Social anxiety disorder is a kind of anxiety people feel when they have excessive self-consciousness in the arena of everyday life. Those who have social anxiety disorder have serious problems carrying out simple tasks in a social settingbecause they have an over whelming and intense feeling that people are watchingtheir every move, scrutinizing everything they do.

History of social anxiety disorder

There hasbeen literary descriptions depicting signs of social anxiety disorder sincefour hundred years BC but it was not called social anxiety disorder until theearly 1900’s. When it was first named there was a lot of research carried outto fully understand the condition, over time this faded to the point that itwas largely ignored in the mid 1980’s, by 1989 there was a revival and theliteracy surrounding the condition was revised.

Current research

There was abelief that those who are shy have a tendency to suffer with social anxietydisorder than any one else, although being shy is not a personality trait thatfits into the criteria of having a social anxiety disorder.

The affects on those who suffer

Those whodo suffer will likely have physical symptoms that others may notice such asblushing, excessive sweating, stammering, and feelings of sickness, tremblingamong others.

Any onediagnosed with social anxiety disorder can suffer greatly in their day-to-daylife as the condition can cause great distress and change their daily life foras long as they cannot control the condition.

In extremecases people have been known to become reclusive, as they cannot face thesocial settings being in the outside world brings. In these cases the suffererwill only manage to be around those that they and trust and know very well suchas family members and very close friends.

Treatments available

Followingother anxiety disorders and depression, social anxiety disorder usesanti-depressant medication to suppress the feelings of anxiety a sufferer has.There has been a lot of talk around these medications because a lot of them canbe addictive when used long term.

There arenew medications coming on to the market for social anxiety disorder, thesemedications have been created solely for their non-addictive side affects.

Summary

Socialanxiety may sound very far fetched but it is more rife than we think, there aremany aspects of social anxiety disorder in every one of us, this comes in theform of people who are afraid of speaking in public, eating in front of othersand being in formal situations like a job interview.

For thosewho do suffer with social anxiety disorder, life can be very difficult as manypeople will not be able to understand what they are going through and not besupportive.

If a familymember or a close friend is suffering with social anxiety disorder and they arestill letting you into their lives then it means that they feel they can trustyou implicitly. In this instance you are in a very good position to try andhelp them in any way possible, this may be just putting them at ease andtalking to them about the issues they are feeling.