The Fear of Blushing and

Excessive Blushing

You can probably remember a time when you did not have the fear of blushing or the excessive blushing that now plagues your life.  You can be free again if you are willing to take the right steps.  And no, the right step is not to have a surgeon complete a sympathicotomy (the ETS surgery where they permanently disable your body’s fight or flight reaction in the upper body).  The fight or flight reaction (including blushing) is there for a reason, so don’t destroy it based on happy-sounding testimonials from people who haven’t learned to regret the decision yet.  There is nothing wrong with your physiology (or else you wouldn’t remember a time before excessive blushing).  The cause of your fear is an unconsciously mediated brain-response that became locked in place because of your intense dislike for embarrassing blushing episodes.  You can beat this, and I’d like to tell you how. 

I won’t go into the process by which your brain fell into this trap, because it takes too long to explain to someone who doesn’t already have a detailed understanding of brain anatomy and function.  I’ll cut straight to the chase.  Blushing happens in several different kinds of situations, but there is one commonality to all of those situations.  It may happen when you don’t want someone to know what you are thinking.  It may happen when you feel ashamed.  Or, it may happen when you feel a lot of anxiety.  But the one common factor that must be in place in all of these situations is that you are intensely aware of the fact that you are being observed. 

People with this particular symptom of social anxiety are prone to becoming very self-conscious about blushing because of mind-sight.  Mind-sight is a term psychologists use to describe a person’s ability to perceive how they look to others (the impression they are making).  At the root, shyness and social anxiety are caused by an overpowering desire to “do well socially,” or “make the right impression.”  It’s a personality trait that gives you a lot of advantages in life, except when it’s so strong that it begins to work against you (as with the fear of blushing).  Your mind-sight is overpowering, to the extent that you have difficulty turning it off.  You are so aware of being observed by others (even in a simple one-on-one conversation) that you react to your own thought about a possible blush coming on.  The fear of blushing is caused by your excessive desire to not blush. 

In simplistic terms, it all started with your strong aversion to a situation where you felt foolish for blushing.  From there, you began to “watch out for it,” using the same hyper-vigilance that you would use for an external threat (like a gazelle watches the bushes for signs of an immanent lion attack).  The problem is that with internal feelings and body reactions, our vigilant watch for signs of them coming ends up triggering the reactions that we fear.  As our focus tightens and the thought “Oh No! Not Now!” gets stronger, we have triggered both anxiety and the desire to hide what we are thinking from the person interacting with us.  This is the formula for the development of the fear of blushing. 

To break this pattern, you need a solid plan of action that includes training in a method that will unlock your brain’s automatic fear response.  That’s one of the many reasons I have put together the Social Anxiety Secrets system that you can read about by clicking the picture of the blue book at the upper right hand side of this web-page.  It’s a waste of your life and your time to play around with trial and error.  Get support here.    

Be Courageous!

Dr. Todd Snyder