to a party. Instead of leaving after a short time, instead stay longer so your anxiety subsides, and you have a chance to start feeling more comfortable.

Exposure is more effective if the practices are close together. For example, if you fear asking a question in class, don’t just ask a question once per month. Try to ask a question every week. Obviously, if your feared situation is parties, and you are starting from a point of a limited number of friends, then you might not get invited to a party every week or even every month. In this case, you need to try and find situations that are similar to the social conditions at a party such as those that involve making small talk. This could be done by joining university clubs and societies or other groups in the community that meet on a regular basis and offer the opportunity for casual conversation.

For students, it may be possible to incorporate exposure practice into their daily routine. Although universities often have environments that make it hard to find friends, there are still many opportunities for superficial social interactions. These could take place in halls of residence, the university gym, the classroom, or other locations. Every person has some unique aspects to their social anxiety. But as a general principle, the more combinations of situations and people you can use for practice, the more progress can be made.

Set goals for exposure practice that are realistic, measurable and under your control. It might be tempting to set a goal like "complete presentation without feeling anxious". While anxiety levels will tend to decrease over time, it is not realistic to eliminate them as a short-term goal. Even confident extroverts still can feel a bit anxious when giving a presentation. Instead, focus on trying to accomplish what you want to achieve in a situation such as "complete presentation while keeping anxiety under control".

Situational Role-playing is a useful technique. This means using a friend or family member to practice being in a particular situation. For instance, if you have to give a speech in class, practice giving it in front of your friend. Your friend can give you feedback on the speech or any behaviours that might be distracting from your message. The friend can also ask questions similar to those that an audience member might ask.

While perhaps not as effective as some other exposure techniques, it is sometimes useful to use imagined exposure. As you might anticipate, this involves imagining some aspects of the situation. In the case of making a public speech, you could imagine yourself standing in front of an audience while reading your speech out loud. You might think about what your emotions and thoughts are and how you will respond to them. What is the audience doing? What sounds are coming from the audience such as people coughing, rustling papers and so on. Imagine yourself successfully giving a speech. You can even imagine some minor issues such as someone asking a question you don’t know the answer too. In that situation it is fine to answer something like, "I’m not 100% sure, but I’ll get back to you on that".

Be realistic about what will happen during exposure practices. You are going to feel a bit uncomfortable and things won’t always go according to plan. However, you can learn from what happens and use that to create improved plans for future exposure practices and to build additional strategies for dealing with various scenarios. Use the cognitive techniques to cope with any unhelpful thoughts that occur.

Remember that although anxiety will make you feel a bit uncomfortable, it will subside over time and isn’t dangerous. On rare occasions something you feared might actually happen. Someone might criticise you, or respond in an unfriendly manner. Someone might laugh at a mistake you’ve made or make a sarcastic remark. It’s part of life that this type of thing will sometimes happen. Everybody else will quickly forget about it, they are busy worrying about their own problems.

Rumination is the repetitive thinking or dwelling on negative feelings and experiences. It’s common for those with social anxiety to ruminate on social situations that they perceive didn’t go well, but this can create a neverending cycle of negative thoughts and heighten anxiety in the future.

As mentioned, cognitive strategies are an integrated part of exposure. This means using the cognitive restructuring techniques prior to each exposure to help develop rational responses to any maladaptive automatic thoughts that occur.

After the exposure practice, it’s helpful to review what happened and whether you achieved your goal. What automatic thoughts occurred, were there any you hadn’t noticed before? Do you need to apply cognitive restructuring to them? Was there anything that didn’t quite go to plan that you can work on for next time? Did your fears about the situation occur, or was it not as bad as you anticipated?

Be careful of thinking errors like disqualifying the positive. You might focus on negative aspects rather than your positive achievements. Sometimes you might be feeling discouraged, embarrassed, or experiencing other negative thoughts. For those with social anxiety, focusing on a few negative aspects of the situation is quite common, but unhelpful. This is because it discourages you from trying future similar social interactions.

Now it is time to start thinking about the next exposure. Remember, it is better to make slow and steady progress rather than tackle something too challenging and be overwhelmed by anxiety.

The university environment provides a lot of opportunities for situational exposure. This can range from making small talk to public speaking. Many students skip any tutorial, workshop or other class that isn’t compulsory. Instead of doing this, go to all of them and take advantage of the situational exposure opportunities that arise.

In addition, there are often clubs and societies that can be joined. You might even build up to getting involved in the committee or other organisational activities for a club. If the university doesn’t offer clubs that look appealing, search for other ones in the community. Another opportunity is voluntary workshops and seminars offered by the university on topics such as academic skills. Although some universities have moved these kind of support services solely online, others continue to offer them in a mix of in person and online formats.

Don’t be afraid to join a club or activity you don’t even really care about. If you make some mistakes, it won’t matter since there’s nobody you are trying to impress. By getting exposure in less threatening situations, you can practice behavioural skills. This leaves you prepared for later higher stakes situations.

A common fear is speaking in public. This fear can involve a range of activities from asking a question in a tutorial to making a presentation in front of a large group. Basically any situation that involves having to articulate your thoughts in front of a group and being the centre of attention can be considered public speaking.

Fortunately, the university environment offers numerous ways to practice public speaking and implement an exposure practice plan. This could involve starting by asking questions in class and then building up to taking an organisational role in a club where you need to speak in front of a group. Since some group projects may involve presenting in front of a class, you could volunteer to take on the role of lead presenter if you feel it is something you can handle. Though if you are still at an early stage of your journey of coping with social anxiety don’t overwhelm yourself.

This is another skill that many students want to develop but feel anxious about. Just like with public speaking, university offers an abundance of opportunities for small talk. Go to every tutorial or workshop even if it is voluntary. Greet the people in your vicinity as they turn up. Ask the people sitting nearby about their experience with the course, upcoming assignments, impressions of a test etc. Obviously not everyone is chatty and expect some will not want to talk. They might even have social anxiety themselves. But you will probably find some classmates who are happy to talk and especially share any issues they are having at university.

Take every opportunity to make small talk with your peers. Even just greeting people and not saying anything else is an important first step. As mentioned previously, join up with various clubs and societies and use them to practice small talk.

The obvious challenge for many students, especially those doing demanding degrees, is to find enough time to for situational exposure on top of other commitments. This means it is critical to find ways to combine situational exposure with university work. One option is meeting for lunch to discuss an assignment or organising a study group where you can work together on exam preparation or assignments (without violating academic integrity rules). If you propose such a meeting to your classmates, and they look uncomfortable or make an excuse, don’t take it personally. Just move on. There are numerous reasons why someone might not want to meet, many of which have nothing to do with you.

If you are living in university halls of residence, strike up conversations with other people you see. Ask them about what they are studying, where they are from, what their interests are, and so on.

Many students want to find a part-time job but are terrified when it comes to interviews. Get your friend or family member to help you practice by taking on the role of interviewer. They can point out areas for improvement. As you get better at interviews, they can take on the role of a tough and more hostile interviewer. It’s a good idea to research what type of questions are commonly asked in interviews. These days, behavioural interviews seem popular, but be prepared for a broad range of questions.

If the actual interview was unsuccessful, tell yourself it was just practice for the next one. Also console yourself that there are really no dream part-time jobs and there is a reasonable chance the job was terrible anyway. Applying for jobs and going to interviews is often a numbers game. All other things being equal, the more jobs you apply for, the more interviews you will get, and the more interviews you get, the more offers you will receive.

Every person is facing their own unique challenges. But here is a plan for a student who is uncomfortable making small talk and how they can plan situational exposure over a semester.

Some universities may have clubs dedicated to public speaking or some activity that involves public speaking like debating. They are worth considering depending on your level of anxiety. For those with higher levels of anxiety, it might be preferable to leave those to later semesters depending on how quickly you can make progress.

You may remember Jasmine from the previous chapter, she has been attending her university fashion club for a while. Next week they are having a "fashion show" where each person needs to create a new spring look and model their selection. The fashion club has been going well, but Jasmine is very nervous about presenting her look in front of everyone. Jasmine prepares for the fashion club by first practicing in front of a small group consisting of her flatmate and her friend Kayla from the fashion club. Jasmine doesn’t even need to explain to them all the details about this being an exposure situation, instead she can just ask them to help her prepare.

Jasmine sets a goal of going through each item she has selected for her spring look, saying something about each item individually, and then about the whole look she has chosen.

Exposure is a critical strategy for reducing social anxiety. A general principle is to tackle increasingly difficult situations over time. Before each situation use the process of cognitive restructuring and develop rational responses. Eventually, your progress on addressing anxiety will generalise to other situations. You will feel less anxious despite not having explicitly prepared for those situations. It might seem like the process is a lot of work, and it could be tempting to skip over some steps, but a slow and steady approach usually pays off in the long run.