Your mind goes blank when your manager asks for your view. You rehearse a two-minute update for an hour and let calls ring out. If ordinary parts of work feel like being tested in public, here’s why, and what helps.
Social anxiety at work is an intense, lasting fear of being judged when you speak in meetings, present, make calls or talk to senior colleagues. It’s a treatable condition, not shyness. CBT designed for social anxiety works best, and many habits that feel protective keep the fear going.
More than nerves
Most people feel nervous before a presentation. Social anxiety disorder is different: the fear of being judged is intense, it keeps coming back in the same situations, it has lasted for months, and it gets in the way of your work or life. At work, it often shows up as dread of:
- speaking in meetings, even for a short update
- talking to managers, directors or clients
- presenting, or being called on without warning
- phone and video calls
- small talk, office lunches and parties
The fear is usually of looking anxious (blushing, sweating, shaking) or of seeming boring, stupid or bad at your job.
It isn’t the same as shyness or introversion. In a large US survey of teenagers, only about 1 in 8 of those who called themselves shy had social anxiety disorder, and those who did were more held back by it. If you’re not sure, our free social anxiety test is a starting point, not a diagnosis.
How common it is, and what it costs
In World Health Organization surveys across 28 countries, about 4 in 100 adults had social anxiety disorder at some point in their lives. It usually starts in the teenage years, so for most people it began long before their first job. Nigerian lifetime figures range from 0.2% of adults in a 2002–03 national survey to 9.4% of students at the University of Ibadan. The studies looked at different groups, and there’s no reliable national figure today.
Research, mostly from the US, Canada and Europe, links social anxiety disorder to lower pay (about 10% lower in one US study), fewer professional and managerial jobs, more unemployment, and about 25 days a year when people couldn’t work or do their usual activities. Often the cost is quieter: the idea you kept to yourself, the client meeting you handed to a colleague.
The habits that keep it going
When you’re anxious, you protect yourself. Psychologists call these habits safety behaviours, and they’re a main reason social anxiety lasts. At work they look like:
- reading from a word-for-word script, or rehearsing your line while others talk
- saying as little as possible, or keeping your camera off
- speaking fast to get it over with
- checking over and over how you’re coming across
- replaying the meeting for hours afterwards
They backfire. They stop you learning that what you fear doesn’t happen, because you credit the script, not yourself. They turn your attention inward, so you follow the conversation less. And in one experiment, when people with social anxiety dropped them in conversation, the people they talked to responded more warmly. That’s why “just push through it” often fails: you can sit through meeting after meeting without the fear shrinking while the habits stay in place.
One caution. In many Nigerian settings, lowering your eyes with a senior colleague or an elder is respect, not a symptom. And where speaking up can get you victimised, keeping quiet can be a sensible choice. The question is whether fear, rather than judgement, is making the decision, and whether it’s costing you.
Suggested read: Social Anxiety at Parties and Owambes
In meetings
- Set one small goal, such as one question or comment in the first 15 minutes. The longer you wait and rehearse, the louder the dread tends to get.
- Listen outward. Put your attention on what people are saying. When you notice yourself checking your face or voice, bring it back to the speaker.
- Drop one safety behaviour at a time. Make your point without the script, or turn your camera on. Note what you expected, then what actually happened.
- Skip the post-mortem. When you catch yourself replaying the meeting, note one thing that went fine and move on.
It also helps to know that people overestimate how much others notice what they say in group discussions. The spotlight is dimmer than it feels. If it’s the boss who makes you freeze, our guide to saying no at work has wording that suits Nigerian offices.
Presentations
- Prepare the content, not a performance. Knowing your material helps. A script read word for word, or an opening rehearsed dozens of times, is a safety behaviour, and in small studies anxious rehearsal before a speech made people more anxious during it. Prepare your points, do a run-through, then stop.
- You look calmer than you feel. When people with social anxiety watched videos of themselves speaking, more than 9 in 10 said they came across better than they’d expected.
- Call it excitement if that helps. Telling yourself you’re excited, rather than trying to calm down, gave a small boost in experiments. It’s a useful trick, not a treatment.
- Medicine is a doctor’s decision. Some people are prescribed medicine for a racing heart and shaking before a one-off presentation, but guidelines disagree and the evidence is thin. Don’t borrow a colleague’s tablets or buy something over the counter.
If nerves only show up for big one-off performances, our stage fright tips may be all you need.
Calls, small talk and reviews
- Calls: start with short, low-stakes ones and build up. It’s fine to agree a quick message before a call.
- Small talk: ask questions and listen to the answers. Go easy on the drink at work events. Alcohol is a common way to cope with social anxiety, and it can become a problem of its own. Our guide to alcohol addiction in Nigeria covers the signs.
- Reviews: ask for the agenda in advance. If praise makes you squirm, write it down and read it again later.
Treatment that works
The treatment with the strongest evidence is one-to-one cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) designed for social anxiety, which the UK’s NICE guideline recommends first. It usually runs over about four months and works on the habits above. In one trial, 84% of people who had this kind of cognitive therapy no longer had the disorder at the end, compared with 42% after exposure and relaxation training. In another, therapist-guided online cognitive therapy did as well as face-to-face sessions.
If you’d rather not have therapy, or it hasn’t helped enough, a doctor can talk you through medicine, usually a type of antidepressant. Don’t wait for it to pass: in adults, social anxiety often lasts without treatment.
Telling your employer, and your rights
Whether to tell anyone at work is up to you, and you can ask for what helps without naming a diagnosis. Changes that often help and cost little:
- the agenda before meetings, and notice before you’re asked to present
- the option to follow up in writing
- notice of one-to-one meetings with your manager
- time off for therapy
- a gradual build-up to presenting or client work while you’re in treatment
Treat these as a bridge while you get treatment, not a way to avoid presenting forever.
In Nigeria, section 13 of the National Mental Health Act 2021 gives people with mental health conditions equal access to work and equal pay. An employer can’t dismiss you or cut your benefits merely because of a past or present mental health condition, or while you’re in treatment. If it has reasonable cause to believe a condition is serious enough to affect your work, it must help you seek medical advice or treatment. There’s no clear Nigerian duty to make workplace adjustments, as there is in the UK, so asking is a conversation, not a demand. If you think you’ve been treated unfairly, get legal advice.
Getting help
You can find a therapist who works with anxiety, or one who focuses on work and career, by video, voice or chat. Read more about social anxiety and anxiety, or look up social anxiety disorder in our glossary.
Frequently asked questions
Is social anxiety at work just shyness?
No. Social anxiety disorder is an intense, lasting fear of being judged that makes you avoid situations or get through them with dread, and it gets in the way of your work or life.
How do I speak up in meetings when I have social anxiety?
Set one small goal, such as one comment early on. Listen to what others are saying rather than watching yourself, and drop one safety habit at a time, like reading from a script.
Suggested read: Vaping, Nicotine and Your Mood
Should I tell my manager about my social anxiety?
It’s your choice. You can ask for what helps, such as notice before presenting, without naming a diagnosis. Nigerian law bars dismissing someone merely because of a mental health condition.
Does social anxiety go away on its own?
In adults it often doesn’t. CBT designed for social anxiety has the best track record, and therapist-guided online versions have done as well as face-to-face sessions in trials.
Can I take something to calm my nerves before a presentation?
Talk to a doctor. Guidelines disagree about medicine for presentation nerves and the evidence is thin. Don’t borrow tablets or use alcohol to get through it.
This article is awaiting clinical review. It’s based on published research and health guidelines, and we’ll update it once a clinician has reviewed it.
