According to the data National Institute US mental health, there are several varieties of anxiety disorders. One of the most common is general anxiety disorder. It is characterized by constant excessive anxiety, tension and fear, which do not depend on external factors and may be accompanied by physical manifestations such as "nervous stomach", shortness of breath and heart palpitations.
Anjan Chatterjee/Flickr.comAn anxiety disorder is different from stress. - this is typical reaction body to external pressure or threat. This is fine. Anxiety, on the other hand, is an abnormal reaction when ordinary things like social interactions pay bills or go to work.
During an anxiety attack, the areas of the brain responsible for the fight-or-flight response are activated, and you cannot stop it at will. This state does not allow you to make decisions even on the most simple questions and creates a lot of problems.
But how to determine if there is an anxiety disorder, or if a person is susceptible to other mental illness, for example ?
Anxiety doesn't come alone and it's hard to detect
Anxiety is often mistaken for something else. For example, a person comes to where he does not know anyone, he has little experience in communicating with, and even more so in a noisy company. He begins to be embarrassed, and anxiety seizes him so much that he can no longer utter a word, not to mention getting to know someone and starting a conversation himself.
After leaving the party, which turned into a real torture for him, he may think that he was acting withdrawn due to depression. But if all these people were not indifferent to him and he would gladly talk with them, laugh and dance, but he simply could not because of it, then he does not have any depression.
After all, he had a desire to have fun and communicate, but social anxiety did not allow it. It was because of her that he sat out the entire party in the corner of the room, hiding behind a glass.
Of course, one can be a consequence of the other. For example, if a person plunges into depression and because of this breaks all social ties. When depressive states leave him, he will, as it were, “forget how” to communicate with people. A long absence of social interactions can cause anxiety when they are resumed.
Yes, you do not want the attacks to recur, but you should not hate yourself for it. It remains to be hoped that people from your environment will be sympathetic to the disorder and provide you with free space to recover.
The problem is (not always) other people.
Sometimes we think that other people can solve the problem of anxiety. For example, what is accompanied good friend you can safely go to a noisy festival: friendly support will help you avoid an anxiety attack.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. What's more, your friend may not be there to support you when your anxiety attack kicks in, but to leave you to your own devices or send you to a quiet and peaceful place and continue to socialize and have fun with everyone.
In such a situation, you may feel that you have been betrayed and abandoned, you have not been helped. In fact, your friend is not to blame for your panic attacks (especially if he does not know about them), and if you accuse him of betrayal, it will simply ruin yours.
Blaming someone is always easier than taking responsibility for your actions. And when you have an anxiety attack, it is very difficult, so you just throw off the responsibility for your feelings on other people.
Yes, sometimes people can push you. For example, you or a friend, from communication with which frustration is more than pleasure. It is possible and necessary to get rid of such sources of constant stress, but it is better to do it at the moment when anxiety leaves you.
Think as often as you can to help yourself. The more you invest in your well-being and feeling calm, the easier it will be for you to deal with an anxiety attack the next time it happens.
How do you deal with anxiety and worry?
Sometimes the feeling of anxiety ceases to be reasonable and literally takes us prisoner. And then we worry about everything: from the likelihood of a sudden cold of a child to the onset global warming... the site is about how to get rid of bad thoughts and drive away the feeling of constant anxiety.
"Hello. Please help me. I am almost constantly worried about my nine-year-old daughter. I am very afraid that something will happen to her.
The feeling of anxiety arises spontaneously in especially happy moments. Or after reading the next terrible news on the Internet (killed, stabbed, set on fire, etc.). Violence and aggression are the main topics of the media.
Knowing that thoughts are material, I just go crazy: it’s impossible not to think ... "
Fear or other strong emotions cause a person to jump to conclusions. Thus, we generalize completely unrelated facts, draw conclusions from isolated cases, and for some reason try on everything that happened somewhere and with someone in our life.
An anxious person tends to worry about the most insignificant thing and see catastrophes and horrors in everything. To reduce anxiety, such a person comes up with various rituals.
For example, it checks 10 times whether the Entrance door, controls his loved ones by calling them every half hour, does not allow children to go out with their peers, imagining the terrible consequences of such communication ...
An anxious person is sure that the world is very dangerous and full of threats. He sees obstacles in everything and expects problems.
It must be said that the media contribute greatly to this perception, feeding us daily with stories about the horrors taking place in the world.
So it turns out that anxious people live, constantly worrying about the future and trying to protect themselves and their loved ones from possible troubles. They spend a lot of energy, time and emotions on this.
Unfortunately, in most cases, these efforts lead to nervous breakdowns, depression (after all, a person thinks about the bad all the time) and irritation of loved ones. (after all, they are constantly monitored).
It turns out that an anxious person from all sides lives hard. But despite this, he continues to worry, because he cannot help it.
It depicts everything that happens around and matters to us, everything that we take for granted or feel: this is our perception, what we call experience or the sum of ideas about reality.
The picture of the world is created from childhood and it describes in detail what is possible in this life for us and what is not.
The picture of the child is created on the basis of the picture of the people around him - parents, friends, teachers, etc. And with this card he goes through life.
With the passage of time and the emergence of new experience, this map expands, but the whole paradox is that all subsequent events are perceived by a person from the point of view of previous experience, beyond which it is very difficult to go.
The world consists of thoughts and is in the head. Any picture of the world "comes to life" with the frequent direction of attention to it.
Scrolling horror stories about yourself or your loved ones in your head is absolutely futile - the energy of fear can only aggravate the situation. What we think about, we most often meet in life.
By changing your thoughts, you begin to behave differently and achieve different results.
The fact that you have the power to create your experiences, and not just react to external circumstances or memories of the past, means that you have wide selection, the ability to manage your life and create your own future.
Therefore, a good way to get rid of anxiety - shift your focus in a positive direction.
First, if possible Eliminate bad news from your life.
Do not watch or read crime stories, reports of disasters and wars - after all, you yourself form a reason for fear, plunging into negativity.
Turn off the TV, skip articles on this topic. There is no benefit from this information, but your impressionability begins to paint terrible pictures.
Create a positive information field for yourself, focus on positive side life.
Eliminate negativity from your life
- Profitable exchange
4 Ways to Beat Anxiety
The appearance of fear is largely provided by the human imagination, the ability to associate. When you worry, the imagination paints pictures of a terrible future.
Pictures can be huge and always stand before your eyes. But what if an unpleasant picture is replaced by a pleasant one?
Imagine a situation that brings back fond memories for you. As you vividly visualize this joyful experience, determine how you feel.
Pay attention to your feelings again. Have they changed? Maybe they got stronger?
Now let the imagination drift away, become smaller, more sketchy, weaker, until it shrinks almost to the size of a postage stamp.
What are your feelings now? Having determined this, return the image to its original position.
For most people it goes like this: when a positive experience approaches, positive feelings increase, and when it moves away, they weaken significantly.
If you want to experience positive emotions more intensely, simply bring them closer to the eyes of your imagination.
But if you want the experience to be less intense, you can move it away from you.
You can do the same with a state of anxiety by pushing unpleasant pictures far, far away or turning them into a barely noticeable point.
You can take temporary systems: What is the significance of this event in 5 years? In two years? Tomorrow? Right now? In general, it all depends specific situation, and logic is optional here.
- affirmations
Very helpful in managing emotional condition positive affirmations, called affirmations.
For example, as soon as you catch yourself in negative thoughts, immediately repeat the phrase "I and my loved ones are always and everywhere safe" - repeat as many times as necessary to calm down.
You can come up with any phrases that suit your situation. The main thing is that they be positive and in the present tense.
If something constantly bothers you, repeat affirmations every day in any free minute - this is the only way you can achieve a positive effect.
By learning to manage your condition, you can not only get rid of anxiety, but also open your life to a whole rainbow. positive emotions which, in turn, will attract a lot of pleasant situations into your life!
Ekaterina Gorshkova,
psychologist
In a world where your life depends on money, and the amount of money depends on the mood of your boss, there can be no calm people. Today, every second suffers from insomnia, every fourth is treated for depression, constantly experiencing a feeling of anxiety and fear. How to get rid of these misfortunes, a person simply does not know and feels driven into a dead end.
Sound scary? After these lines, did you get the feeling that this is about you and your life? If not, then congratulations, your psyche is in order. If the answer to the proposed questions is yes, then you should think about how to get rid of the feeling of fear and about the causes of obsessive anxiety.
Fear fear discord
Fears are different. There are fears that everyone understands, for example, the fear of death. There are fears that most people have. These include the fear of spiders, the fear of the dark, etc. There are such fears that are inherent in only a few. For example, there are people who are afraid of tangerines, Christmas trees, sparklers, etc.
Where did the fear come from?
In those days, when our ancestors ran half-naked, swinging axes, fear performed a protective function for them. He saved by shielding people with the feeling we now call fear.
For example, it is not for nothing that so many people are afraid of snakes. This fear has been passed on to us genetic level. In ancient times, if a person was not afraid of anything, he, as a rule, did not live long, there were too many dangers and little knowledge. The fear of something and the constant feeling of anxiety helped to stay alert, and thanks to this, to survive and produce offspring.
By the way, the feeling of fear not only contributes to self-preservation during an immediate danger. Fear also helps to avoid potential danger.
If a person once flew an airplane a long time ago and at the same time experienced strong fear, then subsequently he will avoid airplanes in every possible way, perhaps without even knowing why.
But nowadays life has changed a lot. The conditions and the environment in which we have to exist have changed. Now the feeling of fear that we have in certain circumstances is not always designed to save our lives. Now, constant anxiety, on the contrary, prevents you from existing calmly, enjoying life's surprises.
social fears
Nowadays, it is common for a person to experience a wide range of socially conditioned fears that prevent him from achieving his desired goal. People are often afraid of those things that do not threaten the safety of their lives.
Are you afraid of flying on an airplane? If not, then you are lucky, one of the few. Yes, not everyone admits this, but most people experience a constant feeling of fear when flying on an airplane. How to get rid of it, given that people are well aware that, according to statistics, there are fewer air crashes than car accidents.
Often, many ordinary fears turn into a form in which they are simply impossible to control. For example, the most for newly-made mothers is the fear for the life of their child. It seemed like a natural fear. But for many young parents, over time, it develops into a terrible phobia, because of which they suffer from insomnia and a number of other unpleasant consequences.
Thus, we found out where the roots of our problems come from. They are from antiquity. Thanks a lot a feeling of fear that, after many generations, we were still born into this world. But it is worth recognizing that in our world not much space is allocated to this feeling, but it resists, settling in our hearts and tormenting with its presence, forcing a person to become more and more immersed in thoughts about how to get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear without pain. way.
Fear and anxiety
In modern psychological research these two terms are usually located side by side and generally have a similar meaning. But precisely psychological science they are separated as two different concepts.
Anxiety is the word we use for certain types of fear. Anxiety is usually associated with the thought of a threat or with restless thoughts about the future. The alarm is not time-defined.
But the feeling of fear is usually associated with a certain situation or with certain object. Fear is one of the strongest human feelings.
It happens that fear will appear and immediately pass, but it happens that it lasts for a long time. The feeling of fear can affect a person's lifestyle, leading to insomnia, loss of appetite and other unpleasant companions. Man becomes not sweet life. He is immersed in thoughts about how to get rid of fears, phobias and establish a normal life.
What happens to the body?
How can you get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear? First you need to figure out if you have symptoms that are characteristic of this feeling.
Avoid alcohol or consume alcohol in small amounts. If a person thinks day after day how to get rid of the feeling of fear, then, most likely, he finds the same way out every time. This is alcohol consumption. Is this the way out?
There is another method to get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear. Faith (religion) can help with this.
With the help of faith in God, a person is able to feel the all-encompassing love and protection from above. And religion can help you cope with everyday stresses through prayers or conversations with a priest.
The most popular phobias of our time
We are all people - different. And yet we are very similar in our fears and phobias.
Main phobias:
- fear of spiders;
- poverty;
- pregnancy;
- wind;
- water;
- air;
- height;
- homosexuality;
- thieves;
- fight;
- lightning;
- thunder;
- downpour;
- animals;
- mirrors;
- snakes;
- frogs;
- go over the bridge;
- needles;
- skin diseases;
- blood;
- dolls;
- horses;
- mechanisms;
- furs;
- microbes;
- graves;
- mice;
- rats;
- meat;
- nights;
- fire;
- flights;
- ghosts;
- birds;
- empty spaces;
- wounds;
- injuries;
- speed;
- snow;
- dogs;
- cats;
- supermarkets;
- Sveta;
- darkness;
- crowds;
- injections;
- vaccination;
- ringing of bells;
- loud music;
- neighbors;
- filled bath;
- swimming pool;
- churches;
- worms;
- snails;
- the sound of the included kettle;
- fear of leaving the stove or iron on;
- noise;
- poison and many other fears.
Many people have multiple phobias.
Help from a specialist
How to get rid of fear and anxiety? Psychology as a science has several answers to this.
For example, psychologists have special relaxation techniques in their arsenal that will help reduce anxiety. The course usually includes breathing exercises. Psychologists also teach anxious people to relax muscle groups one by one.
To begin with, a person should try to cope with his fears himself using the methods we have given above. If self-help does not turn out to be effective, then you will have to contact a specialist.
You may have to go through a whole course of special consultations or therapy, during which you will be offered many exercises to relieve anxiety and fears.
As you know, we all come from childhood. Therefore, psychotherapists usually adhere to the theory that the problems associated with fear today are childhood problems. Perhaps the parents were wrong ways education. Maybe the father was a supporter of physical punishment. Or maybe your mother was too protective of you all your childhood? These questions and many others will be clarified at the reception by a specialist.
Most likely, a psychologist will teach you the "Stress Vaccination" technique, which will increase confidence in yourself and your strength in dealing with stress.
If psychotherapeutic methods with a specialist do not help, then you will have to turn to medical treatment.
Sometimes drugs are prescribed aid in therapy. But drug treatment are used for a short time. This is short term help. It will not help get rid of the root of the problem. Therefore, drug treatment is combined with other types of assistance.
Nowadays good helpers in the fight against various phobias can become social networks. People unite in closed groups where they support each other and advise on how to get rid of feelings of anxiety and fear.
Such groups are very useful in our age. Phobias and fears are similar for many people. In such groups, you do not need to be shy and afraid that you will not be understood. On the contrary, this is a place where you can be extremely frank and not be ashamed of your fears. At the same time, receive support and understanding, which can often give a good therapeutic effect.
Conclusion
Fear and anxiety are linked to mental health conditions. These feelings are most commonly referred to as anxiety disorders.
These include:
- specific phobias;
- agoraphobia;
- social anxiety disorder;
- panic disorder.
If fear and anxiety have become unmanageable, do not hesitate to seek help from a professional who can provide you with quick and high-quality help in the fight against fears and anxiety.
Today we will talk about how to get rid of fear most different nature: fear of death, fear of animals or insects, phobia associated with illness, injury, death due to an accident, etc.
In this article, I will talk not only about techniques that will help you overcome fear, but also about how to properly deal with the feeling of fear and how to change your life in such a way that it remains less space for anxiety.
I myself had to go through many fears, especially during that period of my life when I experienced. I was afraid to die or go crazy. I was afraid that my health would come to a complete disrepair. I was afraid of dogs. I was afraid of so many things.
Since then, some of my fears have completely disappeared. Some fears I learned to control. I have learned to live with other fears. I have done a lot of work on myself. I hope my experience, which I will present in this article, will help you.
Where does fear come from?
Since ancient times, the mechanism of the emergence of fear has performed a protective function. He protected us from danger. Many people are instinctively afraid of snakes, because this quality was inherited from their ancestors. After all, those of them who were afraid of these animals and, as a result, avoided them, were more likely not to die from venomous bite than those who showed fearlessness towards crawling creatures. Fear helped those who experienced it survive and pass this quality on to their offspring. After all, only the living can reproduce.
Fear makes people feel an intense desire to flee when faced with something that their brain perceives as danger. Many people are afraid of heights. But they cannot help but guess about it, until they are high for the first time. Their legs will instinctively give way. The brain will give alarm signals. The person will long to leave this place.
But fear helps not only protect yourself from danger during its occurrence. It allows a person to avoid even potential danger wherever possible.
Anyone who is mortally afraid of heights will no longer climb onto the roof, as he will remember what strong unpleasant emotions he experienced when he was there last time. And thus, perhaps save yourself from the risk of death as a result of a fall.
Unfortunately, since the time of our distant ancestors, the environment in which we live has changed a lot. And fear does not always meet the goals of our survival. And even if he answers, it does not contribute to our happiness and comfort.
People experience many social fears that prevent them from achieving their goals. Often they are afraid of those things that do not pose any threat. Or this threat is negligible.
Chance of dying in a crash passenger aircraft is about one in 8 million. However, many people are afraid to travel by air. Getting to know another person is not fraught with any threat, but many men or women experience great anxiety when they are around other people.
Many quite ordinary fears can go into an uncontrollable form. The natural concern for the safety of their children can turn into acute paranoia. The fear of losing one's life or hurting oneself sometimes turns into a mania, an obsession with safety. Some people spend a lot of their time in seclusion, trying to protect themselves from the dangers that supposedly lie in wait on the street.
We see that natural mechanism, shaped by evolution, often gets in our way. Many fears do not protect us, but rather make us vulnerable. So you need to intervene in this process. Next, I will tell you how to do it.
Method 1 - Stop being afraid of fear
The first tips will help you understand fear correctly.
You ask me: “I just want to stop being afraid of mice, spiders, open or closed spaces. Are you suggesting that we just stop being afraid of fear itself?”
What reactions does a person feel fear? As we found out earlier this:
- Desire to eliminate the object of fear. (If a person is afraid of snakes, will he run away? when he sees them
- Reluctance to repeat this feeling (A person will avoid snakes wherever possible, not build a dwelling near their lair, etc.)
These two reactions are prompted by our instincts. A person who fears death in a plane crash will instinctively avoid airplanes. But if he suddenly has to fly somewhere, he will try to do everything so as not to feel fear. For example, he will get drunk, drink sedative pills, ask someone to calm him down. He will do this because he is afraid of the feeling of fear.
But in the context of fear management, this behavior often doesn't make any sense. After all, the fight against fear is a fight against instincts. And if we want to defeat the instincts, we should not be guided by their logic, which is indicated in the two paragraphs above.
Of course, during a panic attack, the most logical behavior for us is to run away or try to get rid of a fear attack. But this logic is whispered to us by our instincts, which we must defeat!
It is precisely because during attacks of fear that people behave as their "inside" tells them, they cannot get rid of these fears. They go to the doctor, sign up for hypnosis and say: “I never want to experience this again! Fear is tormenting me! I want to stop being afraid! Get me out of this!" Some methods can help them for a while, but all the same, fear can return to them in one form or another. Because they listened to their instincts, which told them: “Be afraid of fear! You can only be free when you get rid of him!”
It turns out that many people cannot get rid of fear, because they, first of all, seek to get rid of it! Let me explain this paradox now.
Fear is just a program
Imagine that you have invented a robot that cleans the floors of your house, including the balcony. The robot can estimate the height at which it is located by means of the reflection of radio signals. And so that he does not fall off the edge of the balcony, you programmed him in such a way that his brain gives him a signal to stop if he is on the border of the height difference.
You left home and left the robot to clean up. What did you find when you returned? The robot was frozen on the threshold between your room and the kitchen and was unable to cross it due to the slight height difference! The signal in his brain told him to stop!
If the robot had "reason", "consciousness", he would understand that there is no danger at the border of two rooms, since the height is small. And then he could cross it, despite the fact that the brain continues to signal danger! The consciousness of a robot would simply not obey the absurd order of its brain.
A person has a consciousness, which is also not obliged to follow the commands of his "primitive" brain. And the first thing you must do if you want to get rid of fear is stop trusting fear, stop perceiving it as a guide to action, stop being afraid of it. You need to act a little in a paradoxical way, and not in the way your instinct tells you.
After all, fear is just a feeling. Roughly speaking, this is the same program that the robot from our example executes when it approaches the balcony. This is a program that your brain starts at a chemical level (with the help of adrenaline, for example), after it receives information from your senses.
Fear is just a stream of chemical signals that are translated into commands for your body.
But your mind, despite the operation of the program, can itself understand in which cases it encountered a real danger, and in which situations it deals with a failure in the “instinctive program” (approximately the same failure that occurred with the robot when it could not climb over over the threshold).
If you experience fear, it does not mean that there is some danger. You should not always trust all your senses, as they often deceive you. Do not run away from a non-existent danger, do not seek to calm this feeling somehow. Try to just calmly wait until the "siren" ("alarm! save yourself!") in your head is silent. Often this will just be a false alarm.
And it is in this direction that you must move in the first place if you want to get rid of fear. In the direction of allowing your consciousness, and not the “primitive” brain, to make decisions (get on a plane, approach an unfamiliar girl).
After all, there is nothing wrong with this feeling! There is nothing wrong with fear! It's just chemistry! It's an illusion! There is nothing terrible in having this feeling sometimes.
Being afraid is normal. No need to seek to immediately get rid of fear (or from what this fear causes). Because in case you only think about how to get rid of him, you follow his lead, you listen to what he tells you, you obey him, you take it seriously. You think: "I'm afraid to fly on a plane, so I won't fly" or "I'll fly on a plane only when I stop being afraid of flying", "because I believe in fear and I'm afraid of it." And then you keep feeding your fear! You can stop feeding him if only you stop betraying him of great importance.
When you think: “I'm afraid to fly on a plane, but I'll still fly on it. And I will not be afraid of an attack of fear, because, it's just a feeling, chemistry, a game of my instincts. Let him come, because there is nothing terrible in fear! Then you stop giving in to fear.
You will get rid of fear only when you stop wanting to get rid of it and will live with it!
Breaking the vicious circle
I have already spoken about this example from my life more than once and I will repeat it again here. I took the first step towards getting rid of panic attacks, like sudden attacks of fear, only when I stopped obsessing about getting rid of it! I began to think: “Let the attacks come. This fear is just an illusion. I can survive these attacks, there is nothing terrible in them.
And then I stopped being afraid of them, I became ready for them. For four years I followed their lead, thinking: “when will this end, when will the attacks go away, what should I do?” But when I applied tactics against them that were contrary to the logic of my instincts, when I stopped driving away fear, only then did it begin to go away!
Our instincts lure us into a trap. Of course, this thoughtless program of the body is aimed at making us obey it (roughly speaking, the instincts “want” us to obey them), so that we are afraid of the appearance of fear, and not accept it. But that only makes the whole situation worse.
When we start to fear our fears, take them seriously, we only make them stronger. Fear of fear only increases the total amount of fear and even provokes fear itself. I personally saw the truth of this principle when I suffered from panic attacks. The more I was afraid of new attacks of fear, the more often they happened.
With my fear of seizures, I only spurred the fear that occurs during a panic attack. These two fears (fear itself and the fear of fear) are positively related. feedback and reinforce each other.
The person covered by them falls into a vicious circle. He is afraid of new attacks and thus causes them, and attacks, in turn, cause even greater fear of them! We can get out of this vicious circle if we remove the fear of fear, and not fear itself, as many people want. Since we can influence this type of fear much more than fear in its purest form.
If we talk about fear in its "pure form", then it often does not have much big weight in total population fear. I want to say that if we are not afraid of him, then it is easier for us to survive these unpleasant sensations. Fear ceases to be "terrible".
Don't worry if you don't quite understand these conclusions, or if you don't really understand how to achieve this attitude towards your fear. Such an understanding will not come immediately. But you will be able to understand this better when you read my following tips and apply the recommendations from them.
Method 2 - Think long term
I gave this advice in my last article. Here I will dwell on this point in more detail.
Perhaps this advice will not help to cope with every fear, but with some anxieties it will help to cope. The fact is that when we are afraid, we tend to think about the very moment of realization of our fear, and not about what may await us in the future.
Suppose you are afraid of losing your job. She provides you comfortable conditions labor, and the salary at this place allows you to buy those things that you want to have. At the thought that you will lose it, fear seizes you. You immediately imagine how you will have to look for another job that may pay worse than the one you lost. You will no longer be able to spend as much money as you used to spend, and that's it.
But instead of imagining how bad it will be for you when you lose your job, think about what will happen next. Mentally cross the line that you are afraid to cross. Let's say you lose your job. Ask yourself what will be in the future? Imagine your future over an extended period of time with all the nuances.
You will start searching new work. It is not at all necessary that you will not find a job with the same salary. There is a chance that you will find even a higher paying place. You cannot know for sure how much you are willing to offer a specialist of your level in other companies until you go to interviews.
Even if you have to work for less money, so what? You may not be able to frequent expensive restaurants for a while. You will buy cheaper food than you used to buy, prefer to rest in your country house or at a friend's cottage instead of abroad. I understand that now it seems scary to you, because you are used to living differently. But a person always gets used to everything. The time will come and you will get used to it, just as you are used to many things in your life. But, it is quite possible that this situation will not last your whole life, you can achieve a promotion in a new job!
When a child's toy is taken away from him, he stamps his foot and cries because he cannot realize that in the future (maybe in a couple of days) he will get used to the absence of this toy and he will have other, more interesting things. Because the child becomes a hostage to his momentary emotions and cannot think in the future!
Don't become this child. Think constructively about the objects of your fear.
If you are afraid that your husband will betray you and leave you for another woman, think about it? Millions of couples break up and no one dies from it. You will suffer for a while, but then you will begin to live new life. After all, all human emotions are temporary! Don't be afraid of these emotions. They will come and go.
Imagine a real picture in your head: how you will live, how you will get out of suffering, how you will make new interesting acquaintances, how you will have a chance to correct the mistakes of the past! Think about prospects, not about failures! About new happiness, not suffering!
Method 3 - Be Prepared
When I'm nervous on a plane that's coming in, it doesn't help me much to think about the statistics of plane crashes. So what if accidents happen rarely? So what of the fact that getting to the airport by car is statistically more life-threatening than flying by plane? These thoughts do not save me in those moments when the plane starts to shake or it continues to circle over the airport. Any person who experiences this fear will understand me.
In such situations, fear makes us think: “what if I am now on exactly one of the eight million flights that should turn into a disaster?” And no statistics can help. After all, improbable does not mean impossible! In this life, everything is possible, so you need to be prepared for everything.
Trying to reassure yourself, like “everything will be fine, nothing will happen” usually does not help. Because such exhortations are lies. And the truth is that it will happen, anything can happen! And you need to accept it.
“Not a very optimistic conclusion for an article about getting rid of fear” - You might think.
In fact, everything is not so bad, willingness helps to overcome fear. And do you know what train of thought helps me out on such intense flights? I think, “Airplanes really rarely crash. It is very unlikely that something bad will happen right now. But, nevertheless, it is possible. At worst, I'll die. But I still have to die at some point. Death is inevitable in any case. It ends every human life. The catastrophe will simply bring closer what will happen someday with 100% probability anyway.
As you can see, being prepared does not mean looking at things with a doomed look, thinking: "I will die soon." This means simply realistically assessing the situation: “it is not a fact that a catastrophe will happen. But if that happens, then so be it.”
Of course, this does not eliminate the fear completely. I'm still afraid of death, but it helps to be prepared. What is the point of worrying all your life because of what will definitely happen? It is better to be at least a little prepared and not to think about your death as something that will never happen to us.
I understand that this advice is very difficult to put into practice. And, moreover, not everyone always wants to think about death.
But people who are tormented by the most absurd fears often write to me. Someone, for example, is afraid to go outside, because they believe that it is dangerous there, while at home it is much safer. It will be difficult for this person to cope with his fear if he waits for this fear to pass so that he can go outside. But it can become easier for him if he thinks: “Let there be danger on the street. But you can't stay at home all the time! You can not completely protect yourself, even being within four walls. Or I will go outside and put myself in danger of dying and getting hurt (this danger is negligible). Or I will stay at home until the day I die! Death that will happen anyway. If I die now, then I will die. But it probably won't happen any time soon."
If people stop dwelling so much on their fears, and can at least sometimes look them in the face, realizing that behind them there is nothing but emptiness, then fears will no longer have so much power over us. We shouldn't be so afraid of losing what we will lose anyway.
Fear and emptiness
An attentive reader will ask me: “But if you take this logic to the limit, it turns out that if there is no point in being afraid of losing those things that we will lose anyway, then there is no point in being afraid of anything at all! After all, nothing lasts forever!
Exactly so, even though it contradicts ordinary logic. At the end of every fear lies an emptiness. We have nothing to fear, because all things are temporary.
This thesis can be very difficult to understand intuitively.
But I do not strive too hard for you to understand it on a theoretical level, but to use it in practice. How? I'll explain now.
I myself use this principle regularly. I am still afraid of many things. But, remembering this principle, I understand that my every fear is meaningless. I don't have to "feed" him and get carried away with him a lot. When I think about it, I find in myself the strength not to submit to fear.
Many people, when they are very afraid of something, subconsciously believe that they "should be afraid", that there are really scary things. They think that in relation to these things, no other reaction is possible than fear. But if you know that in principle there is nothing to fear in this life, since everything will happen someday, if you realize the meaninglessness, “emptiness” of fear, if you understand that there are no truly terrible things, but there is only a subjective reaction to these things, it will be easier to deal with fear. I will return to this point at the end of the article.
Method 4 - Observe
The following few methods will help you deal with fear as it arises.
Instead of succumbing to fear, try to just watch it from the side. Try to localize this fear in your thoughts, feel it as some kind of energy that is formed in certain parts of the body. Mentally direct your breath to these areas. Try to make your breathing slow and calm.
Don't get caught up in your fear with your thoughts. Just watch it form. Sometimes it helps to remove fear altogether. Even if the fear doesn't go away, it's okay. Becoming a dispassionate observer, you begin to realize your fear as something external to your "I", as something that no longer has such power over this "I".
When you are watching, fear is much easier to control. After all, the feeling of fear is formed like a snowball. At first, you are just scared, then all sorts of thoughts start to creep into your head: “what if trouble happens”, “what kind of strange sound did this make when the plane landed?”, “what if some kind of trouble happens to my health?”
And these thoughts feed the fear, it becomes even stronger and causes even more disturbing thoughts. We find ourselves again inside a vicious circle!
But by observing the feelings, we try to get rid of any thoughts and interpretations. We do not feed our fear with our thoughts, and then it becomes weaker. Don't let your own mind reinforce the fear. To do this, simply turn off reflections, evaluations and interpretations and go into observation mode. Don't think about the past or the future stay in the present moment with your fear!
Method 5 - Breathe
During attacks of fear, try to breathe deeply, taking longer breaths and exhalations. Diaphragmatic breathing well calms the nervous system and, according to scientific research, stops the fight-or-flight response, which is directly related to the feeling of fear.
Diaphragmatic breathing means you breathe from your belly instead of your chest. Focus on how you breathe. Count the time of inhalation and exhalation. Try to keep this time equal for inhalation and exhalation and long enough. (4 - 10 seconds.) Just do not need to choke. Breathing should be comfortable.
Method 6 - Relax your body
When fear attacks you, try to relax. Gently move your attention over every muscle in your body and relax it. You can combine this technique with breathing. Mentally direct your breath to different areas his body, in order, starting with the head, ending with the feet.
Method 7 - Remind yourself of how your fear didn't come true
This method helps to cope with small and recurring fears. For example, you are constantly afraid that you could offend a person or make a bad impression on him. But, as a rule, it turns out that your fear never came true. It turned out that you did not offend anyone, and it was just your own mind that scared you.
If this is repeated from time to time, then when you again become afraid that you said something wrong when communicating, remember how often your fear was not realized. And most likely, you will understand there is absolutely nothing to be afraid of.
But be prepared for anything! Even if there is a possibility that someone is offended by you, then it's not a big deal! Make peace! Don't betray of great importance to what has already happened. Most of your own mistakes can be corrected.
Method 8 - Treat fear as a thrill
Remember, I wrote that fear is just a feeling? If you are afraid of something, it does not mean that there is some kind of danger. This feeling is sometimes not related to reality, but is only spontaneous. chemical reaction in your head. Instead of being afraid of this reaction, treat it like a thrill, like a free ride. You don't have to pay money and put yourself in danger by skydiving to get an adrenaline rush. This adrenaline you have appears out of the blue. The beauty!
Method 9 - Embrace Your Fear, Don't Resist
Above, I talked about techniques that will help you quickly deal with your fear at the time of its occurrence. But you don't need to get attached to these techniques. When people hear about ways to control fear or fear, they sometimes fall into the trap of believing in self-control. They start thinking, “Wow! It turns out fear can be controlled! And now I know how to do it! Then I will definitely get rid of him!”
They begin to rely heavily on these techniques. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. And when people fail to manage their fear using these methods, they start to panic: “I can’t control this! Why? Yesterday it worked, but today it doesn't! What should I do? I need to deal with this urgently! I have to manage it!"
They begin to worry and thereby only increase their fear. But the truth is that far not always everything can be controlled. Sometimes these techniques will work, sometimes they won't. Of course, try to breathe, observe the fear, but if it does not pass, there is nothing terrible about it. No need to panic, no need to look for a new way out of the situation, leave everything as it is, accept your fear. You don't "should" get rid of it right now. The word "should" does not apply here at all. Because you are feeling the way you are right now. What happens, happens. Accept it and stop resisting.
Method 10 - Don't get attached to things
The following methods will allow you to remove fears from your life.
As the Buddha said: “the basis of human suffering (dissatisfaction, the inability to come to final satisfaction) is attachment (desire).” Attachment, in my opinion, is understood more as dependence than love.
If we are strongly attached to something, for example, we strongly need to produce an effect on the opposite sex, to achieve permanent victories on the love front, then this will lead us into a state of eternal dissatisfaction, and not happiness and pleasure, as it seems to us. . Sexual feeling, conceit cannot be fully satiated. After each new victory, these feelings will demand more and more. New successes on the love front will bring you less and less pleasure over time (“inflation of pleasure”), while failures will make us suffer. We will live in constant fear that we will lose our charm and attractiveness (and sooner or later this will happen anyway with the advent of old age) and again we will suffer. At a time when there will be no love adventures, we will not feel the joy of life.
Perhaps it will be easier for some people to understand attachment using the example of money. As long as we strive for money, it seems to us that by earning some amount of money, we will achieve happiness. But when we achieve this goal, happiness does not come and we want more! Complete satisfaction is unattainable! We're chasing carrots on a stick.
But it would be much easier for you if you were not so attached to it and rejoiced at what we have (it is not necessary to stop striving for the best). This is what the Buddha meant when he said that the cause of dissatisfaction is attachment. But attachments not only give rise to dissatisfaction and suffering, they form fear.
After all, we are afraid to lose exactly what we are so strongly attached to!
I am not saying that you need to go to the mountains, give up your personal life and destroy all attachments. Total disengagement is an extreme teaching, suitable for extreme situations. But, despite this, modern man can derive some benefit from this principle for himself without going to extremes.
To experience less fear, you do not need to get hung up on some things and put them at the basis of your existence. If you think: “I live for work”, “I only live for my children”, then you may have a strong fear of losing these things. After all, your whole life comes down to them.
That's why try to diversify your life as much as possible, let in a lot of new things, enjoy many things, and not just one thing. Be happy because you breathe and live, and not just because you have a lot of money and you are attractive to the opposite sex. Although, as I said above, the last things will not bring you happiness.
(In this sense, attachments are not only the cause of suffering, but its effect! People who are deeply unhappy inside begin to desperately cling to external things in search of satisfaction: sex, entertainment, alcohol, new experiences. But happy people tend to be more self-sufficient. The basis of their happiness is life itself, not things. Therefore, they are not so afraid of losing them.)
Attachment does not mean lack of love. As I wrote above, this is more understood as an addiction than love. For example, I have very high hopes for this site. I love developing it. If something bad happens to him, it will be a blow to me, but not the end of my life! After all, I have many other interesting things to do in my life. But my happiness is formed not only by them, but by the very fact that I live.
Method 11 - Nurture your ego
Remember, you are not alone in this world. The whole existence is not limited to your fears and problems. Stop focusing on yourself. There are other people in the world with their own fears and worries.
Understand that there is an immense world around you with its laws. Everything in nature is subject to birth, death, decay, disease. Everything in this world, of course. And you yourself are part of this universal order, and not the center of it!
If you feel yourself in harmony with this world, not opposing yourself to it, realize your existence as an integral part of the natural order, you will understand that you are not alone, that you, together with all living beings, are moving in the same direction. And so it has always been, forever and ever.
With this consciousness your fears will disappear. How to achieve such consciousness? It must have come along with the development of personality. One way to achieve this state is to practice meditation.
Method 12 - Meditate
In this article, I talked about the fact that you cannot identify yourself with your fear, that it is just a feeling, that you need to be ready for anything, that you cannot put your own ego at the center of all existence.
This is easy to understand on a theoretical level, but not always easy to apply in practice. It is not enough just to read about it, it must be practiced, day by day, applying in real life. Not all things in this world are available for "intellectual" knowledge.
That attitude to fears, which I spoke about at the beginning, needs to be brought up in oneself. The way to come to these conclusions in practice, to realize that fear is just an illusion, is meditation.
Meditation gives you the opportunity to "reprogram" yourself to be happier and freer. Nature is a wonderful "constructor", but her creations are not perfect, biological mechanisms (the mechanism of fear), which worked in the Stone Age, do not always work in the modern world.
Meditation will allow you to partially correct the imperfection of nature, change your standard emotional reactions to many things, get away from fear to calmness, come to a clearer understanding of the illusory nature of fear, understand that fear is not part of your personality and get rid of it!
With practice, you can find the source of happiness in yourself and not become strongly attached to different things. You will learn to accept your emotions and fears rather than resist them. Meditation will teach you to observe your fear from the outside, without getting involved in it.
Meditation will not only help you come to some important understanding of yourself and life. The practice has been scientifically proven to calm the sympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for feelings of stress. It will make you calmer and less stressed. It will teach you to relax deeply and get rid of fatigue and tension. And this is very important for people who are afraid.
You can listen to my short lecture about that, at the link.
Method 13 - Don't let fear be imposed on you
Many of us are used to the fact that everyone around them only talks about how terrible it is to live, what terrible diseases exist, gasp and groan. And this perception is transferred to us. We begin to think that there are really scary things that we "should" be afraid of, since everyone is afraid of them!
Fear, surprisingly, may be the result of stereotypes. It is natural to fear death, and almost all people are afraid of it. But when we see the constant lamentations of other people about the death of loved ones, when we observe how our elderly friend cannot come to terms with the death of her son, who died 30 years ago, then we begin to think that this is not just scary, but terrible! That there is no chance to perceive it any other way.
In fact, these things become so terrible only in our perception. And there is always the possibility of treating them differently. When Einstein died, he accepted death quite calmly, he treated it as an unchanging order of things. If you ask any spiritually developed person, maybe a religious ascetic, a convinced Christian or Buddhist, how he feels about death, he will certainly be calm about this. And this is not necessarily connected only with the fact that the first one believes in an immortal soul, an afterlife existence, and the second, although he does not believe in the soul, believes in reincarnation. This is due to the fact that they are spiritually developed and have tamed their ego. No, I'm not saying that you need to seek salvation in religion, I'm trying to prove that a different attitude to those things that we consider terrible is possible, and it can be achieved along with spiritual development!
Do not listen to those who say how scary everything is, These people are wrong. In fact, there are almost no things in this world that are worth fearing. Or not at all.
And watch less TV.
Method 14 - Do not avoid situations in which fear arises (!!!)
I have highlighted this point with three exclamation points because it is one of the most important tips in this article. I briefly touched on this issue in the first paragraphs, but here I will dwell on it in more detail.
I have already said that the instinctive tactics of behavior during fear (running away, being afraid, avoiding some situations) are the wrong tactics in the context of the task of getting rid of fear. If you are afraid to leave the house, then you will never cope with this fear if you stay at home like this.
But what to do? Get outside! Forget about your fear! Let him appear, don't be afraid of him, let him in and don't resist. Don't take it seriously though, it's just a feeling. You can get rid of your fear only when you start to ignore the very fact of its occurrence and live as if there is no fear!
- To overcome the fear of flying on airplanes, you need to fly on airplanes as often as possible.
- To overcome the fear of the need for self-defense, you need to enroll in the section of martial arts.
- To overcome the fear of meeting girls, you need to meet girls!
You must do what you are afraid to do! There is no easy way. Forget about the "must" as soon as possible to get rid of fear. Just act.
Method 15 - Strengthen the Nervous System
The extent to which you are prone to fear depends very much on the state of your health in general and on the health of your nervous system in particular. Therefore, improve your work, learn to cope with stress, do yoga, quit. I covered these points in my other articles, so I will not write about it here. Strengthening your body is a very important thing in the fight against depression, fears and bad mood. Please do not neglect this and do not limit yourself to "emotional work" alone. AT healthy body healthy spirit.
Conclusion
This article does not call for immersing yourself in the world of sweet dreams and hiding from fear. In this article, I tried to tell you how important it is to learn to face your fears, accept them, live with them, and not hide from them.
Let this path not be the easiest, but it is the right one. All your fears will disappear only when you stop being afraid of the very feeling of fear. When you're done trust him. When you do not let him tell you how to get to the place of rest, how often to go out, what kind of people you communicate with. When you start living as if there is no fear.
Only then will he leave. Or won't leave. But this will no longer be of great importance to you, since fear will become only a small obstacle for you. Why give importance to the little things?
