Whenever I am in a social situation I feel like I get much dumber than I actually am. I used to think I was just dumb but Ive proved to myself on multiple occasions that I am capable of fluid intelligent conversation, but those are the exception to the rule. Ive come to the conclusion that when I am nervous or anxious in even the slightest bit, my cognitive ability is going to go down, and that is like 80% of the time I socialize.
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Don’t know a solution for you but I can relate
practice makes man perfect.
It’s because your brain focuses on being anxious, over the part of your brain responsible for communication. It’s not that you’re getting dumber, it’s more that your brain goes into ‘survival’ mode when it gets anxious.
As for fixing it, it’s hard to give a solution, just accept you’re not going to be in flowing conversations all the time, there will be awkward moments and that’s ok, just push through and try to get used to talking.
Man I go through this too! Especially when I get upset. Omg I feel like my brain just stops working when I get upset in public.
Anxiety
It’s that so relatable moment when you’re not stupid, you’re just overwhelmed and possibly panicking. 100% I get this same thing any time I’m having an important or emotional conversation with friends. It helps to deliberately keep track of what they’re saying and what I want to say in my head. But honestly it’s just practice makes perfect. Best of luck.
My tip would be slow down, and focus on listening. 9/10 times when I get the dumb feeling you are describing is because I am trying to think ahead of the conversation, and end up responding in a “rushed” manner. A conversation isn’t something you can figure out, it is something that happens spontaneously. Don’t think of what to say, let the thoughts come to you.
when you have anxiety your brain is flooded with stress hormones, which inhibits the “witty” part of your brain.
get rid of the anxiety
I absolutely get this, and actually thinking “my brain makes me stupider while in conversation!” Makes it worse. It’s because you’re over analyzing what you’re about to say. You just need practice.
My pastor is like this. The guy has a freaking phd, and I’ve read some stuff he’s written. He’s wicked smart. But he has a ton of social struggles stemming from some general quirkiness but mostly anxiety. He has difficulty completing sentences, finding words and phrases to describe his thoughts and emotions, facial expressions. But he has worked on it so much, and it is so clear that behind the awkward phrasings, he is an intelligent and caring man.
Like someone else said, practice makes perfect. I have been a Practice Convo Human for a friend with diagnosed social anxiety.
anxiety makes me feel that way as well :/
I completely relate. I’ve learned that when I have anxiety my brain is processing too much information. In certain social situations I forget things shortly after a conversation, I’ll be slow to respond, or I can’t think as sharply as I normally would.
I’ve learned to look away from someone when I’m thinking or talking which helps me focus more on what I’m hearing. It might seem somewhat rude but I still show I’m actively listening.
Brain turns off prefrontal cortex activity and starts running more on the reptilian amygdala during stressful situations, so you might literally be losing IQ points in situations that make you really nervous.
This happens to me too! How I manage it is not to care about what people will think or say about me. This improves it a lot. Though if I persist in that social situation for too long my upper lips will start twitching.
Me too.
I will say as someone who definitely related to what you’re expressing to a t a few years ago, it really does get better with more practice. Sure I messed up a lot in the beginning and still mess up at times today. But the more I put myself out there, the easier each next interaction became. Now I can easily strike up conversations with any stranger. That’s actually how I met my best friend in uni.
Best of luck to you, OP. And remember that people are much more interested in themselves and most likely won’t remember your social mistakes in the past (that we often obsess over)!
Usually it takes a bit of Jaegar for me to do that.
You’re speedrunning it huh
this may be more common than you think, but to different extents to different individuals. Evident from the comments that people can relate too. How are you dealing with it?
People with an IQ of 100 will put people with an IQ below 70 in a mental institution. People with an IQ of 130 will consider people with an IQ below 100 to be fit for a mental institution. Except now that’s half of all people.
Perfect no one likes people smarter than them.
I’ve only stared therapy for my social anxiety very recently, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Something that works for me, and what my therapist says should work for most if not all, is to NOT focus on yourself at all. Whenever I hold a conversation, I like to plan ahead and think what I’m going to say, and I will focus on what my body is doing, like my heartbeat raising or that I’m sweating or something. This focus you lay on yourself actually is super counterproductive! If you don’t fucus as much on yourself and DONT plan ahead, conversations end up being so much easier and you’ll be able to speak a lot more easily without getting that ‘oh no, I am being stupid’ thought stuck in your head.
So now, whenever I notice myself trying to already plan ahead of what I’m going to say next, I don’t allow myself to do it by either only repeating in my head what the other said, or if it’s me preparing a conversation in my head, only repeating ‘I’m not preparing this’ to myself. Making up what to say in the moment really made a big difference to me, so maybe it will also have a good effect for you!
A trick I use for being anxious is to tense up all your muscles then let go. Send silly, but the reason it works is because stress is a response to outside dangers and for most of our evolutionary history, we’ve been dealing with outside threats, clenching your muscles then releasing makes your body think you’ve dealt with the stresser (by either running out beating it) and will calm down. I’ve tried this in many situations that weren’t social settings, and worked for me. I hope it helps you!
That’s more due to anxiety which makes you double check or doubt everything. This makes your brain think unnecessarily harder on simple tasks.
I used to get the same all the time. I only realised this in my mid 20s that I should be taking my life easier. Everyone around me is just going with the flow too. Wish someone told me this in childhood, my life would have been easier.
Metaphorically speaking your Brain CPU is overloading. Learn to optimise/remove some processes, or apps that are not contributing anything to you (e.g negative thoughts, overthinking) that’s why you feel dumb because you have anxiety from overthinking. Don’t worry and let go of things
I have the same problem! People will ask me how my weekend was at work and I will forget what I did as an example. But yeah When I’m with close friends I have no problem yammering on about whatever but with acquaintances I will forget all good things to talk about.
For me it’s anxiety plus lack of active listening skills. Officially bipolar II, but I swear I also have undiagnosed ADHD.
That’s because your mind is preocuppied with social anxiety. If you’ve ever wondered why you seem “smarter” after a few drinks it’s because you don’t have that stress of social anxiety weighing you down nearly as much.
If you think of your mind like computer software, social anxiety is like an energy heavy mostly useless app running in the background. You have to delete the app from running in order to speed up your processing speed and so you can think clearer and respond better.
So you have to learn to be more present to remove or at least significantly reduce any social anxiety, whether through practicing meditation or some form of mindfulness practice daily.
I recommend “meditation a 28 day program by sharon salzberg”, there’s an audible version if you don’t like reading.