How to Conquer Fear: five essential Tricks

Does fear prevent you from moving forward? Is there anything that threatens you? Threats in everyday life, such as ridiculous in public, dealing with a disgusting insect or endangering our health, are often horrifying. Yet, overcoming fear is possible. Whatever the situations that concern you in this article you will find a strategy for dealing with them. Find out what causes this emotion and why it prevents us from going beyond it.

What is fear?
Fear is a basic emotion that warns us of an imminent risk. It invades us so that the dangers around us do not go unnoticed. Have you ever been paralyzed by a terrifying situation? Have you ever felt so much panic that you ran away before thinking about the consequences? It is quite natural to react thus, it is about habitual answers facing this emotional state.

You have to differentiate fear from the symptoms of anxiety. The first concept appears when one faces a concrete and present event, like a stranger who seems to follow us in a dark alley. On the other hand, anxiety is a more vague and non-specific emotion that arises when we think of less limited circumstances. An example of anxiety is the one that assails us in thinking of our uncertain future or the fact that people will criticize us for an action we have done.

When Does a Fear Become a Phobia? But there is a difference between these fears and what we commonly refer to as phobias. For example, while it’s ill-advised to stand on the ledge of a tall building (something that would warrant legitimate fear due to legitimate danger), looking out from an inside window just one floor down probably won’t do much harm. And yet that doesn’t mean a person with a phobia toward heights (acrophobia) wouldn’t feel more terror in one position over the other. This is one of the finer touchstones of a phobia as it might be compared to a fear: irrationality. Where fear can be a healthy reaction to a truly threatening object or situation, phobias are, instead, symptomatic of anxiety disorders and feel perilous when an individual is actually in no real danger. source

Tips to defeat Fear

1. Streamline your fears The fear of fire is quite understandable if we are in a fire. However, if every time we light the chimney or the grill we think that the house will burn, we will be acting in an illogical way. Thinking about the possibilities of events to occur and act in a consistent way will help you get away from unpleasant cognitive processes.
   
2. Do not try to eradicate all your fears As we saw earlier, fear is a gift of nature that promotes our survival, we can see it also in animals when they face the danger, Fortunately, our body alerts us when a threat arises. Can you imagine if you do not worry when you see a tiger in your living room? Learn to live with this essential emotion. As long as it does not play us bad tricks, we must accept our fears.
   
3. Take care of your personal esteem Some fears, such as some people feel when interacting with others, can be very frustrating for the person who feels it. This difficulty can have negative repercussions on self-esteem and generate thoughts such as "I am a less than nothing" or "nobody will love a weak like me". This can lead to cognitive biases that make our life more bitter, making any difficulty more worrying than it really is. On some occasions, these beliefs about oneself are the cause of a deep malaise that can lead to serious psychological problems. Fears are not incompatible with self-esteem. It must be remembered that anyone can feel fear, it is a human emotion, and we are competent enough to look for the to any problem.
   
4. Take care of yourself Of course, taking care of our mental and physical health has a positive impact on all aspects of our lives. Adopting healthy habits will allow us to be in great shape and be more effective in what we are doing (being careful not to become obsessive with diets or sports). Fears such as the fear of getting sick or falling in our job performance diminish if we feel healthy, in full possession of our abilities and ourselves.
   
5. Do not avoid the object of your fear If because of the fear of flying we do not fly, or if for fear of failure we do not try anything, we will be self-boycotting. It may be that just thinking about approaching the object of your fear will make you feel anxious or disgusted. The avoidance may be satisfactory in the short term, but that will only maintain the situation. It is essential to face your fears.

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I do hope that this article will be useful to you to overcome your fears. Whenever I find something I am afraid of doing, I am really excited because I know that something wonderful will happen - as long as I take the courage to take action!


Feel free to share your personal experiences, leave your comments and don't forget to up-vote this post.

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