How to cope with anxiety and fears on your own. Feelings of anxiety and fear for no reason: why they arise and how to deal with them

Today we will talk about how to get rid of fear of a very different nature: fear of death, fear of animals or insects, phobia associated with illness, injury, death as a result of an accident, etc.

In this article, I will not only talk about techniques that will help you overcome fear, but also how to properly deal with feelings of fear and how to change your life so that there is less room for anxiety in it.

I myself had to go through a lot of fears, especially during that period of my life when I experienced. I was afraid of dying or going crazy. I was afraid that my health would become completely unusable. I was afraid of dogs. I was afraid of so many things.

Since then, some of my fears have completely disappeared. I learned to control some fears. I learned to live with other fears. I've done a lot of work on myself. I hope my experience, which I will outline in this article, will help you too.

Where does fear come from?

Since ancient times, the mechanism 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, had a greater chance of not dying from a poisonous bite than those who showed fearlessness in relation to crawling creatures. Fear helped those who experienced it to 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 begin to instinctively give way. The brain will send alarm signals. The person will passionately want 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 protect 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 our survival goals. And even if it answers, it does not contribute to our happiness and comfort in any way.

People experience many social fears that prevent them from achieving their goals. They are often afraid of things that pose no threat. Or this threat is negligible.

The chance of dying in a passenger plane crash is about one in 8 million. However, many people are afraid of traveling 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 become uncontrollable. 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 the natural mechanism formed by evolution often interferes with us. Many fears do not protect us, but rather make us vulnerable. This means we need to intervene in this process. Next I will tell you how to do this.

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 we just stop being afraid of fear itself?”

What reactions does fear cause in a person? As we found out earlier this:

1. The desire to eliminate the object of fear. (If a person is afraid of snakes, will he run away? when he sees them
2. Reluctance to repeat this feeling (The person will avoid snakes wherever possible, not build a dwelling near their lair, etc.)

Our instincts tell us these two reactions. 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 a sense of fear. For example, he will get drunk, take sedative pills, and 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, such behavior often makes no sense. After all, the fight against fear is a fight against instincts. And if we want to defeat instincts, we should not be guided by their logic, which is indicated in two points above.

Of course, during an attack of fear, the most logical behavior for us is to run away or try to get rid of the attack of fear. 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 “guts” tell 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 torments me! I want to stop being afraid completely! Get me out of this!” Some methods may help them for a while, but fear can still return to them in one form or another. Because they listened to their instincts, which told them: “Fear 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, strive to get rid of it! Now I will explain this paradox.

Fear is just a program

Imagine that you have invented a robot that washes your floors at home, including your balcony. Using the reflection of radio signals, the robot can estimate the height at which it is located. And to prevent him from falling off the edge of the balcony, you have programmed him in such a way that his brain signals him to stop if he is on the edge of a drop in height.

You left the house and left the robot to clean up. What did you find when you returned? The robot froze on the threshold between your room and the kitchen and could not cross it due to a slight difference in heights! The signal in his brain told him to stop!

If the robot had “mind”, “consciousness”, it 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 that 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 paradoxically, and not as your gut tells you.

After all, fear is just a feeling. Roughly speaking, this is the same program that the robot in our example executes when it approaches the balcony. This is a program that your brain launches on a chemical level (with the help of adrenaline, for example) after it receives information from your sensory organs.

Fear is simply a stream of chemical signals that are translated into commands for your body.

But your consciousness, despite the work of the program, can itself understand in which cases it is faced with a real danger, and in which situations it is dealing with a failure in the “instinctive program” (approximately the same failure that occurred with the robot when it could not climb over across the threshold).

If you experience fear, it does not mean that there is any danger. You should not always trust all your feelings, as they often deceive you. Do not run from a non-existent danger, do not try to somehow calm this feeling. Try to just calmly wait until the “siren” (“alarm! save yourself!”) in your head goes silent. Often this will simply be a false alarm.

And it is in this direction that you must move first if you want to get rid of fear. In the direction of allowing your consciousness, and not the “primitive” brain, to make decisions (getting on a plane, approaching a strange 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 about experiencing this feeling sometimes.

Being afraid is normal. There is no need to strive to immediately get rid of fear (or what this fear causes). Because if you are just thinking about how to get rid of him, you follow his lead, you listen to what he tells you, you obey him, do you take him 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 giving him great importance.

When you think: “I'm afraid to fly on a plane, but I'll fly on it anyway. And I won’t be afraid of an attack of fear, because it’s just a feeling, chemistry, the play of my instincts. Let him come, because there is nothing terrible in fear!” Then you stop obeying fear.

You will get rid of fear only when you stop wanting to get rid of it and 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, as sudden attacks of fear, only when I stopped focusing on getting rid of it! I began to think: “let the attacks come. This fear is just an illusion. I can survive these attacks, there’s nothing scary about 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 in relation to them that were opposite to the logic of my instincts, when I stopped driving away fear, only then did it begin to go away!

Our instincts trap us. 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 this only makes the whole situation worse.

When we begin to be afraid of our fears, to 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 became convinced of the truth of this principle when I suffered from panic attacks. The more afraid I was of new attacks of fear, the more often they happened.

My fear of attacks only fueled the fear that arises during a panic attack. These two fears (fear itself and fear of fear) are connected by positive feedback and reinforce each other.

The person covered by them falls into a vicious circle. He is afraid of new attacks and thereby causes them, and the 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 the fear itself, as many people want. Since we can influence this type of fear much more than fear in its pure form.

If we talk about fear in its “pure form,” then it often does not have very much weight in the totality of fear. I want to say that if we are not afraid of it, then it is easier for us to survive these unpleasant sensations. Fear ceases to be "terrible".

Don't worry if these conclusions don't quite make sense to you, or if you don't quite understand how to achieve this attitude towards your fear. Such an understanding will not come immediately. But you will be able to understand it 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.

This advice may not help you cope with every fear, but it will help you cope with some anxieties. 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. It provides you with comfortable working conditions, and the salary at this place allows you to buy the things you want. The thought of losing her fills you with fear. You immediately imagine how you will have to look for another job, which 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 this...

But instead of imagining how bad you'll feel when you lose your job, think about what happens next. Mentally cross the line you are afraid to cross. Let's say you lose your job. Ask yourself what will happen in the future? Imagine your future over an extended period of time with all the nuances.

You will start looking for a new job. It is not at all necessary that you will not find a job with the same salary. There is a possibility that you will find an even higher paying position. You cannot know for sure how much you are willing to offer to 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 bought before, and prefer a holiday at your own or a friend’s dacha to a holiday abroad. I understand that now this 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 have become accustomed to many things in your life. But it is quite possible that this situation will not last your entire life; you will be able to achieve a promotion in your new job!

When a child's toy is taken away, he stomps his foot and cries, because he cannot realize that in the future (perhaps in a couple of days) he will get used to the absence of this toy and other, more interesting things will appear. Because the child becomes a hostage to his momentary emotions and cannot think in the future!

Don't become that child. Think constructively about the things you fear.

If you are afraid that your husband will betray you and leave you for another woman, think, so what? Millions of couples break up and no one dies from it. You will suffer for a while, but then you will begin to live a new life. After all, any human emotions are temporary! Don't be afraid of these emotions. They will come and go.

Imagine the 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 failures! About new happiness, not suffering!

Method 3 - Be Prepared

When I'm nervous on a plane about to land, it doesn't help much to think about plane crash statistics. So what if disasters happen rarely? So what if 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 begins 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 save you. After all, unlikely does not mean impossible! In this life, everything is possible, so you need to be prepared for anything.
Trying to reassure yourself, like: “everything will be fine, nothing will happen,” usually doesn’t help. Because such exhortations are lies. And the truth is that it will happen, anything can happen! And we 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 line of thinking helps me out on such intense flights? I think: “Planes 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 someday. Death is inevitable in any case. It ends every human life. A catastrophe will simply bring closer what will happen someday anyway with 100% probability.”

As you can see, being prepared does not mean looking at things with a doomed look, thinking: “I’m going to die soon.” This simply means realistically assessing the situation: “it’s not a fact that a disaster will happen. But if it happens, then so be it.”

Of course, this does not eliminate fear completely. I'm still afraid of death, but it helps to be prepared. What's the point of worrying your whole life about something that will definitely happen? It’s better to be at least a little prepared and not think about your death as something that will never happen to us.
I understand that this advice is very difficult to implement in practice. And, moreover, not everyone always wants to think about death.

But people often write to me, tormented by the most absurd fears. Someone, for example, is afraid to go outside because they believe that it is dangerous there, whereas at home it is much safer. This person will have a hard time dealing with his fear if he waits for the fear to pass so he can go outside. But he may feel better if he thinks: “Even though there is danger on the street. But you can’t sit at home all the time! You cannot completely protect yourself, even if you are within four walls. Or I will go outside and expose myself to the danger of death and injury (this danger is negligible). Or I'll stay at home until I die! A death that will happen anyway. If I die now, then I will die. But most likely this will not happen in the near future.”

If people stop focusing so much on their fears, and can at least sometimes look them in the face, realizing that behind them there is nothing hidden except emptiness, then fears will cease to have so much power over us. We can’t be so afraid of losing what we are already going to lose.

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!

That's right, even though it contradicts ordinary logic. At the end of every fear lies emptiness. We have nothing to fear because all things are temporary.

This thesis may be very difficult to intuitively understand.

But I am not too keen for you to understand it on a theoretical level, but rather to use it in practice. How? I'll explain now.

I myself use this principle regularly. I'm still afraid of many things. But, remembering this principle, I understand that every fear of mine is meaningless. I shouldn’t “feed” him and get too carried away with him. When I think about this, I find the strength to not give in 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 no other reaction other than fear is possible in relation to these things. But if you know that in principle there is nothing to be afraid of in this life, since everything will happen someday, if you realize the meaninglessness, the “emptiness” of fear, if you understand that there are no truly terrible things, but only a subjective reaction to these things, then it will become easier to cope with fear. I will return to this point at the end of the article.

Method 4 - Observe

The following few methods will allow you to deal with fear as it arises.

Instead of giving in to fear, try simply observing it from the outside. Try to localize this fear in your thoughts, to 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 how it forms. Sometimes this helps remove fear completely. Even if the fear doesn't go away, it's okay. By becoming a dispassionate observer, you begin to recognize your fear as something external to your “I”, as something that no longer has such power over this “I”.

When you observe, fear is much easier to control. After all, the feeling of fear forms like a snowball. At first you are simply scared, then all sorts of thoughts begin to creep into your head: “what if something bad happens,” “what is that strange sound that appeared when the plane was landing?”, “what if something bad happens to my health?”

And these thoughts fuel fear, it becomes even stronger and causes even more anxious 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 increase fear. To do this, simply turn off thinking, evaluation and interpretation 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 inhalations and exhalations. Diaphragmatic breathing 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. Calmly move your attention over each muscle in your body and relax it. You can combine this technique with breathing. Mentally direct your breath to different parts of your body, in order, starting with your head and ending with your 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 might offend someone or make a bad impression on them. 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 repeats over and over again, then when you again fear that you said the wrong things when communicating, remember how often your fear was not realized. And most likely, you will understand that 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 make a big deal about 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 any danger. This feeling is sometimes not reality, but is just a spontaneous chemical reaction in your head. Instead of being afraid of this reaction, treat it as a thrill, as a free ride. You don't have to pay money or put yourself in danger by skydiving to get the adrenaline rush. This adrenaline appears out of the blue. Beauty!

Method 9 - Accept your fear, don't resist

Above, I talked about techniques that will help you quickly cope with your fear at the moment it arises. 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: “Hurray! It turns out fear can be controlled! And now I know how to do it! Then I’ll 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 cope with fear using these methods, they begin 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 somehow! I have to manage this!”

They begin to worry and thereby only increase their fear. But the truth is that it's far away you can't always control everything. Sometimes these techniques will work, sometimes they won't. Of course, try to breathe, observe the fear, but if it doesn’t go away, there’s 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 "have to" get rid of it at that moment. The word "should" does not apply here at all. Because you feel the way you feel 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, inability to achieve 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 constant victories on the love front, then this will lead us into a state of eternal dissatisfaction, and not happiness and pleasure, as we think . Sexual feeling and self-esteem cannot be completely satisfied. 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 (“pleasure inflation”), 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 still happen with the advent of old age) and again we will suffer. At a time when no love affairs occur, we will not feel the joy of life.

Perhaps some people will find it easier to understand attachment using the example of money. While we strive for money, it seems to us that by earning a certain 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 are chasing carrots on a fishing rod.

But it would be much easier for you if you weren’t so attached to it and were happy with what we have (it’s 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 create fear.

After all, we are afraid of losing exactly what we are so attached to!

I'm not saying that you need to go to the mountains, give up your personal life and destroy all attachments. Complete release from attachments is an extreme teaching, suitable for extreme cases. But, despite this, a modern person can derive some benefit from this principle for himself without going to extremes.

To experience less fear, you don’t need to get too hung up on certain things and make them the basis of your existence. If you think: “I live for my work,” “I live only 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 a lot of new things into it, enjoy many things, and not just one thing. Be happy because you are breathing and living, and not just because you have a lot of money and are attractive to the opposite sex. Although, as I said above, the latter things will not bring you happiness.

(In this sense, attachments are not only the cause of suffering, but its consequence! 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, as a rule, are more self-sufficient. The basis of their happiness is life itself, and not things. Therefore, they are not so afraid of losing them.)

Affection does not mean absence of love. As I wrote above, this is understood more as addiction than love. For example, I have very high hopes for this site. I love developing it. If something bad suddenly happens to him, it will be a blow for me, but not the end of my whole 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 just 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 is finite. And you yourself are part of this universal order, and not the center of it!

If you feel yourself in harmony with this world, without opposing yourself to it, and 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 this has always happened, forever and ever.

With this consciousness your fears will disappear. How to achieve such consciousness? It must come 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 prepared 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 to just read about it, it needs to be practiced, day after day, applying it in real life. Not all things in this world are accessible to “intellectual” knowledge.

The attitude towards fears that I spoke about at the beginning needs to be cultivated in oneself. The way to come to these conclusions in practice, to realize that fear is just an illusion, is meditation.

Meditation makes it possible to “reprogram” yourself to be happier and freer. Nature is an excellent “constructor”, but her creations are not ideal; biological mechanisms (the mechanism of fear) that worked in the Stone Age do not always work in the modern world.

Meditation will allow you to partially correct the imperfections of nature, change your standard emotional reactions to many things, move 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 free yourself from it!

With practice, you can find the source of happiness within yourself and not have strong attachments 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. She will teach you to relax deeply and get rid of fatigue and tension. And this is very important for people who experience fear.

You can listen to my short lecture on this by following the link.

Method 13 - Don't let fear dictate you

Many of us are accustomed to the fact that everyone around us just talks about how scary it is to live, what terrible diseases exist, they gasp and groan. And this perception is transferred to us. We start to think that there are really scary things that we “should” be afraid of, since everyone else is afraid of them!

Fear, surprisingly, can be a consequence of stereotypes. It is natural to be afraid of 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 watch 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 completely calmly, he treated it as an unchangeable order of things. If you ask some spiritually developed person, perhaps a religious ascetic, a convinced Christian or a Buddhist, how he feels about death, he will probably be calm about this. And this is not necessarily connected only with the fact that the first believes in an immortal soul, posthumous 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 we need to seek salvation in religion, I’m trying to prove that a different attitude towards those things that we consider terrible is possible, and it can be achieved along with spiritual development!

Don't listen to those who talk about how scary everything is. These people are wrong. In fact, there are almost no things in this world to be afraid of. Or not at all.

And watch less TV.

Method 14 - Do not avoid situations in which fear arises (!!!)

I 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 (run away, be afraid, avoid 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.

But what to do? Go outside! Forget about your fear! Let him appear, don’t be afraid of him, let him in and don’t resist. However, do not take it seriously, because it is just a feeling. You can get rid of your fear only when you begin to ignore the very fact of its occurrence and live as if there is no fear!

• To overcome your 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 martial arts section.
• 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 what you “should” do and get rid of your fear as soon as possible. Just take action.

Method 15 - Strengthen your nervous system

The extent to which you are susceptible to fear very much depends on the state of your health in general and the health of your nervous system in particular. Therefore, improve your work, learn to cope with stress, do yoga, quit. I have discussed 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 don't neglect this and don't limit yourself to just "emotional work." In a healthy body healthy mind.

Conclusion

This article does not encourage you to immerse yourself in a world of sweet dreams and hide 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.

This path may 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 trusting him. When you don’t allow him to tell you what kind of transport to get to your vacation spot, how often to go outside, what people to communicate with. When you start living as if there is no fear.

Only then will he leave. Or he won't leave. But this will no longer matter much to you, since fear will become only a minor obstacle for you. Why give importance to little things?

Anxiety, obsessive thoughts, increased restlessness, panic attacks, constant tension are signs of dysfunction of the nervous system. Very soon they will lead to complete exhaustion of the body. Fear settles in a person’s mind, preventing him from leading a normal life. Everyday worries are replaced by reasoning about one’s own experiences. The more you think about scary moments, the more they develop in your imagination. To find out how to get rid of fear, you don’t have to see a psychologist. The first step in dealing with a problem is working on your own thoughts.

If fear is not removed in time, it will develop into a phobia. Fear and phobia are close and interrelated concepts. However, there is a difference: fear occurs unconsciously as a reaction to a certain event or news that has made an impression on you. A phobia is an obsessive fear, experiencing which the patient realizes its meaninglessness, but cannot cope with internal experiences. Getting rid of a phobia is much more difficult, but for a person who is determined to change his life, nothing is impossible.

How fears appear

For many centuries, psychology was not an independent science, appearing to scientists as something mysterious and even mystical. The secret corners of the human subconscious remain unexplored to this day. However, in the 20th century, psychology rapidly stepped forward, providing the world with many valuable discoveries. Professional psychoanalysis helps to get rid of fear and anxiety and overcome obsessive phobias. However, turning to specialists in the field of psychology costs a lot of money. This fact forces people to learn to understand the mechanisms of fear and provide themselves with the necessary help.

In ancient times, fear could be equated with the ability to survive. The man, through trial and error, figured out what to fear in order to stay alive and not get injured. The feeling of fear of heights (acrophobia) is inherited. This is due to the fact that falling from a height is fatal to the body. Most people don't realize they have acrophobia until they've been at heights for the first time. The same can be said about the fear of snakes (ophidiophobia) and insects (insectophobia). In ancient times, daredevils who showed fearlessness in the face of poisonous reptiles often died from a bite. Therefore, the fear of snakes can be equated to the instinct of self-preservation.

In modern times, the number of phobias and fears has increased significantly. Fear and panic these days often have nothing to do with survival. They are rather social in nature and often have no basis. This could be fear of illness, new acquaintances, intimacy, death (your own or a loved one). Most people suffer from a fear of flying on an airplane. The probability of dying in a plane crash does not exceed one millionth of a percent.

The fear of air travel is due to the fairly rapid spread of air transport; not all people are accustomed to this method of transportation

To prevent fear from turning into a phobia, and a phobia into paranoia, a person must intervene in the course of his thoughts, plunge into his own consciousness and block obsessive thoughts. It is important to realize in time that most fears do not protect you, but push you into danger and make you vulnerable. You can get rid of fear and uncertainty on your own. It is important to do this gradually and correctly.

How not to be afraid of fear itself

Most people fear not the object of fear, but the feeling of fear itself. This can be explained using a simple example: a person who is afraid of snakes will avoid the object of fear (do not go to places where there may be snake dens; run away when they see a snake, etc.). But if we are talking about the fear of flying on an airplane, the person will try to get rid of the fear itself (drink sedatives or alcohol so as not to feel tension during the flight).

To overcome anxiety in the future, you need to learn to block fear and not follow instinct. Compared to the subconscious mind, the human brain seems to be a rather primitive mechanism. It receives a signal from the sensory organs and triggers panic mode. A person’s task is to adjust himself in a different way, to stop following fear. It is important to convince yourself that fear in a given situation has nothing to do with real danger, it is a simple chemical reaction of the body.

Every person can be afraid, and this is quite normal. There is no need to frighten yourself with obsessive thoughts, fueling panic. Give the body time to endure the false alarm signal, and the consciousness will be convinced that the fear has practically disappeared. Everything written above can be retold more briefly: do not be afraid of your fears, but live with them. If you do not break the vicious circle, fears will develop into real panic. The vicious circle is the fear of panic attacks. The more you fear them, the more often they come.

Forecast good things

Remove the fear of breaking up with an unfaithful husband/wife, losing your job, changing your place of residence, etc. Thoughts about the future will help. This can also be explained with a simple example.

Imagine that you have known for a long time about the betrayal of a loved one. Sleepless nights, anxiety, worry, poisoned life. You understand perfectly well that a person who cheated once will take this step again. The only correct way out is to leave and start a new life. And this is where most people (both men and women) experience real panic. The imagination of men quickly paints a picture: he is lonely, without his own home, without a child and in a depressed state, and his wife lives happily with her new husband. For a woman, the picture emerges much worse: she is alone with a small child in her arms, no one needs her, without a decent job, and at the same time her husband is having fun with a beautiful mistress who will soon take your wife’s place.

It is important to think not about future sorrows, but about new prospects. You need to realize that any emotion is temporary. Unfortunately, joy passes faster than grief. But even bitter suffering soon ceases. It is important to force yourself to look at the good side of the coin. Don’t imagine yourself alone and unwanted, predict a better future. Believe that a happier relationship awaits you, in which you will feel confident and harmonious. Positive forecasts hide a way to get rid of feelings of fear.

Bad thoughts cause a person to lose the ability to correctly resolve the situation and make the only right decision.

It's important to be prepared for anything

A person who frequently flies on airplanes, but at the same time suffers from aerophobia, does not accept the comforting statistics that on average 1 in 8,000,000 airplanes are involved in a plane crash. At the slightest turbulence, he feels panic, thinking that an accident will happen to this particular plane. The only way to get rid of anxiety is to accept the fact that any plane can crash. It sounds scary, but with any flight there is some risk.

Knowing that you will die in a plane crash does not completely eliminate the fear of death. But deep down, every person understands that death will come sooner or later, and a plane crash will simply bring this moment closer. Awareness of the risk of dying in a plane crash should not force you to look at the world with doomed eyes, foreseeing the potential possibility of death in any action. It is important not to doom yourself to death, but simply to soberly assess the situation.

This method is designed to block or localize panic fear at the moment of its occurrence. Imagine that you are climbing up a spiral staircase (for example, to the observation deck of an ancient tower), and then accidentally look down and see tens of meters of space behind the railing. It is at this moment that panic begins to build up in you like a snowball: cottony legs, nausea, heart palpitations, dry mouth, stuffy ears, etc. Your task at this moment is to distract your thinking, forcing you to look at yourself from the outside.

First of all, give up the thoughts “what if I stumble?”, “suddenly the step breaks”, “what if the handrail breaks?” and similar

Try to notice all the changes that have occurred in your body. Make your legs and arms obey you, start breathing deeply and evenly, realistically assess the danger. You must become an observer of your own panic. First of all, you will feel that your legs become more confident, and the noise and ringing in your ears have stopped. Turn off your imagination mode and become a dispassionate observer.

Fear is not confirmed by anything

This advice applies to people who are afraid of petty fears or banal discomfort. For example, you suffer from the fear of speaking in front of people (an answer in a pair, a report at work, defending a scientific work, congratulations at a celebration, and so on). It is rare that such fears arise in people who have experienced certain setbacks: you forgot your speech during the defense of your thesis, you made a mistake while speaking at a conference, etc. The cause of anxiety is a stormy imagination that predicted a possible awkward situation.

The first way to overcome this kind of panic is to understand that you have no real reason to be afraid or embarrassed. Indeed, until today you have been to many feasts, more than once delivered a report at work and successfully answered in pairs during your studies. The second piece of advice in overcoming these anxieties is to accept the fact that anyone in public speaking can hesitate or pause. It’s not scary, and after 5 seconds everyone will forget about it.

Don't get caught up or get attached

In order not to feel constant fear of loss, you need to be able to not become attached to things, people or ideas. Only a truly wise person can realize the fact that complete satisfaction is impossible. The final goal cannot be achieved. After reaching a certain stage, you will certainly want to improve. Having earned the first million, no one stops.

Life turns into an endless race for carrots dangling in front of your nose.

Suffering and anxiety due to attachments can be explained using the example of a typical high achiever. From the first grade, a student gets used to getting only A's. He tries hard, sacrifices his free time, devoting it to doing homework. The diary is full of A's, the student is praised by both parents and teachers. Accordingly, the child has a wild fear of getting any grade other than a solid A. Even a small assigned negative can negatively affect his mood. At the same time, a good student who is used to periodically receiving B grades does not experience such fear. At the same time, he continues to strive for better results, but his state of mind does not suffer from imposed fear.

Fears of pregnant women

Pregnancy is a special, new stage in life. You need to realize that you are already responsible for not one, but two people. Most expectant mothers have many fears during pregnancy. Often it is anxiety that prevents a woman from bearing and giving birth to a healthy baby. Often panic occurs already in the first weeks. For some, it’s enough to hear enough or read horror stories, while others are afraid of any unusual sensation in the body.

The first and most competent way to get rid of the experience in the early stages is to accept the fact that nature is smarter and more experienced

There is no need to be afraid of an early miscarriage or missed pregnancy. If this happened, it had to happen. The fetus initially developed incorrectly, and nature knows how to get rid of a “bad” pregnancy. You need to accept this fact and not give up. It is important not to be afraid of further attempts to get pregnant.

Other fears are related to future births and the health of the baby. Many women worry that they will not be able to cope with motherhood without experience. Don't invent problems that don't exist. If you are carrying a baby under your heart, this means that you are the one chosen by nature to be his mother, and you will definitely succeed.

Fear sucks the life energy out of a person. Stop being afraid of the feeling of fear, try to remove from your mind scary pictures of what could happen, but will never happen. Get rid of fear and start living for real.

Fear is a feeling that is present in every person. There are different fears: for children, for your health, fear of heights, closed spaces, fear of spiders, and so on.

If you are afraid, it means you can avoid unpleasant sensations. Fears within reasonable limits warn against unnecessary actions and actions.

But what to do when fear has completely filled your existence? You are afraid , . And these thoughts become obsessive and fill your entire consciousness and existence. That is, they turn into phobias. How to get rid of such fear? About this - in the material.

You will find auto-training to increase self-esteem in ours.

Where do fears and phobias come from?

Fears psychologists divide into two main groups:

• rational;
• irrational.

The first ones exist in every person and are transmitted at the gene level. They help a person avoid danger, save the life of himself or his loved ones. For example, you wouldn’t hang from the railing of a balcony on the 7th floor.

For what? After all, this is life-threatening - you can fall and crash. These same rational fears They will not force you to approach something dangerous: a poisonous snake, a predator, an angry dog. Therefore, such fears perform their functions:

• protection;
• getting rid of troubles;
• guide you to the right actions and actions.

But the second group - irrational fears- make a person afraid of something that actually isn’t there. These are far-fetched fears. How do they appear?

When a person does not solve some internal problem, puts it off for later, is afraid of something in reality. But if he does not work on himself, then this fear is deformed and passes into the subconscious, causing irrational fear.

For example, a young man was always afraid of people, society, had complexes and could not find a common language with his peers. But constantly internally put aside this fear that worried him: “Then I’ll think about what to do with it.”

Over time, the real fear went into the subconscious. And an irrational fear appeared - fear of heights. Now this young man is afraid to even stand on a chair.

This - imaginary fear, which, as a result of the deformation of his fear - the fear of people and being not up to par in communicating with them - turned into such a far-fetched fear - fear of heights.

What is dangerous about living in fear and how to overcome this feeling? Find out from the video:

Types of phobias

Long-term, unreasonable fear in psychology it is called a phobia.

This fear leads to prolonged anxiety and anticipation of the worst.

A person's personality begins to deform. Fear follows him everywhere.

There is no need to delay this situation, as pathological changes in consciousness go further, which can lead to mental illness. All human phobias can be divided into main classes:

• Aichmophobia - fear of sharp objects;
• - water;
• social phobia - society;
• - heights;
• - animal;
• - confined space;
• ethnophobia - a certain race, and so on.

Is it possible to fight on your own?

Man is a rational being. He can analyze his states and emotions. Therefore, he can cope with his fears and phobias on his own.

Main to overcome fears and anxiety:

1. Human desire.
2. Ability to analyze.
3. Ability to make correct conclusions.
4. Work on yourself.

If you feel like you can't do it alone, consult a psychologist, which will offer you several methods of getting rid of fears and phobias.

If you feel strong. Then begin to independently get rid of unnecessary fears and worries that prevent you from living.

For this:

1. Be honest with yourself about what it is that scares you.
2. Learn to relax as much as possible during a surge of fear.
3. While relaxing, try to understand whether everything is really so scary and unpredictable.
4. Try to relax as much as possible and breathe properly and calmly.

The most difficult thing in getting rid of phobias on your own is being able to relax. To do this they will help you:

• music;
• soothing sounds;
• uniform, calm breathing;
• comfortable position;
• the ability to imagine yourself at this moment in the most favorable environment for yourself.

Not everyone is able to relax and gradually minimize fear. Therefore, a psychologist in this situation is your best assistant.

When such sessions are carried out correctly fear will decrease, and literally in a month you will not feel even bouts of fear.

How does fear or anxiety manifest itself, how does it affect a person and how to get rid of it? Psychologist's comment:

What methods does treatment include?

How to cure or suppress fear? With a professional approach to treating experiences a number of modern techniques are used- starting from hypnosis and ending with medication techniques.

But if you consult a specialist in time, and medications are not indicated for you, then the specialist can use other methods of treating fears:

1. Desensitization is a kind of processing of situations that cause fear.
2. Exposure is facing fear eye to eye.
3. Humor is the ability to laugh at your fears and at yourself.
4. Progressive muscle relaxation.
5. Included modeling - replaying a situation that causes fear.

Therapy using virtual reality- transferring fear to a game with fictional or fairy-tale characters that do not exist in nature.

The doctor may also suggest putting everything on paper, drawing diagrams of different situations and ways out of them. Then it will be visually clear that there are actually many exits - choose any one.

May be offered technique with the inclusion of logic, when all fears are depicted schematically, a diagram of options for overcoming them will be proposed.

Reasoning logically, the patient will ultimately come to the conclusion that fears are only in his head, they do not exist anywhere else. They are far-fetched and far from reality.

Basic principles in overcoming

I’m afraid of everything: how can I fight this?

Depending on the reasons for the appearance of fears, and, as a rule, all fears from childhood, you need to identify the basic methodology for working with this fear.

But for any reason and any technique there are certain principles for overcoming fear:

1. Get away from negative thoughts.
2. Think more about the positive.
3. Start dreaming about something.
4. Set yourself a goal.
5. Catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, stop and transform them into a positive way (For example, I can’t go with a friend now, but I’ll definitely do it after class).
6. Take bad news as a change for the better.
7. Even give in to negative events with the thought “this means this is necessary for some reason.”
8. Know how to laugh at yourself - funny means not scary.
9. Don't stop there, move on.

How to remove anxiety and fear from the subconscious at home? Hypnosis session:

Unfortunately, our telecommunications are filled with horror films, these include films, games, such as zombies, street posters, pictures on the Internet, and so on.

We can see something terrible and forget for a while about it.

But then terrible pictures appear in my head, and fear appears. The first thing to do is to enable logic. Sit down calm down and ask yourself 3 questions:

1. Why am I thinking about this now?
2. What prompted me to these thoughts?
3. What was the root cause of this thinking?

Answering these questions, you will understand that, for example, a recently watched horror film has been reformatted into terrible pictures and fear.

Draw the right conclusion - give up what excites your consciousness and makes it paint unpleasant, terrifying pictures.

From self-hypnosis

When talking about the psychosomatic nature of the disease, doctors mean the psychological and mental state of the person that provoked the disease. Doctors believe that all diseases come from the state of the nervous system. That's why the main conditions for good health and absence of fears:

• calm;
• equilibrium;
• the ability to relieve stress through physical exercise;
• active lifestyle;
• proper nutrition.

Get rid of self-hypnosis, including fears, possibly in different ways:

1. Think more positive.
2. Get to the root of the fear and write down the main reason on a piece of paper. Then get rid of this reason by working on yourself with the help of specialists or on your own.
3. Keep yourself busy with something new and interesting.
4. Read more positive literature, watch good films.
5. See difficulties as necessary experiences in your life.

In other words, run away from negativity, look for positivity even in not very attractive things, set yourself up in a positive way, organize your thinking so that you are always in a good mood.

For anxiety and internal tension

Anxiety can occur periodically in a person when a stressful situation occurs, then if anxiety is your constant companion, then psychologists talk about the so-called anxious person, who is already worried for no reason - out of habit.

Internal tension arises, which can be accompanied by sweating, fever, and pain symptoms. This situation must be prevented. For this:

There are a lot of ways to get away from negativity. Don't let fear get into your head. Overcome yourself, work on yourself, every little victory will help drive away all negative thoughts and make room for:

• dreams;
• joy;
• love.

How to love yourself and increase self-esteem? for women on our website.

Exercises

What to do to overcome feelings of anxiety? Exercises to relieve anxiety in adults:

Love yourself, because you are the only one, so unique, individual, unusual, talented.

Don't be afraid to be who you are. Naturalness has always attracted people and pushed aside fears, doubts, and anxiety.

How to overcome fear and anxiety within yourself? Exercise:

There are happy moments in every person's life when he is proud of himself, his achievements and truly enjoys life. However, the peculiarity of human nature is that much more time is spent thinking about one’s own failures, fearing the future and expecting defeats. Anxiety and fear can completely subjugate a person and even become a serious medical problem. This is why it is so important to learn how to get rid of anxiety and fear and not let them ruin our lives.

Why do we experience anxiety and fear?

Stress and anxiety are a reaction to various activities in our lives related to health, relationships between close-minded people, problems at work and events in the world around us. You may experience depression and anxiety, both due to poor health, and from resentment, and from annoying languid ideas. There are several ways to get rid of anxiety.

If you want to get rid of anxiety and fear, think that there is no person in the world who would not experience anxiety and fear for their future, the expectation of any uncertain future problems. Anxiety can range from mild anxiety to unbearable panic attacks.

When anxious, a person waits for a meeting with a threat, remains alert and intense. The emotion of excitement triggers physical activation reactions in the body. Anxiety and fear consist of two components - physical and mental.

Physical is expressed in rapid heartbeat, chills, prolonged muscle tension, sweating, a feeling of lack of air (subjective, because there is no real suffocation with anxiety). With this feeling, sleep is often disturbed (your sleep is sensitive, constantly interrupted, it is difficult for you to fall asleep) and appetite (you either do not eat anything, or, on the contrary, your appetite wakes up).

Mental is manifested by excitement, various kinds of fears (they change each other, often unstable), instability of your mood, with powerful anxiety - a feeling of detachment from the environment and a feeling of change in your personal body.

Pronounced and prolonged anxiety then causes the emotion of fatigue, which is logical, because a person wastes a lot of energy maintaining a “alert” state. There are many types of anxiety; in any case, they have their own prerequisites for its development, their own individual medical picture, their own healing and their own prognosis.

The reasons for anxiety are sometimes not obvious. However, they are always there. Once you have experienced severe anxiety, the primary role in treating anxiety disorders falls to a psychotherapist or clinical psychologist. The specialist will discover the internal circumstances of your anxiety. By the way, the presence of body diseases does not at all exclude the primacy of psychological causes in the development of the disease.

Contact a psychologist or specialist. Any anxiety can be dealt with successfully.

How to get rid of anxiety on your own

No need to fear uncertainty

People prone to anxiety absolutely cannot stand uncertainty; they believe that experiences help them cope with difficult periods in life. But this is not true at all. Remembering past troubles and predicting the worst-case scenario only depletes a person's physical and mental strength and prevents him from enjoying the present moment. Thus, the best option is to leave it to chance and let it happen.

Set aside a special time for anxiety

Since it is quite difficult to fight habits and you cannot get rid of anxiety and fear with the help of willpower alone, set aside special time for yourself for worries and worries.

• It’s best to create a daily routine and set aside half an hour for anxiety (just not before bedtime). During this time, give yourself the opportunity to worry about every occasion, but the rest of the time, try to restrain the flow of negative thoughts.
• If anxiety overwhelms you outside of the time allotted for it, write down on paper everything that you would like to think about during a special time for worry.

Take a critical look at your negative thoughts

Constant experiences quickly develop into cognitive distortions (that is, thinking stereotypes that have nothing to do with reality), such as exaggerating negative ones and ignoring positive traits of one’s character, events, attitudes of others, etc.

Learn to relax

To get rid of anxiety and fear, master relaxation techniques. The best way to do this is during training, under the guidance of a trainer.

Take care of yourself

Try to ensure yourself a healthy and fulfilling lifestyle, as this helps control negative thoughts.

• Ask family and friends for help. Communicate more with friends and relatives so as not to feel helpless and lonely.
• Eat right.
• Limit your intake of nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and sugar.
• Get a good night's sleep.
• Provide yourself with regular physical activity.

How to cope with anxiety

Even the most balanced people, those who are not inclined to unnecessary worries, can have many excuses for stress these days. Fortunately, there are psychological techniques that can help you learn how to cope with anxiety.

There are some everyday anxieties; as you already understand, every person has them every day. And you will hardly touch horrors on a cosmic scale. Here are some ways to gain self-control:

Try to give in to anxiety. However, for twenty minutes a day. It would be enough. To get rid of anxiety and fear, take time during the day to think about the painful issues. Do not try to find a way out and get away from anxiety at this time. Elementarily give vent to horrors and worries, worry, later, you can even cry.

But when the planned twenty minutes are over, stop. And start doing your homework. This method is effective for women, because it is they who forbid themselves to think about dilemmas, and that is precisely why difficulties are not resolved. True, they are coming back. When you give yourself permission to worry about something during the day, you don't wake up to worry about it at night.

Try to accept uncertainty. Just tell yourself that what happened to you could happen to anyone. Almost everyone spends months tormenting themselves with thoughts about future problems. However, this world is designed in such a way that we do not know in advance what will happen in the future.

Find a time when no one will disturb you. Sit comfortably and breathe deeply and slowly. Imagine your anxiety as a thin stream of smoke that rises from a smoldering log. Do not try to influence this smoke by changing its direction, just watch how it rises upward and dissolves in the atmosphere.

Focus on the daily. Pay attention to the small, cute rituals that are common in your family. And if necessary, invent the latest traditions. This will undoubtedly help you maintain a sense of stability in the world.

Try not to dramatize the situation. When you worry, you expect the worst possible outcome and underestimate your abilities. Realize that all people worry from time to time, even presidents. You cannot continuously keep your sensations and emotions under control, since they cannot be annulled. Prove to yourself that you are able to cope with inconsistencies.

Make your life more serene. Invent yourself an exciting craft that requires concentration. Practice solving a variety of problems. Don’t be afraid to try, even if the situation seems completely irreparable the first time.

To get rid of anxiety and fear, collect a list of options for solving the most important problems. If it doesn’t work out right away, don’t be ashamed to seek support from those you trust. It is not for nothing that the leaders of huge companies believe in the brainstorming method. By listening to the views of the people around you, you can look at the situation from a different angle.

Try to escape from anxiety. Thanks to physical exercise, fun hormones are produced in the body. Three thirty-minute workouts a week can lift your mood. However, studies demonstrate that even a ten-minute overload also has a positive effect on well-being.

Try to find something to do for your mind. The secret is simple: if you do something truly curious, you forget about anxiety. Think about it: is there anything in your life that gives you pleasure and significantly lifts your mood? If yes, then go ahead! You deliberately look for things and activities that can attract and - which is extremely important - restrain your interest. Try to focus on what you are doing. When your mind is busy, you have nothing to worry about.

Spend time with friends and loved ones. Your doctors are your friends. You can truly open up and pour out your soul in front of a person you completely trust. And the chance to speak out is one of the most effective means.

At the same time, do not forget that personal meetings are even more useful than letters or phone calls. Go to theaters, exhibitions, museums, gain new knowledge. Meet comrades, former classmates and employees from your former job. Ask a friend who would be happy to listen to you to help you. With whom you will simply talk about painful issues. But when you meet, be sure to come up with a way together that will help you cope with feelings of anxiety.

What to do in case of anxiety

To get rid of the anxiety that has arisen, learn to switch, do not get stuck on past situations. Don't worry too much and don't go back to the same events.

Correctly assess the reality of the situation.

Deal with fear quickly.

Combating fear with art therapy. To overcome your own fear, you need to free yourself from it, as if throwing it out of the subconscious. You can do this with the help of drawings. Take paints, a sketchbook sheet, and depict your fear. Then burn or tear up this drawing.

The switching technique will help you get rid of anxiety and fear. As a rule, fearful people focus too much on themselves and on their spiritual world, so it is very important to be able to switch in a timely manner. To get rid of fear, do not let fears grow. It is much easier to note the moments in which fear appears, and quickly switch to positive emotions.

This is possible with the help of participation in some interesting and exciting business, or with the help of positive images and thoughts that must be constantly repeated until the fear subsides. For example, sometimes the following affirmation is used: “I am reliably protected. I'm safe".

Communicate with your fear. To make it easier to understand how to overcome fear, it is best to make friends with it. Try to understand why he came, and also what positive functions he performs. To find out, talk to your fear in writing or verbally.

Various breathing exercises. One of the great cures for fear is the exercise "breathing in courage - breathing out fears." Find a comfortable position, sitting on the floor or in a chair with your back straight. Practice free breathing and imagine that with each inhalation you are inhaling courage and fearlessness, and with each exhalation you are releasing anxiety and fear.

To get rid of anxiety and fear, meet your fear halfway. This is the most effective of all known techniques. It lies in the fact that in order to overcome fear, it is necessary to go towards it. Despite the fact that you are very scared, you overcome yourself, and therefore your fears. Let's give an example of using this technique.

If you are afraid of communicating with people, start doing it immediately: call various organizations, talk to strangers, ask questions. If you are afraid of dogs, first observe them from a safe distance, look at their pictures. After this, reduce the distance and start petting small dogs. This method is the most effective.

There are situations when you need to make a decision very quickly, stand up for yourself or take a fight. At such moments, fear can bind and prevent you from winning. In order to learn how to quickly cope with fear, you need to know a couple of technical methods, for example:

If you feel afraid, breathe slowly and deeply, at least ten times. By doing so, you effectively use the time to get used to the current situation.

To get rid of anxiety, talk to yourself. This can be very useful. Or let your mind come up with something useful. Talking to yourself is useful because your experiences unravel, transforming external plans into internal ones. Self-talk explains the situation you find yourself in and shows how it happened. It calms and normalizes your heart rate. When you call yourself by name, you are safe.

Do you want to get rid of anxiety and fear? Then get angry at someone or at a situation, and get more angry. You will no longer feel fear, only anger. You will want to act immediately.

Another way to get rid of fear is to laugh. Remember something funny from life, there is something like that in every person’s life. Laughter will not only “take away” your fear, but will also make you feel good.

The feeling of anxiety is a genetically inherent feature of a person: new activities, changes in personal life, changes in work, in the family, etc., should cause mild anxiety.

The expression “only a fool is not afraid” has lost its relevance in our time, because for many people panic anxiety appears out of nowhere, then the person simply overwhelms himself, and far-fetched fears increase like a snowball.

With the accelerating pace of life, constant feelings of anxiety, restlessness and the inability to relax have become commonplace conditions.

Neurosis, according to classical Russian taxonomy, is part of anxiety disorders; it is a human condition that is caused by long-term depression, difficult experiences, constant anxiety, and against the background of all this, autonomic disorders appear in the human body.

It is important to understand that neurosis can also arise against the background of the inability to relax; workaholics become its “target” in the first place.

It's okay, I'm just worried and a little scared

One of the preceding stages of the appearance of neurosis can be the unreasonable occurrence of anxiety and worry. A feeling of anxiety is a tendency to experience a situation, to be constantly worried.

Depending on the character of the person, his temperament and sensitivity to stressful situations, this condition can manifest itself in different ways. But it is important to note that unreasonable anxiety and restlessness, as a prestage of neurosis, most often appear in tandem with stress and depression.

Anxiety, as a natural feeling of a situation, not in a hyper form, is useful for a person. In most cases, this condition helps to adapt to new circumstances. A person, feeling anxious and worried about the outcome of a particular situation, prepares as much as possible, finds the most suitable solutions and solves problems.

But as soon as this form becomes permanent, chronic, problems begin in a person’s life. Everyday existence turns into hard labor, because everything, even the little things, scares you.

In the future, this leads to neurosis, and sometimes to phobia (GAD).

There is no clear boundary of transition from one state to another; it is impossible to predict when and how anxiety and a feeling of fear will turn into neurosis, and that in turn into an anxiety disorder.

But there are certain symptoms of anxiety that appear constantly without any significant reason:

• sweating;
• hot flashes, chills, trembling throughout the body, in certain parts of the body, numbness, strong muscle tone;
• chest pain, burning stomach (abdominal distress);
• , fears (death, madness, murder, loss of control);
• irritability, a person is constantly “on edge”, nervousness;
• sleep disturbance;
• any joke can cause fear or aggression.

Anxiety neurosis - the first steps to madness

Anxiety neurosis can manifest itself differently in different people, but there are main symptoms and features of the manifestation of this condition:

But it should be noted that neurosis can manifest itself both openly in a person and hidden. There are often cases when a trauma or situation preceding a neurotic failure occurred a long time ago, and the very fact of the appearance of an anxiety disorder has only just taken shape. The nature of the disease itself and its form depends on environmental factors and the person’s personality.

GAD - fear of everything, always and everywhere

There is such a concept as (GAD) - this is one of the forms of anxiety disorders, with one caveat - the duration of this kind of disorder is measured in years, and concerns absolutely all areas of a person’s life.

We can conclude that it is precisely this monotonous state of “I’m afraid of everything, I’m afraid always and constantly” that leads to a complex, painful life.

Even ordinary cleaning of the house, not done according to schedule, upsets a person, going to the store for a necessary thing that was not there, calling a child who did not answer on time, but in his thoughts “they stole, killed”, and many other reasons why There is no need to worry, but there is anxiety.

And all this is generalized anxiety disorder (also sometimes called phobic anxiety disorder).

And then there’s the depression...

Medicines for fear and anxiety - a double-edged sword

Sometimes the use of medications is practiced - these are antidepressants, sedatives, beta blockers. But it is important to understand that medications will not cure anxiety disorders, nor will they be a panacea for getting rid of mental disorders.

The purpose of the medication method is completely different; drugs help you keep yourself under control and make it easier to bear the severity of the situation.

And they are not prescribed in 100% of cases; the psychotherapist looks at the course of the disorder, the degree and severity, and already determines whether there is a need for such medications or not.

In advanced cases, strong and fast-acting medications are prescribed to obtain the fastest effect in order to relieve an anxiety attack.

The combination of two methods gives results much faster. It is important to consider that a person should not be left alone: ​​family, his relatives can provide irreplaceable support and thereby push him towards recovery.
How to cope with anxiety and worry - video tips:

Emergency situation - what to do?

In emergency cases, an attack of panic and anxiety can be relieved with medication, and also only by a specialist; if he is not present at the time of the peak of the attack, it is important to first call medical help, and then try with all your might not to worsen the situation.

But this does not mean that you have to run and shout “help, help.” No! You need to show calm by all appearances; if there is a possibility that a person could cause injury, leave immediately.

If not, try to talk in a calm voice and support the person with the phrases “I believe in you. WE are together, WE will get through this." Avoid saying “I feel it too”, anxiety and panic are individual feelings and everyone feels them differently.

Don't make it worse

Most often, if a person applies at an early stage of the development of the disorder, doctors recommend several simple preventive measures after the situation has resolved:

It is important to note that doctors and specialists use forced rehabilitation only in very severe cases. Treatment in the early stages, when almost all people tell themselves “it will go away on its own,” is much faster and of better quality.

Only the person himself can come and say “I need help,” no one can force him. That is why it is worth thinking about your health, not letting everything take its course and contacting a specialist.