How to Get Rid of Phone Anxiety

Phone phobia can be a constant problem for some that has anxiety making or getting calls from friends, family, a partner, or doing business with others. Here are different techniques to conquer your fear using a phone.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Write down your conversation on paper. If you believe you may fumble with your words and completely blank out the moment you are answering the person on the other end, consider writing a script. This works well when doing business on the phone as you knows exactly what to say. Make the script simple and to the point and eventually the conversation will flow from there.

2. Practice with people you know. One of the main problems with phone phobia is assuming you are bothering the caller. Family or friends who knows about your phobia will more likely understand so create an schedule at what time you will like to call and have the person agreed on it. This way, you can slowly lose the fear of believing you are bothersome. Continue doing this many times, you like and eventually calling people will become a breeze.

3. Relax before talking on a phone. Signs of phone phobia include nervousness, heart racing, worrying and over thinking how you will respond when calling. Try to do a five-minute mini 'mental' exercise, getting rid of negative thoughts of what will happen if you were to chat with the person on the other end. Also, take a deep breath to ease your mind and even imagine that the person you will be talking to will be pleasant.

4. Seek help. Phone phobia is part of social anxiety and there is plenty of help for those who want it. You can see a therapist that will help you with this issue and take action overcoming phone anxiety.

5. Get a phone-related job. One of the best ways to end phone anxiety is challenging yourself by finding a job that requires calling people or picking up the phone for hours. There are plenty of job positions, like a customer service, representative administrative assistant or even a telemarketer as these jobs focus is talking to other people. Doing this everyday may get you more comfortable using the phone.

6. Push yourself calling strangers. Find businesses to call where you only have to say a few short words. The best ones are ordering pizza, calling a bookstore to find out if they sell a certain book, making a doctor appointment or even phoning a store to find out when they will close. When doing this, keep in mind you are one of the few hundreds of people they are getting calls from all day and everyday.

[Rachellewms]

on 4/12/2009 I never knew about phone anxiety....I thought all humans became well adjusted to phone usage during their teen years...who knew? Thanks for posting :)