The return to school and social situations after a long period of awayness can be scary a lot of the time. For many of us, amidst all the joy of being reunited with friends, there's the anxiety that comes with being in these social situations. In this episode, Adya and Matthew cover how the brain deals with social isolation, the post-COVID (and summer vacation) phenomenon that is re-entry anxiety, and ways that you can working through that to be more yourself in social situations.

P.S: we're sorry the audio cut out a bit on a few occasions, something was up with our network as we were recording :(

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CITATIONS:

Arad et al. "Social Distancing During A COVID-19 Lockdown Contributes to The Maintenance of Social Anxiety: A Natural Experiment"

Beyond Blue, https://coronavirus.beyondblue.org.au/COVID-normal/supporting-personal-wellbeing/re-entry-anxiety-what-it-is-and-why-you-might-be-feeling-it

Center for Treatment and Anxiety Disorders, https://centerforanxietydisorders.com/post-pandemic-social-anxiety/

Cleveland Clinic, https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/22709-social-anxiety

Dunbar. "The social brain hypothesis and its implications for social evolution "

Penn Medicine, https://www.pennmedicine.org/news/news-blog/2022/april/struggling-with-social-anxiety-as-we-prepare-for-reentry-post-covid-anxiety

Sahakian et al. "Socially isolated people have differently wired brains and poorer cognition"

Sliwa and Friewald. "A Dedicated Network for Social Interaction Processing in the Primate Brain"

Vitale and Smith. "Neurobiology of Loneliness, Isolation, and Loss: Integrating Human and Animal Perspectives"

Zheng et al. "Is Lockdown Bad for Social Anxiety in COVID-19 Regions?: A National Study in The SOR Perspective "

Zhuan et al. "Cellphone addiction during the Covid-19 outbreak: How online social anxiety and cyber danger belief mediate the influence of personality"