How to Overcome Fear, Phobias, and Panic Attacks
January 21st 2008 03:40
Friends
By popular demand, here are some tried and true tricks to help with anxiety!
1. The Experimental Method: Do an experiment to test your belief that you’re “cracking up” or “having a heart attack” or “losing control.”
2. Paradoxical Techniques: Exaggerate your fears instead of running away from them. If you have the fear of cracking up or having a stroke, you try your hardest to crack up or have a stroke.
3. Shame-Attacking Exercises: Purposely do something silly in public, in order to overcome your fear of appearing foolish.
4. Confront Your Fears: Expose yourself to whatever you’re afraid of instead of running away and letting your fears cripple you. There are three ways of doing this:
• Sudden exposure or “flooding.” You allow yourself to experience all your symptoms, no matter how bad they get. You endure your fears until they run their course and wear out.
• Gradual exposure. You gradually expose yourself to whatever you’re afraid of (like being away from home alone, going into grocery stores, or taking buses or elevators). You back off when your anxiety becomes too great.
• The partnership method. If you’re afraid of being alone, you can ask someone you feel safe with to walk a certain distance ahead of you and wait for you. Then you walk and meet them there. The next time you ask them to go a little farther, so you can gradually increase the distance you can walk alone.
5. Daily Mood Log: Write down the negative thoughts that make you feel anxious or frightened. Identify the distortions in these thoughts and replace them with more realistic, positive thoughts. Instead of worrying yourself sick by constantly predicting failure and catastrophes, tell yourself that things will turn out reasonably well.
6. The Cost-Benefit Analysis: Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of worrying and avoiding whatever you fear. Weigh the advantages against the disadvantages. Make a second list of the advantages and disadvantages of confronting your fears. Weigh the advantages against the disadvantages.
7. Positive Imaging: Substitute reassuring and peaceful images for the frightening daydreams and fantasies that make you feel so anxious.
8. Distraction: Distract yourself with intense mental activity (like working on a Rubik’s Cube), strenuous exercise or by getting involved in your work or a hobby.
9. The Acceptance Paradox: When you feel anxious or panicky, you may make matters worse by insisting that you shouldn’t feel this way. This is like throwing gasoline on a fire, and your anxiety gets worse. One way to develop greater self-acceptance is to write out a dialogue with an imaginary hostile stranger who puts you down for feeling anxious. The hostile stranger is simply a projection of your own self-criticisms. When you talk back to them, you will develop greater self-acceptance, and your anxiety will usually diminish or disappear.
10. Getting in Touch: When you feel anxious or panicky, you are probably ignoring certain problems that need to be dealt with. Review your life and try to get in touch with the situation that’s making you feel so upset. When you find the courage to deal with the problem more openly and directly, it can be very liberating!
By popular demand, here are some tried and true tricks to help with anxiety!
1. The Experimental Method: Do an experiment to test your belief that you’re “cracking up” or “having a heart attack” or “losing control.”
2. Paradoxical Techniques: Exaggerate your fears instead of running away from them. If you have the fear of cracking up or having a stroke, you try your hardest to crack up or have a stroke.
3. Shame-Attacking Exercises: Purposely do something silly in public, in order to overcome your fear of appearing foolish.
4. Confront Your Fears: Expose yourself to whatever you’re afraid of instead of running away and letting your fears cripple you. There are three ways of doing this:
• Sudden exposure or “flooding.” You allow yourself to experience all your symptoms, no matter how bad they get. You endure your fears until they run their course and wear out.
• Gradual exposure. You gradually expose yourself to whatever you’re afraid of (like being away from home alone, going into grocery stores, or taking buses or elevators). You back off when your anxiety becomes too great.
• The partnership method. If you’re afraid of being alone, you can ask someone you feel safe with to walk a certain distance ahead of you and wait for you. Then you walk and meet them there. The next time you ask them to go a little farther, so you can gradually increase the distance you can walk alone.
5. Daily Mood Log: Write down the negative thoughts that make you feel anxious or frightened. Identify the distortions in these thoughts and replace them with more realistic, positive thoughts. Instead of worrying yourself sick by constantly predicting failure and catastrophes, tell yourself that things will turn out reasonably well.
6. The Cost-Benefit Analysis: Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of worrying and avoiding whatever you fear. Weigh the advantages against the disadvantages. Make a second list of the advantages and disadvantages of confronting your fears. Weigh the advantages against the disadvantages.
7. Positive Imaging: Substitute reassuring and peaceful images for the frightening daydreams and fantasies that make you feel so anxious.
8. Distraction: Distract yourself with intense mental activity (like working on a Rubik’s Cube), strenuous exercise or by getting involved in your work or a hobby.
9. The Acceptance Paradox: When you feel anxious or panicky, you may make matters worse by insisting that you shouldn’t feel this way. This is like throwing gasoline on a fire, and your anxiety gets worse. One way to develop greater self-acceptance is to write out a dialogue with an imaginary hostile stranger who puts you down for feeling anxious. The hostile stranger is simply a projection of your own self-criticisms. When you talk back to them, you will develop greater self-acceptance, and your anxiety will usually diminish or disappear.
10. Getting in Touch: When you feel anxious or panicky, you are probably ignoring certain problems that need to be dealt with. Review your life and try to get in touch with the situation that’s making you feel so upset. When you find the courage to deal with the problem more openly and directly, it can be very liberating!
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Comment by katyzzz
Photography Tips
MS Paint Art
Au revoir, Ma petite enfant.
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Some Ive heard, some I havnt so I'll give some of these a try....
My problem is that my fears have to do with the uncontrollable. That things could happen and Id be helpless - because its happened. I cant trust life because I know everyone and everything has to die sometime. I just cant bear the thoughts of how and when and how it could be anytime.
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
I am so glad that you like the art work!
Mis
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
It is natural to feel fear of the unknown.
Death is not an enemy, it is a natural fact of life, a stage of our existence, and a transition or doorway between planes of reality. Death has its own harmony with nature just as a tree loses its leaves every fall. We don't feel that it is unjust or that the tree failed to stay fully alive when it goes dormant through the winter. It is natural. In other words, it can be better to make peace with death than try to conquer it.
The primary fear of death is, of course, not knowing what we will be or where we will go in the afterlife. The universe is based on compassion. It is not a punishment that we are here, but it is because of our desires for the experience of material existence and bodily sense pleasure. Our life is meant for us to learn more about ourselves, and about who we are. Death is not simply a matter of getting old or sick and then dying. Natural death happens when you have finished doing what you were meant to do in this life. You may have wanted to do more or not, but when you have done what you were meant to do, you will move on.
Nature will arrange it that you will leave this earth. Our life is like a classroom wherein you learn a certain amount, and go through a certain number of lessons or tests. Then you graduate to the next class. We can learn willingly or unwillingly. We can cooperate or be uncooperative. We can repeatedly keep going through it until we learn all of the necessary lessons to go on to the next level. That is our choice. And if you have failed any of the tests, don't worry. You'll have the chance to try it again. Therefore, let go of any fear and let the universe put you where you will make the most progress.
You will accomplish what you need to learn and attain. It may not be what you have in mind or expect, but it will be for your ultimate good, which means that it is always better and more than you expect, and maybe more than you can presently understand. Be open to discover what it is.
Actually, to fear death reveals one's misunderstanding of life. It is a fear of knowing one's real self, which is beyond the bodily identification. It is that with which some people hesitate to acquaint themselves. Thus, if a person has known nothing else but one's bodily identity, losing the body can put one into fear. Yet, how can one ever think he was the body when it is plain to see that he came into this temporary world through birth and must leave it through death? All of our possessions, relationships, even our talents and skills are all temporary. So how can our body be anything more? Being afraid of death is like being afraid to give up an old and worn-out garment.
In this regard, the mind is the root cause of fear and suffering. However, this fear and anguish can be a gift because it shows where the mind gets caught in the desired model of thinking how things should be. It projects its own level of reality out on the world and its perception of things. When things are not the way we want them to be, or think they should be, the mind has difficulty accepting it and we suffer. We then often get angry, anxious, confused, or fall into fear. To enjoy freedom from suffering, we have to grow beyond our attachments, ego, and desires.
So an important point is that we do not have to be afraid of death. When we look around us, this is plain to see. Every winter the trees, plants and grass go dormant and practically die, yet they return to life and display their blooms in the spring. Even if a tree dies and becomes soil, we can see that out of it new life rises from the remnants of its decay. Even if the water of a pond disappears, it forms the steam from which clouds are created, which rain down the potential for new life. We witness many forms of transition of the same energy. It is an endless cycle in which we all participate. In the same way, our physical body is shed at death, but our life persists on another level. Thus, through death we also find renewal.
Hope this helps
Mis
Comment by Kleonaptra
Kalikapsychosis
Thankyou, first of all, for such an in depth reply.
But I should have been more specific. My own death has never frightened me - even when staring it down in many various situations. What frightens me is that Im strong, yet I know those who are weak - friends, family - and I cant be everywhere at once. I cant protect everyone and that, I think drives my panic attacks. I wish to give my strength and fearlessness to those around me and when it fails to happen and they still need me I feel utterly helpless.
That, I have always believed!
And this, I have never understood. So many people so afraid, and me, there saying - "You fools - without it, youre free!"
Yeah, this is about where Im at. The world is severly cracked and I have enough ego to think I should be the one to save it.
Your words are so beautiful, rarely do people manage to grasp these concepts let alone describe them! Oh Mis, I wish you werent over a great big sea - Id be paying you a visit for sure!
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
Thanks so much for your kind words! I am working on a follow up blog about worrying! Hope you stop by!
Mis