If, for example, you hear a bump in the night, take a moment to think about if there are other things, such as your neighbor closing their car door, that could make that noise. If there is something real, do something about it, like making an appointment to have a doctor look at that mole, or calling the police if a stranger is walking around beside your house. Think about whether your reaction is due to fear or phobia. While phobias trigger fear reactions, the reactions are disproportionate to the actual danger. Phobias interfere with your ability to cope. You may need the help of a therapist or doctor to deal with a phobia.
Not only will your breathing calm you and make sure you are getting enough oxygen, focusing on your breathing and relaxing your body will keep you from focusing on what is scaring you. Being scared means that our hypothalamus (which governs flight or fight) activates our sympathetic nervous system and we tense up. It also has the adrenal-cortical system dump a bunch of hormones into our system, so even if we’re scared about going to a party and meeting a bunch of new people, our hypothalamus interprets this as a fight or flight situation. So breathe and you’ll calm the hypothalamus.
Many of the seemingly scary things go back to a primal fear like being scared of death (the potentially cancerous mole), being scared that no one will like you (going to the party and meeting new people). Acknowledging your fears won’t make them magically vanish, but it will help you to better articulate them. [5] X Expert Source Julia Lyubchenko, MS, MAAdult Counselor & Certified Hypnotherapist Expert Interview. 29 April 2020.
Talking to someone can help simply through making a connection, but your friend can also help put your fears to rest.
Neuroplasticity is involved in processing memories and how we learn. By practicing “desensitization,” a person can change the pathways in their brain that react fearfully to the things that scare them. “Desensitization” is basically just being exposed to the thing that scares a person gradually and in controlled environments. Start by asking yourself reflective questions such as, “What am I afraid of? Is my fear realistic? What is the worst thing that can happen to me in this situation? What can I do to protect myself from this outcome?"[7] X Expert Source Julia Lyubchenko, MS, MAAdult Counselor & Certified Hypnotherapist Expert Interview. 29 April 2020. Chart your emotional reaction to physical stimuli and surroundings that cause you to be scared. For instance, if spiders scare you, the physical stimulus is the appearance of the spider. From there the emotional reaction is fear, being scared and this can get heightened all the way to panic levels, depending on your response. Charting this will help you cultivate a detached reaction instead of an emotional reaction to the appearance of a spider.
Recognize that you’re being confronted with something you find scary and that you can either have an emotional reaction (which will in turn trigger more and more fear and anxiety) or you can have a detached reaction. Monitor your physical reactions. These may include trembling, a frozen feeling, heart palpitations, nausea, stomach pain, dizziness, crying, shallow or rapid breathing, feelings of anxiety or terror, and/or disrupted sleep. Coach yourself with mantras. Pick a couple of mantras and write them down so that you have them with you at all times. Repeat them to yourself when you start having an emotional reaction, so you can short-circuit the reaction. For instance, “This isn’t as bad as I am making it,” or “I can’t control the outcome, so I’m going to let go and trust that it will be okay. " Do something physically comforting. If you can, drink a cup of tea and focus your whole being on that cup of tea–its warmth, the steam rising from the cup, the smell. Focusing on the physically comforting thing is a form of mindfulness and means that you are living in the moment, which is a place antithetical to fear.
Start small when you’re working up to dealing with the things that scare you. For instance, if you’re afraid of spiders, start by dealing with small ones in your home and work your way up to bigger spiders. If you’re afraid of heights, try taking walks in high places that are equipped with safety measures instead of trying right away to make yourself go parachuting. Remember: the more you avoid something, the more it will scare you and the more the fear itself will paralyze you. We can’t avoid being scared, as humans it’s part of our physiological make-up, but we can work on how we react to things that cared us. Nothing is as scary as what we imagine it to be.
Medication can also help, but make sure that you’re taking medication as part of an entire program to help overcome your fears. You will need to have counseling as part of that, to retrain your brain.
