|
It may sounds surprising, but many people suffer from such excessive blushing that it has become a major source of anxiety for them in their lives, which often pushes them into long term therapy, or even longer term prescribed drugs, or even longer term (like forever) surgical procedures. They may also begin to identify with the condition and to refer to themselves as suffering from such (new) conditions as “social phobia” or, even more worrying, become identified with the role of being a “social phobic”.
It all seems a bit over the top when blushing is actually (a) a natural reaction in human beings (and maybe animals too, who knows!), produced by the autonomic nervous system (which means it has a reason to be there); and (b) a learned reaction and, therefore, can be unlearned. Some say that blushing in women is a natural response when in the presence of a man; showing him her sense of modesty and therefore her suitability as a mate. Hmmm!?
Some symptoms of excessive blushing are:
-
Extreme and often frequent blushing
-
Intense sensation of heat in face and neck
-
Blotchiness in face and neck
-
Redness in face and neck
-
Feelings of shame, embarrassment, stress or guilt
-
Avoidance of making eye contact
-
Avoidance or extreme stress about meeting people
Some various ways used to "Treat" excessive blushing seem to be:
-
Cognative Behavioural Therapy, which changes the ways of thinking and feeling about blushing and about social situations
-
Alcohol!!?? - which in menopause actually makes the symptoms worse
-
Drugs - anti-anxiety drugs, anti depressants, beta-blockers etc
-
Minerals, herbs, amino acids etc
-
Surgery - a sympathectomy (ETS). This is as drastic as it sounds; general anaesthetic to sever the facial nerves and blood vessels, which minimizes the effects of excessive sympathetic activity (the sympathetic nervous system is the fight/flight (stress) response bit of our nervous system.
-
Hypnotherapy / Neurolinguistics - the first re-patterns learned responses and Neurolinguistics can train the brain / imagination to expect something or not. (click here for page link)
-
Talk Therapies
-
Some inner dialogue a sufferer may engage in is:
-
Am I blushing?
-
Am I blushing again?
-
What if I blush?
-
If I do that it will cause me to blush
-
If I say that it will cause me to blush
-
If I go there it will cause me to blush
-
Can they see I am blushing
-
I am sure they can see I am blushing
-
Do they know what I am thinking
-
Do they know...?
-
Do they think?
It is often not a complex matter: the main difference between someone who blushes excessively and someone who blushes “normally” now and again, is that the former expects to blush, the latter does not. Expectation leads to learned behaviour: it is not necessarily the case the person needs long term therapy or even longer term surgery: they may just need to learn something different as far as blushing is concerned.
The Stress Response, or Fight/flight response as it is also known, is a natural response our bodies make when we are under any kind of stress. That stress could be that we are about to be chased by some dangerous animal, it is also “switched on” when our sense of self is threatened emotionally in any way by ordinary everyday life situations, by unpleasant memories, or by anxiety about the future. It is something our body/mind learns to switch on if the switch is constantly on. It is also something we can sometimes learn to switch off too.
Gill Eardley
Life You Choose
Specialising in Anxiety in Women
00 34 952 030 927
For contact form page click here |
