Everyone has times in their life when they're scared of things. Human brains are hardwired to have fear and to get scared, but that doesn't mean you have to live with constant and overwhelming fear.
Managing Your Fear in the Moment
1Assess the situation. If you're getting scared about something like the possibility that the mole on your arm is cancerous, or a burglar is going to get into your house, assess the situation to see if it's simply anxiety or if there is something to be concerned about.
- If there is something real, do something about it (make an appointment to have a doctor look at the mole, or call the police if someone is actually breaking into your house).
- If you're having difficulty deciding what is real and what isn't because you're too scared, talk to someone: a family member, a trusted friend, a neighbor, even a hotline.
2Breathe. When you're scared and not thinking properly, you tend to start hyperventilating, which increases your fears. Take deep full breaths and relax your body. Start with your shoulders and, as you breathe, work your way down to your feet relaxing each muscle.
- Not only will your breathing calm you and make sure you are getting enough oxygen, focusing on your breathing and relaxing your body makes it so you can't focus on what is scaring you.
- Being scared means that our hypothalamus (which governs flight or fight) activates our sympathetic nervous system and we tense up. It also has the adrenal-cortical system dump a bunch of hormones into our system, so even if we're scared about going to a party and meeting a bunch of new people, our hypothalamus interprets this as a fight or flight situation.
- So breathe and you'll calm the hypothalamus.
3Write down what you are scared of. In the moment, while you're busy being scared, get out a pen and a piece of paper and write down everything you're scared of. This exercise helps you draw your fears out into consciousness. You acknowledge them and it makes it easier to let them go.
- Many of the seemingly scary things go back to a primal fear like being scared of death (the potentially cancerous mole), being scared that no one will like you (going to the party and meeting new people).
- Acknowledging them won't make them magically vanish, but it will help you to better articulate your fears
4Tell someone. If you're having a scary moment, call someone up and talk to them. Make sure it is a trusted friend or family member. You can even call a hotline for people with anxiety.
- Talking to someone can help simply through making a connection, but your friend can also help put your fears to rest.
Not Being Scared in the Long Run
1Understand fear. Fear is a learned behavior. No body starts off like being scared of things. We are conditioned through experience and governed by the amygdala in the brain. Anxiety (which is tied to and triggers fear responses) causes the nervous system to flare up, which triggers the fear response.
- Certain pathways in the brain are created by events that trigger fear in us. Following those pathways means that we get stuck in certain patterns of thinking and behavior.
- What this means, of course, is that fear can be unlearned. You have to recondition your brain to either avoid being triggered by certain things, or to react differently to the things that scare you.
2Change your thinking. Being scared is about what pathways are being used and created in the brain. To stop being scared you have to basically rewire your brain. It's not as hard as it sounds thanks to neuroplasticity.
- Neuroplasticity is involved in processing memories and how we learn. By practicing "desensitization" a person can change the pathways in their brain that react fearfully to the things that scare them. "Desensitization" is basically just being exposed to the thing that scares a person in gradual and controlled environments.
- Chart your emotional reaction to physical stimuli and surroundings that cause you to be scared. For instance, if spiders scare you, the physical stimulus is the appearance of the spider. From there the emotional reaction is fear, being scared and this can get heightened all the way to panic levels, depending on your response. Charting this will help you cultivate a detached reaction instead of an emotional reaction to the appearance of a spider.
3Cultivate a detached reaction to scary things. A detached reaction means that you react to the things that scare you from a place of observation rather than emotional reaction. This is something you have to practice and it helps to have mapped out your thought patterns so you understand how scary things make you emotionally react.
- Recognize that you're being confronted with something you find scary and that you can either have an emotional reaction (which will in turn trigger more and more fear and anxiety) or you can have a detached reaction.
- Coach yourself with mantras. Pick a couple mantras and write them down so that you have them with you at all times. Repeat them to yourself when you start having an emotional reaction, so you can short-circuit the reaction. For instance, "this isn't as bad as I am making it," or "I can't control the outcome, so I'm going to let go and trust that it will be okay."
- Do something physically comforting. If you can, drink a cup of tea and focus your whole being on that cup of tea--its warmth, the steam rising from the cup, the smell. Focusing on the physically comforting thing is a form of mindfulness and means that you are living in the moment, which is a place antithetical to fear.
4Don't avoid the things that scare you. Avoiding the things that scare you increase the fear of the scary thing itself and also stops your body from getting accustomed to the thing that scares you, so that the fear can lessen.
- Start small when you're working up to dealing with the things that scare you. For instance, if you're afraid of spiders, start by dealing with small ones in your home and work your way up to bigger spiders.
- If you're afraid of heights, try taking walks in high places that are equipped with safety measures instead of trying right away to make yourself go parachuting.
- Remember: the more you avoid something, the more it will scare you and the more the fear itself will paralyze you. We can't avoid being scared, as humans it's part of our physiological make-up, but we can work on how we react to things that cared us. Nothing is as scary as what we imagine it to be.
5Seek professional help. Sometimes you can't stop being scared by yourself. This usually is a form of panic disorder, anxiety disorder, PTSD, OCD behaviors. Seeking professional help is a good way to work towards dealing with your anxiety and fears.
- Medication can also help, but make sure that you're taking medication as part of an entire program to help overcome your fears. You will need to have counseling as part of that, to retrain your brain.
I am very scared of blood tests, any tips for that?
- Try breathing deeply and consistently, concentrating on your breathing most of all. Distract yourself with reading, watching the TV if they have one or playing a game on your phone. It can also be helpful to tell the nurse or doctor that you are afraid and they will be understanding and talk you through it. If you are extremely sensitive to skin touch, let them know that you feel a heightened sense of pain so that they can take extra special care of you.
- Calm down. Think of a happy place, and say to yourself "I am not afraid"
- Keep something that gives you comfort close to you as you go to bed.
- Things are not always as bad as they seem. Your mind can trick you into thinking things are much worse than they really are. Be brave and believe it'll be all right.
- Keep a phone in hand. It will give you the security that you can call someone when you're most scared.
- Drawing helps some people to reground themselves after being scared. This could be using a pen, a digital tablet or even making a collage. Maybe even write something like a poem or short story (but keep it light, not scary). Doing something creative can help stop the scared feelings.
- If you like scary movies but can't handle them at night, watch them early in the morning then do fun stuff all day. By the time you've baked cookies, written a song, gone to a football game and planted a garden, you won't even be thinking about "World War Z".
- If possible look for evidence to support you in debunking your fears.
- If you need help, an anxiety helpline number is 888-826-9438.
- Avoid scary or horror movies especially before going to bed. This helps prevent nightmares.
- Go to bed earlier because getting enough sleep can help keep anxieties from getting bigger and scarier.
Sources and Citations
- ↑ http://wildgoddesslife.com/what-to-do-when-youre-freaking-out-and-scared/
- ↑ http://www.pickthebrain.com/blog/how-to-not-be-afraid-of-anything-ever-again/
- ↑ http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200109/being-afraid-is-all-in-your-mind
- ↑ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/demystifying-psychiatry/201311/rewiring-the-brain-eliminate-fear
- ↑ http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/insight-therapy/201009/overcoming-fear-the-only-way-out-is-through
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