How to get rid of fears (phobias), obsessive anxious thoughts? Is it possible and how to get rid of fears on your own?

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 talk not only about techniques that will help you overcome fear, but also about how to properly relate to the feeling of fear and how to change your life in such a way 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 living things can reproduce.

Fear causes people to feel an intense desire to flee when they encounter something that their brain perceives as danger. Many people are afraid of heights. But they cannot help but guess about it until they find themselves 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 to protect yourself from danger when it occurs. It allows a person to avoid even potential danger wherever possible.

Anyone who is mortally afraid of heights will not climb onto the roof again, because he will remember what strong unpleasant emotions he experienced the last time he was there. 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 approximately one in 8 million. However, many people are afraid of traveling by air. There is no threat to getting to know another person, but many men or women experience extreme anxiety when being around other people.

Many quite ordinary fears can become uncontrollable. Natural concern for the safety of your children can turn into acute paranoia. Fear of losing your life or harming yourself sometimes turns into mania and an obsession with safety. Some people spend a lot of their time in seclusion, trying to protect themselves from the dangers that supposedly await them 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! A 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 robot's consciousness simply would 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.

It's normal to be afraid. 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.

A person engulfed by them finds himself in 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 “scary.”

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.

Let's say you're 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. But the truth is that 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 that you breathe from your stomach rather than from 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 don’t 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 - Remember how your fear did not come true

This method helps to cope with minor 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 was never realized. It turned out that you had not offended anyone, and it was just your own mind that frightened 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 when 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.

So what should we 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 and fear... Eternal companions of man, from the cradle to the grave. Surely you still remember how, as a child, you were scared to death of a dark, distant room, how you thought that terrible monsters lived there and were waiting for the right moment to grab you and eat you... You grew up, and the chilling childhood fears were replaced by others - adults , "serious". What are you afraid of now? Speaking in front of an audience? Left alone? Or maybe get sick and die young?

It's okay to be afraid!

Fear is a natural human feeling; it has long helped him survive in sometimes difficult environmental conditions. This is our bodyguard. And there is nothing wrong with him, unless he “guards” us too hard. If it doesn’t constantly haunt us and prevent us from living a normal life.

It is human nature to be afraid of many things: darkness, heights, water, dogs, insects, mice, poverty, diseases, open space, closed space, etc. But are anxiety and fear always justified? Fortunately, no. There are not so many dangers in life. Most human fears have no objective reason. These are imaginary fears. And they have no place in the life of a sane person.

The worst fear

But how to get rid of the fear of death, for example? You are so used to this feeling that it seems impossible not to be afraid of dying! Everyone is afraid of this! And somehow they live with it... Somehow. Tense. Uncertain. Excruciating.

But let's deal with the fear of death. Why fear what cannot be avoided? Every living creature on the planet will die sooner or later. A priori. So is it worth darkening your existence with useless anxiety? Is it worth turning it into a living hell, torturing yourself with an unfulfillable desire to live forever? Wouldn't it be more pleasant to accept with gratitude the opportunity to stay on Earth for a while? And enjoy every moment?

How to get rid of the fear of death? It’s paradoxical, but the easiest way is to accept it, come to terms with it and not try to get rid of it! The more we fight fear, the more strength and energy we lose. Accept your inevitable fate. Humble yourself. You will die anyway - whether you like it or not. There is no point in being afraid. Try to clearly explain this simple thought to your mind. He will understand.

Declaring war on phobias

With the fear of dying, everything is more or less understandable. Everyone knows this. But there are fears of people that many are not even aware of. But what about you, the one who lives with this? For those who are afraid to admit this even to the closest person... How to get rid of fears and anxiety before the upcoming journey? Before a public speaking? What to do if you are afraid to travel on public transport, because there are so many pathogenic microbes there? After all, how can you get rid of the fear of being eaten by terrible monsters living in a dark back room, which has tormented you so much since childhood?

Take a pen and a piece of paper. To get rid of fears, make a list of everything you are afraid of. Don't be deceitful, write everything. Confess to yourself all your fears. Analyze each of them carefully. Why are you afraid of this? Is it worth doing? Is there an objective reason for this or that concern? This way you can separate real fears from imaginary ones. Leave the real ones, maybe they will save you from trouble someday. And you will have to work with the imaginary ones.

If you are overcome by some kind of mental fear, remember that you are human and you are worthy of joy and happiness. Think about what gives you pleasure - and the fear will go away by itself. This or that situation may or may not occur. Your fear may be empty and meaningless! Why do you need him? Leave it and be open to any manifestations of life. In any case, this is your experience, and it should be different.

In states of panic and anxiety, deep breathing will also help. Consciousness will calm down - and common sense will return and help solve the problem.

How to get rid of fear if it does not give in? Use a trick! Try to be angry at yourself, at circumstances, at someone - it doesn’t matter. Anger neutralizes fear, and in return will come the determination to act and change things.

Through fear to new heights

Remember: when a person overcomes his fears, he grows and develops. His horizons become wider, the boundaries of his personality expand, new opportunities appear, the world takes on new colors. Therefore, do not give in to your fears, accept them as a gift of fate, as an opportunity to become better.

Look into the eyes of what you are afraid of - and become a new person!

How to get rid of fear is a question that worries every person from time to time.

After all, it’s no secret that everyone has their own phobias, and this is quite natural.

But what to do if fear turns into an obsession and prevents you from leading a normal existence?

Before finding an answer to a tormenting problem, it is worth understanding the reasons for the appearance of an overwhelming feeling of panic.

Fears: reasons

Among the many causes of panic attacks, there are four main ones:

Attachment to things and people;

Diffidence;

Mental trauma of childhood;

Diseases.

A person who is deeply attached to a loved one may be susceptible to fears about the loss of a loved one. Therefore, jealousy is nothing more than fear of loss. In this case, the person is not able to identify himself with the individual, since he is completely psychologically dependent on another person.

Often an individual falls under the “power” of material things: money, an expensive car, property. A person begins to be haunted by obsessive phobias that he can lose all this at any moment. It is common for all people to sometimes experience fear about the loss of a loved one or a very expensive thing. Sometimes it is very difficult to determine when the line of reasonable fear ends and the disease begins. If an individual is constantly haunted by obsessive, panicky thoughts, then the help of a psychologist may be needed. A specialist will help you understand yourself, identify the main source of the phobia and select individual methods that will help you get rid of fear.

Uncertainty, like dependence on people and circumstances, is a person’s worst enemy. Lack of self-confidence, a feeling of internal failure, inability to change anything in your life for the better gives rise to the most destructive phobia.

Fear paralyzes, slows down, destroys from the inside. The individual finds himself in a vicious circle from which, as it seems to him, it is impossible to escape. This reason must and can be fought, but only if there is a passionate desire to get rid of fears.

Self-doubt has its roots in childhood. A child deprived of the attention of loved ones and love most often grows up timid, downtrodden and unsure of his own abilities. In adult life, such an individual is regularly plagued by panic attacks. He is deprived of the inner energy that his peers, surrounded by care and warmth, subscribed to.

Mental traumas of childhood have the same etiology as uncertainty, and therefore are closely related to it. A child who was regularly shouted at and physically punished as a child grows up to be an incorrectly formed personality with many complexes.

Another reason that creates fear in a person and is not related to childhood experiences is illness. Often people suffering from chronic diseases experience anxiety for their lives. They begin to suffer from panic attacks over the fact that they could lose their life at any moment. Such fear can and should be treated, since in most cases it is unfounded.

How to get rid of fear: what types of fear can you overcome on your own?

There is no one-size-fits-all solution or specific answer to the question of how to get rid of fear. Everything is purely individual and depends largely on the person himself: whether he is ready to face his phobias and begin to fight them.

Overcoming anxiety is a large-scale, hard work on yourself. If an individual does not find the strength to cope with his own fears on his own, no specialist will help him. Success depends 99% on your own efforts and only 1% on the treating psychologist who will help you understand and direct your thoughts in the right direction.

Therefore, you can cope with many types of fear on your own. It happens that a person does not want to seek medical help, but is determined to get rid of his own phobias. Our mini-guide and many videos on this topic, which abound on the Internet, can help him with this.

How to get rid of fear: what types of fear can only be treated by specialists

Unfortunately, a person is not always able to cope with panic attacks on their own. First of all, this applies to those phobias that are associated with deep psychological trauma from childhood.

In this case, you may need not only psychological help, but also hypnotherapy. The result will largely depend on the qualifications of the specialist and his total experience in this area. Only an experienced psychologist is able to “reach out” to the patient and give multifaceted answers to the question of how to get rid of fear.

Another of the most serious types of fear is social phobia, which can often only be dealt with with the help of a psychologist. Social phobes are not difficult to spot in a crowd. Since childhood, they prefer to keep to themselves. You won't find them in yard sandboxes, playing with other children. As adults, such people prefer to avoid public places and choose to work from home.

Having noticed the first symptoms of social phobia in yourself or your child, you should immediately solve the problem, since in the future this will lead to serious consequences: the inability to communicate normally with people and fully coexist in society.

How to get rid of fear: step-by-step instructions

1. Visualization. Before you start fighting an invisible enemy, you need to recognize him by sight. Answer your questions honestly: what are you most afraid of? “Knowledge is power” is an undeniable paradigm. Once you've identified your core phobias, sit with them alone and imagine the worst that could happen.

Keep imagining until you begin to feel yourself numb to your own imagined phobias. Often visualization is the best way to get rid of fear.

2. Arithmations. Mental attitudes can be a good method of getting rid of fear. Throughout the day, week, and months, a person repeats to himself arithmations aimed at cleansing himself of internal anxieties. A simple example of internal attitudes could be the following phrases: “I accept my fears and learn to manage them”; “I let go of my fear,” etc. Our subconscious is capable of working miracles. Even if the conscious mind initially resists believing your words, over time the subconscious mind takes your statements for granted and starts the process of “recovery.” It is very important to take this seriously, since arithmations are endowed with enormous power. It is also important to compose them correctly. Your settings should not contain phrases with the particle “NOT”. For example, by regularly repeating to yourself a combination such as “I am NOT afraid,” you thereby attract even greater panic and anxiety to yourself. The fact is that our subconscious is not able to recognize this particle. Thus, your inner voice hears the opposite: “I am afraid!” Therefore, incorrectly composed arithms, instead of positive results, can cause harm.

3. Action. You can talk for a long time about how to get rid of fear, and not move a single step towards overcoming it. Brave people are not those who are not afraid of anything. These are individuals who were able to face their fear and were able to overcome it. Remember, only action conquers fear. Do what you fear most. People who adequately perceive their fear and manage to rationally coexist with it become the most successful.

How to get rid of fear in a child

Sometimes parents do not want to admit to themselves that they are the main reason for the development of phobias in their child.

Children who have not received enough parental warmth, who hear eternal reproaches about wrong behavior, acquire a bunch of complexes that degenerate into fears.

But often the cause of fear in a child can be excessive guardianship on the part of loved ones. Babies are born devoid of any types of phobias. And only over time do adults “impose” their fears on the child. Instead of allowing their child to explore the world around him, parents warn him at every turn.

The child grows up, and the deeply ingrained words: “don’t go there,” “don’t touch that,” “you can’t” take root in the individual’s subconscious. A person becomes indecisive and incapable of great achievements. It is difficult for him to understand how to get rid of his own fears.

To prevent this, there must be a golden mean in raising a child.

Hug your baby often and tell him you love him. This will not be superfluous in adolescence either. The love and care of others helps children cope with internal fears better than any words.

Parents who do not want their child to grow up with deep complexes should not set many restrictions and harshly punish for misconduct.

Experts call the play method an effective way to get rid of fears in children. With the help of games, the child is given the opportunity to experience a frightening situation in a fictional reality. This approach helps the child emotionally clear himself of his phobias.

It is very important that games aimed at overcoming fears contain both real and fictional models with a positive bias.

Such games should inspire and motivate action. Spending time together with your child in a playful and exciting, relaxed form of communication will definitely yield positive results.

In addition to love, care and spending time together, a child is in dire need of approval from adults. That is why you should not forget to praise your child as often as possible. This will help him grow into a full-fledged person.

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, he is afraid of something in reality. But if you don’t work on yourself, this fear becomes deformed and goes into the subconscious, causing irrational fear.

For example, a young man was always afraid of people, of 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 - fear of people and not being 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, since further pathological changes in consciousness occur, 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:

Man is an undeniably intelligent creature, clearly aware of his own actions, but certain reactions of his body cannot be controlled, or considerable effort must be expended to achieve this. In particular, in moments of panic, when, by force of circumstances, a person finds himself in a frighteningly difficult situation, his actions are often devoid of logic - harmless things become a source of negative emotions, the body trembles and weakens, control over thought processes is lost, as, indeed, over any emotions .

As a result, you have to think about how to cope with the phobia and pacify the uncontrollable fear. Some fears are harmless, others can turn into an unbearable burden, since they become an obstacle to social life, communication, work activity, and prevent you from enjoying pleasant little things. The fight against phobias in an advanced form is quite difficult, but quite real - clinics and psychological centers are created for this purpose.

Phobias cannot be ignored, but must be treated correctly

Before you think about how to get rid of a phobia, you need to be sure of its presence - first you need to distinguish such phenomena from the fear of certain events and things inherent in any person. There are four factors that help recognize uncontrollable fear:

1. Significant intensity attached to certain objects, thoughts or circumstances.
2. Stability, since the nature of the phenomenon under consideration is constant, it does not go away on its own.
3. Unreasonableness is when uncontrollable fear arises without basis as a result of certain expectations.
4. Life restrictions - ordinary fear can be overcome, but an uncontrolled reaction forces a person to avoid participating in certain events and situations with all his might.

A number of signs indicate that treatment of fears and phobias is required:

1. Exaggerated fear, panic at the sight of a certain object or in the event of a special situation.
2. Uncontrollable trembling, rapid heartbeat, increased sweating, dry mouth, possible feeling of nausea and dizziness.
3. There is mental retardation and the impossibility of constructing a logically verified action plan.
4. An uncontrollable desire appears to run away as far as possible, to hide securely.
5. After what you have seen or experienced, you feel weak, have nightmares and become paranoid.

Despite the fact that psychiatrists say that a complete logical explanation of fear is impossible, this statement can be disputed, since there are many methods to get rid of a phobia, which requires understanding the root cause of its occurrence. There are many types of fears - a person can be afraid of spiders, sharp objects, water, open spaces and other things. However, there are the most common causes of uncontrollable fear, these include:

1. Fear of closed spaces – claustrophobia. The phenomenon may be accompanied by strong rapid heartbeat, chest pain and dizziness.
2. If you have a fear of heights, they talk about acrophobia, in this state a person experiences a real panic attack and is unable to think normally.
3. At social phobia a person experiences panic when it is necessary to perform public actions. In general, about 13% of the planet's inhabitants suffer from this type of pathology.
4. At zoophobia a person is afraid of certain animals, and the phenomenon can be a consequence of negative communication experiences or transmitted from other people.

Because of acrophobia, a person behaves inappropriately when he is at a height

The danger of the condition and the possibilities of modern therapy

Now let's talk about whether treatment for phobias is required, how necessary professional intervention is, and how to get rid of phobias and fears on your own.
Considering that panic states, even those that do not occur too often, have a negative impact on the quality of life, it is necessary to ask the question of how to cure a phobia, especially since today there are many techniques that allow you to cope with this condition. The effectiveness of therapy is high both in the case of professional intervention and in self-medication, subject to the basic rule - there must be a willingness to analyze the underlying factors that provoked the development of fear and a sincere desire to eliminate it from one’s own life. When approaching the problem, specialists use a specific scheme on how to get rid of phobias, fear and panic states:

1. First stage– a clear definition of the phenomenon that causes fear and worsens physical condition.
2. Second phase– work with the very cause of fear, while professionals at this stage use hypnosis and psychotherapy techniques. Conducting special sessions helps the patient to realize and accept his fears, and allows him not to lose constructive thinking in the event of a critical situation.
3. Third stage how to treat phobias - controlling fears in practice and the ability to make the right decisions without the desire to escape from reality.

It should be noted that when deciding how to treat phobias in adults, a specialist can use pharmaceutical drugs that help relieve nervous tension and reduce the occurrence of panic attacks. However, such drugs are quite dangerous to health, their use is fraught with the risk of developing pharmacological dependence, and therefore it is undesirable to get carried away with them.

Getting rid of the problem yourself

When considering how to deal with phobias and fears on your own, the most common opinion is that treatment should be handled exclusively by a professional. However, this approach is incorrect - in the case when the patient is determined to have a successful outcome and believes in himself, it is possible not only to reduce the manifestations of panic fears, but also to completely get rid of them.

Phobias need to be treated by a psychotherapist

In many ways, an independent approach to how to deal with fears and phobias resembles the approach of a professional psychotherapist, excluding the technique of hypnosis. First of all, you need to ask yourself what exactly is the source of panic fear - not justified fear, but a feeling that cannot be controlled. After all, fear in the usual sense is a natural instinct of self-preservation characteristic of any living creature.

After determining the source of the problem, you should master the basic method, which will allow you to treat phobias and fears yourself. We are talking about desensitization, which is the ability to relax precisely at the moment when panic begins to manifest itself. Now about how to use it - first you need to completely relax and realize your fear by determining the answers to two important questions. How bad and scary is it really? Is it possible that the victim is exaggerating the danger?

When considering phobias and how to combat them on your own, relaxation deserves special attention. The desired position is horizontal, after which the auto-training session begins. To achieve the desired effect, a voice recording can be used, turned on if necessary. This kind of sessions needs to be carried out not only during panic attacks, but also in a calm state, when there is no source of fear, which in the future will allow you to more quickly achieve the required state.

A very important aspect is proper breathing, which helps restore psychological balance and reduce heart rate and pulse rate. During the relaxation process, it is recommended to listen to your own breathing, while fully surrendering to the physical sensations, which will speed up the procedure and achieve a more complete effect.

To summarize the above, we can distinguish six stages on how to deal with phobias on your own:

• analysis of the source of unreasonable fear;
• awareness of fear and its acceptance;
• a gradual decrease in the strength of the manifested fear;
• the ability to relax in a critical situation;
• restoration of breathing;
• restoration of psychological balance through auto-training.

Effective techniques to combat pathology

There are special techniques that allow you to cope with far-fetched pathological fear.

Breathing exercises help fight phobias

Let's look at the most effective ways to get rid of a phobia yourself using the following techniques:

1. Turning off negative thinking, which allows you to cope with fixation on negative aspects, suggests using the “electric switch” technique. Your own fear is represented in the form of a relay that turns off with one jerk downwards - you should imagine this process as clearly as possible in all the details.
2. You get rid of fear with the help of breathing - inhaling gives courage to the body, exhaling eliminates panic. In this case, after inhalation there is a slight delay, but exhalation should take twice as long as inhalation.
3. It is necessary to do exactly what causes panic - in this case, a “drive” arises, a special energy that can help to realize oneself. If, for example, a person has social phobia and fear of public speaking, it should be done at every opportunity.
4. The principle of “knocking out wedge with wedge” suggests the use of a technique based on the independent invocation of physiological reactions corresponding to the phobia - rapid heartbeat and intermittent breathing. This approach destroys the integrity of the fear response, resulting in the possibility of awareness and taking control of emotions.
5. The technique of “playing a theatrical role” allows you to overcome subconscious attitudes - you need to portray a confident person, deliberately straightening your shoulders, taking on an imperial posture with your chin held high. A slight smile is also necessary - it is enough to stay in this state for just a few seconds so that the brain can respond to the body’s reactions and eliminate fear.

Consolidating the effect obtained

In order to prevent the panic state from returning, constant work on your own personality and self-esteem will be required.

Focusing on the positive is the best prevention of phobias

For this, there is also a certain scheme of actions that should be followed in order to get the maximum positive effect:

• all victories, even the most insignificant ones, must be recorded;
• failures are carefully analyzed in order to be able to write the next script that will be aimed at success;
• it is necessary to create your own support by building support in the form of faith in science or in higher powers - the main goal is to gain confidence in a successful outcome when using your own capabilities to the maximum;
• a person should be focused on the positive; one can rely on the love of loved ones, a friendly attitude towards others and the perception of a reciprocal disposition.