Instead of fighting or cope with fear blindly, you can examine it and find its weakest sides. We’ve found out what good tricks can help us cope with increased anxiety at the moment and in the long run.
We are all afraid of something, sometimes quite harmless and trivial things. When this fear becomes paralyzing and takes the form of a real phobia, it is worth seeing a specialist. But in other cases, you can try to cope with anxiety yourself – to use a comprehensive approach to the study and transformation of fear in order to level out its negative impact on life and even find positive aspects. cope with fear-
Gather information to cope with fear
The unknown is most frightening. That’s why the best place to start when dealing with anxiety is to examine it under a microscope. Important questions about the nature of fear can be addressed in a psychotherapy session or to answer them yourself. First, determine what exactly you are afraid of. It is usually not the things or events that scare you, but their consequences. Our fear is not of public speaking, but of being ridiculed or misunderstood, of crumpled speech, of miscasting in song, or of stumbling in dance. That a failed performance will affect our career or relationships with others, or maybe you are afraid of failing an exam. Therefore, it is important to identify the impulse of anxiety. In addition, it will be useful to break down the worst-case scenarios, try to calculate the risks of their development, and analyze how you can minimize these risks. So, if we’re talking about the exam, you can back yourself up and use write my essay service and so on. And also remember how often something similar has happened before – perhaps the fear began to pursue you after a particularly unpleasant incident.
The information collected can be written out on a piece of paper, in an electronic diary, or simply talked through with a loved one, the main thing is to give it the form of words. That way it will be systematized and stored in your head. We will be able to refer to it at the most responsible moment.
Normalize Fear
Humans are social creatures. And that is why it is important for us to feel belonging and community. Even if our idea of beauty, line of behavior, and interests do not fit into a common norm, we strive to find like-minded people (this is how subcultures, individual communities, groups of friends, and even collectives are formed). However, when it comes to fear, we often isolate ourselves, hide our anxieties, and begin to believe that our feelings are one-of-a-kind, which means we have to deal with them alone. But chances are, your anxiety is not unique. Many people are scared to their knees to go to job interviews, jump up on chairs at the sight of spiders, and start panicking in crowds or in general in any incomprehensible situation.
Share your fear with the people closest to you, and tell them about it on Facebook or in an anonymous community – you can get not only moral support but also a couple of effective tips on how to overcome this fear.
Shift the focus
It’s okay to be afraid. Awareness of this simple fact helps get rid of the shame of your feelings and shift the focus to action. Since anxiety is inevitable, you have to learn to live with it.
You can think of fear as muscle pain during exercise: we don’t throw dumbbells at the first unpleasant sensation – we just note it and continue training. If you stick to this tactic, the pains will gradually come later and become less intense. It’s the same with anxiety: the startle response in our body is triggered by a small part of the limbic system called the amygdala. If you follow the impulse and run away from the frightening situation, the brain will register the reaction and remember: “This is something to be afraid of”. However, with each attempt to overcome the fear, the association will weaken and may one day disappear altogether.
Use logic
When fear is overwhelming, a surefire way to engage the fight is to suppress the amygdala signals by engaging the parts of the brain that are responsible for rational thinking. Simply put, switch from emotion to logic. And this is where all the information we’ve been able to gather about the nature of fear comes in handy.
Our limbic system does not like to go into details and operates with very simple concepts. As you feel your fear growing, try to load your brain with detailed questions. They can relate to the anxiety itself (all the questions from the first point will do here), but it is possible to focus on something indirect, the main thing – to make your logical thinking work. Most likely, it will tell you that what is happening is not so scary, and help you calculate the best ways out of the situation.
Of course, some situations are worth fearing and avoiding. But many of our fears make us run away from quite ordinary or even useful things: an important conversation, a promotion at work, or an interesting discovery. By engaging logic, you can make fear work for good – to prepare more carefully for events, analyze the consequences, calculate the risks and find non-trivial solutions to possible problems. Then fear can become not an annoying hindrance, but a charge for the mind and a drive for new achievements.