Imagine this: You are sitting in the classroom and the teacher calls you to the board for a “little” quiz, as he calls it. You are totally unprepared. Immediately your heartbeat speeds up. You think about excuses. Maybe he would let me go if you I was sick? Your hands get sweaty. All eyes are on you. Your brain starts rattling of worst-case scenarios: “They will definitely laugh at me. The teacher will give me an F. I am doomed. I will be so embarrassed.”
We all know fear and anxiety. What we have to know is that fear is an emotional response by our body. Whenever our brain recognizes a threat and interprets our environment as dangerous, we feel certain emotions.
· Change our Way of Thinking
· Manipulate our Body Functions
· and Influence our Behavior
Actually, fear is something that is meant to protect us. Like when we meet a strange person at night in a dark alley and suddenly, we are able capable of running as fast as we never could have imagined. Fear gives us that willpower to stay up all night to study for an exam that we totally can’t fail.
But most of the time in modern society our fear is holding us back.
“Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They seem to be more afraid of life than death” – James F. Byrnes
There are 3 typical behavioral reactions to fear, which most of us are aware of:
Take a look at Stefanie she is scared of public speaking, but her friend has the glorious idea to take her along to a public speaking competition.
Situation A (FIGHT): Stefanie starts getting angry at her friend. “You don’t understand me at all. I don’t like that stuff it’s stupid and boring!”
Situation B (FLIGHT): Stefanie makes up excuses. “I am sorry Lauren I am busy that weekend I already made plans.”
Situation C (FREEZE): Somehow her friend got her too the competition. Stefanie is on stage, but no word comes out of her mouth despite all the preparation. She is just standing there panicking inside.
Physical Reactions to fear Include for example:
· A dry mouth
· Sweating
· Cold Hands and Feet
· An upset stomach
· Fast heartbeat
· Fast breathing
All which is supposed to help us fight or flee the situation more easily. Oxygen gets pumped to our muscles. Our system goes on high alert. Fear also impacts our thoughts and cognitive functions. Your focus narrows down on the one problem at hand. “All the things we think of as long-term interests
get diverted to the immediate interest: fight or flight” Daniel Evans, Ph.D.
Types of fears:
There are basically two types of fear:
1. There are innate fears, which we have had since we were born with. The fear of falling for example (click the link for the whole study) .
2. And learned fears, which we learn during our life. Most of our fears are learned fears, for example when we touch a cold object, or when we stick our tong to an icicle. Or when we are young and see our mother run away from spiders.
Sometimes we show fear response when there is nothing to fear. Usually this fear reaction to neutral situations or objects is caused by dramatic events in our life. This is a learned fear reaction.
Let’s say Marry leaves her house and crosses the street. Suddenly she sees a car coming at her. It doesn’t slow down. Marry freezes in the middle of the street her heartbeat increases. She hears the tires screech and finally right in front of her the car comes to a halt.
That night Marry thinks about what would have happened if the car had hit her. She can’t sleep well.
The next day she wants to cross the same street. She thinks about the previous day. Her heartbeat speeds up. Marry thinks something must be wrong with her. Is this a heart attack? She starts panicking and hurries back home. The groceries can wait.
Normally after some time passes Marry would see that nothing happens at the street and that it is safe. The more often she would cross safely the more comfortable she would feel.
But Marry is unlucky on her third day trying to cross the street Marry sees a car run over a cat. Again, her heartbeat increases. Now whenever Marry has to cross a street she gets a panic attack. An extreme fear response. Therefore, she avoids crossing streets.
The more she avoids crossing the streets the more her brain thinks it must be dangerous.
This is also called fear conditioning. When an originally neutral stimulus becomes scary. The good point is this also means that if you repeat the neutral stimulus and nothing bad happens you can unlearn a fear.
So let’s take a look at how we can overcome our fears.
1. Exposure Therapy – Behavioral Psychology
First there is exposure therapy, which builds on the fact that we can unlearn fears. In exposure therapy a psychologist can guide you through your fear by confronting you with your fears.
Usually this happens through different difficulty levels: The difficulty level increases with each step. You have to repeatedly do one step until it doesn’t make you uncomfortable anymore.
For example if you have a fear of driving:
Stage 1: Imagine you are getting into a car.
Stage 2: Imagine driving the car.
Stage 3. Wear VR glasses and get into a car.
Stage 4: Drive in a simulation.
Stage 5: Get into a real car in real life.
The only issue with this therapy is that often patients refuse to actually face their fears. What is one fear that you could slowly face? Which simple steps could you take to make yourself more comfortable?
2. Change your thoughts – Cognitive Behavior Therapy
Our feelings, thoughts and behavior are intercorrelated. The good point about that is, if you change one aspect it automatically changes the other aspects.
When we are afraid, we overestimate the negative outcome. We have many negative thoughts and also underestimate our own ability to cope with certain situations. In our head we continuously repeat the worst case scenarios. This amplifies our feelings and behavior.
Do you know the scene in Harry Potter, where the students have to face a Boggart: A Boggart is a shape-shifter that takes the form of the watcher biggest fear. With the spell Riddikulus and thinking about the fear in a fun way the Boggart disappears.
Just like that when we identify our negative thoughts, we can change them.
Step 1: Is to identify a negative, fear inducing thought.
Step 2: We have to evaluate the thought. How likely is it that in the dark a monster will come up to me?
Step 3: We have to reappraise the situation. Yes there is a chance a monster is under my bed, but it is more likely there is nothing.
Step 4: Test your new understanding through exposure.
1. Another interesting fact I found out during my research is that fear is contagious. So, when you see a scared face you get scared. Therefore, it’s best not to face your fears with a scared person around you. My mum is totally nervous when I drive. It automatically makes me nervous and worried about driving, when she is in the same car with me.
2. Second when you ride like a really scary roller coaster and then have to face your boss about a mistake you’ve made at work,
that might sound a lot less scary too you. What I am saying is that sometimes a good old scare can make every day fears seem less scary.
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