Phone anxiety (telephobia) refers to physical symptoms a person experiences whenever their phone rings.
It’s a form of social anxiety disorder. Social anxiety disorder is a fear of social situations.
For many people with social anxiety, their preferred means of communication is through text messages because it eliminates awkward silence and the need to instantly think up something to say.
In work situations, there can be heightened stress to receive your bosses’ or coworkers call and that can also cause phone anxiety.
Here are four ways to know that you have phone anxiety and not that you generally hate calls:
- If you wonder, “What do I say?” “Am I saying the right thing?” and you constantly obsess over that and rehash the conversation.
- An increase in your heart rate, feeling your heart beating faster.
- Feeling nauseous and dizzy when a call is coming in.
- Feeling tense in your muscles.
How to get over it
With most mental health issues, cognitive behavioural therapy is usually the solution. This involves scrutinising your thoughts and feelings about certain things to let go of wrong notions about it.
In this case, realising there is nothing threatening about phone calls and just going ahead to pick it up is an easy solution. Another way to overcome this fear is to call people more.
