Alternative Therapies for Social Anxiety Disorder

Anxiety, of any type, can lead to a decrease in quality of life by adversely affecting our social networks, our physical health, and even impact our work and career paths. If you are living with social anxiety, there is no doubt you understand the impact this form of anxiety has on your career and, ultimately, this is adversely affecting your finances. It is important, therefore, that patients living with this mental health complication consider the options for alternative therapies (Markway 23).

Why Choose Alternative Therapies?
In the treatment of many physical and emotional health disorders, the use of alternative therapies is becoming increasingly more common for consideration. While alternative therapies can not, usually, be used as a sole cure for a condition, they can be used to alleviate symptoms and, ultimately, aid in the overall healing process. For patients with a mental health ailment that affects many levels of their lifestyle, these alternative therapies may hold the key to improving medication and traditional psychotherapy outcomes.

Timing of Anxiety
Social anxiety, unlike other forms of anxiety, is a form of mental health complication that does not affect us when we are alone. Instead, this form of mental health complication impairs our ability to engage in communication with other individuals, especially when in a large group setting (Markway 112-113). While medications and psychotherapy can work to mitigate our response to social settings and the onset of social anxiety, we often need alternative therapies to further overcome the symptoms in the short term.

Most Effective Therapies
When considering your options for treatment of social anxiety, you'll want to consider the alternative therapies that are most effective for this line of anxiety. Acupuncture, typically, is not effective as it does not expose us to the situations in which social anxiety may arise. Instead, consider using hypnotherapy, guided imagery, and even aromatherapy as these alternative therapies will help to reduce our response by engaging our minds in thinking about the social settings we are frightened of.

As with any form of alternative therapy, and when seeking out more traditional mental health care, always be sure to speak with your psychiatrist or psychologist about what types of alternative therapy you should consider. What works for one patient may not work well with another individual who has social anxiety complications and, as a result, your doctor should provide guidance. By combining the traditional care with the right alternative therapies, most individuals with social anxiety can overcome the complication more quickly.

Sources:
Markway, Barbara. Dying of Embarrassment. New Harbinger Publications. 1992. Print.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/12/idUS14302+12-Apr-2011+PRN20110412
http://www.apa.org/topics/sleep/why.aspx