What is fear and how is it useful - basic techniques to live the emotion correctly

If a person feels a sense of fear when there is no real threat, this reduces the quality of his life. Therefore, every person experiencing this sensation strives to get rid of it as quickly as possible. How to get rid of it?

To get rid of an unreasonable feeling of fear, first of all, it is necessary to find out the true reasons for its formation and direct all efforts to cure them. This requires a very rich experience of a doctor who can look at the problem broadly and thoughtfully. If necessary, first choose the right diagnostic methods, and then choose the right therapy.

Brain Clinic specialists have extensive experience in getting rid of various disorders that cause a feeling of fear. The correct and safe way to restore the functioning of the nervous system does not harm the human body. Strengthens not only neuropsychic activity, but also improves the functioning of all organs and systems.

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What is fear

Fear is an emotional state caused by real or perceived danger. Represents a protective biological reaction (the concept of fear according to the National Encyclopedia of Psychology).

The feeling of fear is an innate emotion that is needed to maintain the race and the instinct of human self-preservation.

Sigmund Freud described fear and divided it into two categories - phobia and dread. The first is pathological fear, which prevents a person from fully existing. The second is a short-term fear of something specific, which passes, and the person continues to function.

What is known about fear is that it can be both innate and acquired.

A detailed video about fear from Andrey Kurpatov with an explanation of physiological processes.

How to deal with fear?

Feeling afraid from time to time is a normal part of life, but living with chronic fear can be both physically and emotionally draining. Living with a regularly weakened immune response and high blood pressure causes illness, and not participating in daily activities due to fear does not make life fulfilling.

Uncertainty is a major component of fear, so if there is something you're afraid to try because it seems scary or difficult, start small and work your way up. Gradual familiarity with a scary subject makes it more manageable. It will also be helpful to find someone who is not afraid and spend time with them. Take someone with you when you try to conquer your fear: it will become much easier. Finally, talk about it (sharing your fear out loud can make it less scary) and don't be afraid to seek help. Fear is a difficult emotion, and if you find it difficult to overcome it on your own, then contact a professional who can help.

Types of fears

The classification of fears and their varieties are extensive.

This is what the psychology of fear says about their varieties.

Psychology identifies the 29 most common forms of fear. They, in turn, are divided into 3 categories:

Delusional fears. The cause of their occurrence cannot be traced. For example, it is not clear how to explain a child’s fear of putting on socks. Such phobias often act as a sign that a person has some kind of mental disorder. Often such a person becomes or is already a patient in a neurosis clinic.

Overvalued fears arise on the basis of some ideas. Often such ideas become a kind of prism through which everything that happens is passed through. Usually some life situation affects a person so strongly that its meaning for him then changes dramatically.

Obsessive fears. A person begins to experience fear only under a certain combination of circumstances. Often there are fears such as:

1. fear of climbing and being at heights (hypsophobia);
2. fear of open spaces (agoraphobia);
3. fear of closed and cramped spaces (claustrophobia).

It is not fear itself that leads to such disorders, but the fear of it. The personality itself mentally plays out the most unfavorable scenarios for the development of events. It is the possible consequences (pain, suffering, deprivation) that frighten her. And the strongest fears eventually become phobias.

Manifestation of fears of varying intensity

There are many feelings that are directly or indirectly similar to fear. From them you can create a whole scale of the origin and growth of feelings. Degrees:

1. Calm.
2. Excitement.
3. Anxiety.
4. Fear.
5. Horror.
6. Panic.

What other manifestations of fear or feelings close to it do you know? Share your observations in the comments.

Fears

The fear of danger is always worse than the danger that has already come, and the expectation of evil is ten thousand times worse than evil itself.

Daniel Defoe

Every person has fears that he lives with for a very long time and does not know how to cope with them so that they do not bother him.
Fears can appear in us throughout life, in various situations in which we see some kind of danger for ourselves and do not know how to resist it. The feeling of fear signals us about some kind of danger, a threat to which we need to respond in order to protect ourselves. This is the benefit of fear. However, many of our fears are false. Others, if adequate and appropriate, are often not clear enough for us to understand what they want from us and how to respond to them correctly so that they do not cause discomfort. Therefore, because of fear, people can begin to get nervous, panic, fuss, or, conversely, become inactive, falling into a state of apathy and even depression instead of either ignoring their unreasonable fear, realizing its meaninglessness, or taking the necessary actions to solve real problems , because of which it arose. Fears that are not worked out in the right way, but only suppressed, do not go away; they can only change somewhat, after which they will become even more incomprehensible and uncontrollable. And some of them, over time, develop into deep-seated and completely unconscious fears that can torment a person all his life, pursuing him in a variety of situations and places, and making him afraid of completely harmless things. In this article, I will tell you how to deal with such fears and how to prevent them from occurring. First of all, I will say that you and I should not see in our fears only something bad, which should not exist in our lives at all. This is usually how we approach fear – negatively. In fact, they, our fears, are not our enemies, although they create discomfort for us. Anyone who criticizes fear does not know how to use it. This common opinion that fear is evil is too crude in assessing the impact of fears on a person. Fears can help or they can harm a person, depending on where they come from and how the person reacts to them. Their help lies in the fact that they protect us from dangers, drawing our attention to various threats with the help of strong emotions that we experience when we are afraid of something. It's like a warning board where lights come on, signaling that something is going wrong and we need to fix it. And the harm from fears comes down to various restrictions that a person himself adheres to, being under their influence, or to his inappropriate actions, for example, when he panics and makes wrong decisions.

Fear often prevents you from acting, or encourages you to act hastily, primitively, and therefore erroneously. In this case, either our signal panel sends us false signals, or we simply do not know how to correctly respond to these danger signals, because we do not have the instructions necessary for this case. So, if you do not properly study this or that fear in order to either make sense of it or react to it in the right way, then you will not understand whether it is useful for you or not. Fears must be treated with an understanding of their cause and meaning, and not with disdain, as a negative feeling that creates unnecessary discomfort. In some cases, it is very necessary, this discomfort caused by fear, because it forces us to act. I advise you not to take seriously the advice that says that you don’t need to be afraid of anything in this life, you need to be brave always and everywhere and then you will constantly win. This is too simple and therefore too dangerous a view of life. Living without a warning panel that can warn us of danger before it harms or even kills us is extremely irresponsible. Therefore, you will still have to act more difficultly in order to live wisely and not expose yourself to unnecessary danger. To do this, let's think about what our fears are usually based on and what their logic is.

What are our fears based on?

The main thing on which all fears are based is a person’s lack of understanding of the information that they convey to him through the emotional and sensory sphere and not knowing how to react to it. When we do not understand the meaning of the fear we experience, we do not know what to do with it, how to respond to it. But we must do this, and therefore, until we react to it properly, it will bother us at the level of feelings. And in order to understand the information transmitted by fear, you need, firstly, to focus your attention on it, that is, to concentrate all mental resources on this information, and secondly, to obtain the necessary knowledge about fear. Focusing on fear allows us to become aware of the information it conveys, without allowing it to sink into our subconscious, where it must then be pulled out to be processed. If it gets there in an unprocessed form, that is, remaining unstudied, then it will torment us later, causing negative feelings. And knowledge makes it possible to analyze what our fear tells us, so that we understand what it tells us, what it warns us about and what we should do about it all.

For example, as a child you might have been frightened by the fact that if you don’t sleep, a little gray top will come and bite you on the side. Well, this is a classic children's horror story. Then you might have been afraid of this, because you didn’t know that no tops come and bite children who are not sleeping. This is an unreal threat. But you need to know about its unreality in order to perceive it that way, frivolously. Now, thanks to knowledge, you are not afraid of such things. Right? The horror story exists, but you know that it is not real. And if this scares you, then you will not perceive such information as threatening, you will ignore it. Or, if you are frightened by something more real, say, a fire in the house, the same thing can happen, then by taking the necessary fire-prevention measures, you will protect yourself from this threat, which means you will not be afraid of it. That is, knowledge will give you the opportunity to solve the question that your fear poses to you. This means you won’t experience it. Thus, they are, in fact, based on a person’s inattention to his fears and his ignorance of their essence and meaning, and therefore, his lack of understanding of the information they convey.

Therefore, if you are afraid of something at the moment and cannot cope with your fears, then there is something that has slipped into your subconscious, bypassing consciousness, that is, bypassing your attention, and you associate this something with threat. You feel danger, but you don’t understand what exactly it is, which means you can’t react to it correctly, because information about it is in your subconscious, that is, your brain’s resources are not focused on it, and it affects your a state at the level of feelings, that is, at the level of thoughts that flow in your head, bypassing your attention to them. In general terms, you can formulate your fears, but you do not understand their logic; you cannot say when, in what circumstances, in connection with what threat you developed this or that fear, from what consequences it is trying to protect you, what it calls for . All this is unknown to you. In your head there is only an image of fear, but not its entire structure, in the form of a clear and precise understanding of the threat that exists for you. And if you know what exactly you are afraid of and can even tell you why you are afraid of it, but you don’t know what to do about it, how to react to the threat, how to protect yourself from danger, then you do not have the necessary knowledge that can neutralize this threat . Well, for example, you are afraid of some disease that you think could destroy you. Let's say it can really harm you and your fear is justified. Then, until you find out how to protect yourself from it, what needs to be done for this, what measures to take, this fear will torment you. The warning light will flash, prompting you to take appropriate action. It turns out that you are aware of this fear, at least to the extent necessary to assess its adequacy, but you do not know what to do with it. So we need to find out. You need to obtain the necessary knowledge about what this fear is associated with and apply it by taking the necessary actions to eliminate the source of danger for you.

There are also false fears that do not signal any real threat, but nevertheless haunt a person. They are based not on real, but on threats imagined by people. For example, I know of a case where a person was afraid of aliens, and because of this he could not find a place for himself. He had seen enough and read various science fiction and mysticism, which made a strong impression on him. He even convinced himself that various cases of contact with aliens had happened to him in the past, which had an extremely negative impact on him. All this became clear during a long conversation with him, when he gradually began to open up and talk about how he got such thoughts. And these painful memories of his were false, they were his fantasies. And he believed in them for a long time and therefore was afraid of a repetition of what had never happened to him. Such false fear comes to those who are divorced from reality due to some problems and seek salvation in illusions. Sometimes such people simply lack communication, they lead a secluded life and because of this they become inadequate, including in relation to their own fantasies.

Some people are very impressionable and trusting by nature, so they can believe in almost everything and take a lot to heart. Their fear does not arise in the outside world, in the form of a real threat to them, but exclusively in their own head, albeit thanks to information from the outside world. In any case, the final picture of the world that each of us has is born in our brain, and not in objective reality, therefore, for each person, the truth will be what he himself considers to be true, and not objective reality. It is necessary to fight false fear through a logical analysis of all its constituent links. Then some inconsistencies, contradictions, nonsense, even absurd moments in a person’s logic will definitely be revealed, and he himself will understand that his fear is illusory, it has no reason to exist. A person is asked special questions that allow him to reveal, including for himself, his logical basis for the fear he experiences. He must understand whether what he imagines and fears really happens in life or whether such things do not happen and they are a figment of his imagination. Of course, sometimes people resist attempts to make sense of their fears. For various reasons they do it, but they do it. And when they finally come to understand the illogicality of their fear, thanks to deep reflection, they stop taking it seriously, and then, after some time, they completely forget about it.

There are also fears, the significance of which a person exaggerates too much for himself. We will consider them to be exaggerated fears and, in this sense, also not entirely real. For example, it could be the fear that a meteorite will fall from the sky on your head. This is possible, right? Theoretically possible. I know of one case of a person dying from a meteorite; this happened in India, if I’m not mistaken, in 2021. There, however, a meteorite did not fall on a man’s head, but, as I understand it, the blast wave killed him, but that doesn’t matter, the main thing is that such an incident happened. Let’s assume that there are other undocumented cases of people dying from meteorites that we don’t know about, and therefore the threat is, in principle, real. But these cases are so rare that this threat should not be taken seriously and given any significant significance. Moreover, it is quite difficult to protect yourself from it; you can’t sit in a bunker all your life. This means that there is absolutely no point in being afraid that this will happen to you. There is no reason for people to worry about this, especially against the backdrop of other, statistically more likely threats. But for this, a person must reason sensibly in order to give an adequate assessment of this threat and thus dissolve the fear associated with it.

When I work with people on their fear issues, we often do this kind of work with them, we assess with them the severity of the threat that their feelings of fear indicate. And it often turns out that people exaggerate some of the dangers to themselves that they think they might face. Impeccable, understandable, harmonious logic eliminates all these fears, even if they are largely perceived by a person at the emotional level, and therefore are not fully realized. Fear, as a feeling, is simply an undeciphered message. And when you decipher it using logical reasoning, then this message can turn out to be absolutely safe.

Indifference to fear

There is another good approach to fear, which I have been actively using in my work lately - this is developing indifference to it. Not a very good way in fact, because a person should not be indifferent to his fears, otherwise he risks missing the important information that they convey to him. But when some fear is too poisonous, intrusive and does not allow people to live normally, while not being useful, you can still influence it. And the point of this approach to it is to think about the consequences of certain threats that this fear warns us about and think about what is bad in these consequences.

From a philosophical point of view, any fear does not make much sense, even the fear of death, as the most fundamental fear. Well, you die, so what? Why should this bother you, why should you be afraid of death? Just think about why this fear is possible. Only if you do not understand what death is, what it leads to, can you be afraid of it. You are frightened by the unknown that lies behind it. But at the same time, we all know that death is inevitable. We will all come to her. So what's the point of being afraid of her? This will still happen to us. And if there is no point in fearing death as the most terrible end for us, or maybe not terrible, we just can think so, then what else is there any point in being afraid of? You see, no matter what happens to us, it will all be temporary. A person can go through a lot, but it will still end in his death. You have to delve into this idea in order to come to the conclusion that it’s all vanity of vanities and there’s no point in worrying about anything. When we discuss with people their fears, I simply ask them to explain to me what specifically frightens them about the particular consequences that their fear tells them about and why it frightens them. If you dig deep into your fears in this way, you can significantly reduce their impact on yourself. Not because they will cease to be relevant and not because a person will find some solution that will allow him to prevent any negative consequences for him, but because he will mentally live through all the scenarios that frighten him, his mind will get used to these frightening ones. paintings and adapts his psyche to them. Whatever happens in life, it will pass. All will pass.

Everything that our fears tell us about will all be temporary if it comes true. So, mine are afraid of something only because we have played a game called life. We are afraid because we must be afraid, otherwise our life will become worthless if we do not do anything in it to prevent some undesirable scenarios for us. But you decide not to play this game for a while, your fears will disappear.

If a specialist is a self-confident person, he can simply inspire his patients and clients that their fears are illusory, unfounded and even that they do not exist at all, that they are just a figment of their imagination and it is enough to simply accept this thought for the fear to disappear. And fear disappears, because the person’s mind accepts a new thought on faith, instead of the old one. When suggesting, logic is practically not involved, the specialist does not explain anything, he simply insists on his opinion. This approach is not applicable to all people, but if we see that a person does not talk well about his fear, that logically it is not possible to overcome this fear, we can resort to suggestions.

Response to fear

To prevent the emergence of fears that will become stronger in you and then affect you uncontrollably, you first need to learn how to quickly respond to them. The speed of reaction to fear affects the quality of its analysis. The sooner you notice that something scares you, even if not very much, the sooner you can think about the reason for this feeling, that is, about the threat that causes it. In this way, you will discover the fear that is arising in you and will be able to assess its relevance and seriousness without allowing it to enter your subconscious in an unprocessed form. Because if he gets in there, then it will be much more difficult for you to deal with him. You can even forget about it for a while, when it buries itself in the wilds of your subconscious, and then it will manifest itself in different situations, begin to affect your self-confidence and you will not even be able to understand what scares you, confuses you, what prevents you from acting bold and confident. Do you know how it happens when you are afraid of something, but cannot clearly formulate what exactly scares you? This is what happens when we ignore some things that frighten us, allowing them to penetrate us and settle in our head, and then further develop. Somewhere you heard, saw, read, maybe even felt something and it scared you. You should think about this, you need to pay attention to this initial form of fear, but you ignore it, switch to other things, more pleasant and interesting. So it penetrates you without your conscious resistance to it.

A threat, even a false one, was detected by your security alarm panel, and you did not classify it, did not process it, did not pay attention to it. She sends unprocessed threats to the archive, and there any transformation can happen to her, which will turn her into any fear. You know how much our imagination frightens us. We can come up with such horror stories for ourselves, based on such raw threat signals that we can begin to be afraid of an empty space or our own reflection in the mirror. You will then turn to a psychologist for help so that he can help you find and analyze the fear that has grown in you. Which will not be an easy task, believe me. Therefore, you need to monitor your internal state regularly and as soon as something starts to bother you, especially after communicating with people, immediately concentrate your attention on the cause of this concern. Fear must be identified at the very initial stage, when it exists in the form of excitement, and delved into its meaning. Once you deal with the threat, it will either fall away from you or you will take measures to prevent it from coming true in your life.

The next thing you need to do to prevent fears from already taking root and becoming chronic, even if you are aware of them, is not to rush to conclusions regarding the threats that they signal to you. You need to think about whether the threat that causes you fear is actually relevant and dangerous for you. To do this, you need to think through a negative scenario for your future if this threat comes true. We invent many of our fears ourselves, seeing bad things in things that are not there or considering ourselves unable to cope with the consequences of scenarios that frighten us that may happen in our lives. Suppose a person is afraid of getting sick and because of this he limits himself in many ways, lives as if in a prison, avoiding everything that could infect him with a terrible disease. I have dealt with such cases. But in reality there is no reason for him to develop a disease that is terrible from his point of view. He came up with this threat after watching and reading all sorts of horror stories. But in his life, the likelihood of getting sick from what scared him is incredibly small, so such a threat must be ignored. It’s just that his attention stuck to her and the fear began to grow, and the person can no longer budge his thoughts, cannot stop thinking about this fear, since he allowed it to gain strength by making premature conclusions about its seriousness. Or, let’s say, a person simply doesn’t know what he will do if something bad happens to him, from his point of view. He does not believe that he will be able to cope with any problems that he may have or something that might happen to him. This may also be a misconception, because in fact, this person’s capabilities allow him to cope with the consequences that frighten him.

And some things are not worth worrying about at all. But we hasten to write them down in the category of undesirable and even scary things for us, thus making them into something dangerous for ourselves, which should not be in our lives, so we ourselves make our own fears out of many things that exist in this life . We, for example, are often afraid of change as such, seeing in it a change for the worse, even if this is not the case. A person was fired from his job or lost his business, and he is afraid for his future, believing that without what he had, it will be worse. He is afraid not because his future will be bad, but because he simply has a bad idea of ​​it and does not know how he can continue to live. Well, if he continues to be afraid of his future for a very long time, then this fear will take root in him, and he will really make his life worse by, for example, not acting in accordance with the new reality, not adapting to new conditions, solve the problems facing him and the problems that arise in his life. He will create his own terrible future. Although initially there was nothing terrible in the changes that arose in his life, well, one source of income collapsed, you can find and create another, and even better one than before. For humans, this is a solvable task. And to understand this, there is no need to rush to conclusions regarding current or expected events.

In everything that happens to us or can happen, there is something good and something bad. It's all about what we see and want to see in what is happening - more good or bad. And when we rush to assess and draw conclusions, we often see exactly the bad, because by nature we are too conservative and are afraid of everything new and unusual for us.

And finally, the last and most important thing a person needs to do to prevent the development of serious and long-lasting fears is to do something at all when something scares him. Activity itself neutralizes many fears, because it shows us that we are not defenseless against this or that threat. When we do something, we give ourselves the impression of control over the situation, we struggle with difficulties, solve problems, look for ways to get out of the situation. And this is important, it gives us inner strength and self-confidence. In general, a person can have three main reactions to fear: fight, flight and stupor. Fighting is most often expressed in aggression, which is a person’s instinctive emotional reaction to danger. Flight is expressed in the surrender of positions, in the reluctance to solve the problems that have arisen. And stupor manifests itself in inaction, passivity, and lethargy. The best option is to fight. It's activity. We are not necessarily talking about aggression, violent emotions and fuss, when a person is primitively struggling with some threat. By struggle we mean any general resistance to the emerging threat. It is enough for a person to develop a simple plan of action as a response to events that frighten him and immediately begin to implement it. Even if it is a symbolic activity that does not really allow one to do anything with what frightens a person. But it is also important. A person will take more correct and appropriate actions later, when he is already immersed in solving the problems that have arisen. Until then, you just need to tune your body to fight so that it does not react to threats in other ways - does not run away from danger and difficulties, and does not act inactive.

If the fear is real, of course, you need to work with it. More precisely, we need to work with what he tells us about, what he warns us about. We must respond to danger by making adequate decisions. A person should have hope for the best, in any case. Such hope can be evoked by appropriate thoughts, but it must be consolidated through actions, through activity. Otherwise, such hope will remain in the form of faith, and faith, although it helps, does not lead to change. Change is brought about by the actions we take. And you can believe in anything and as much as you want; faith will help a person not to break down internally, but will not change anything in the outside world. Be active, take action, do not sit idly by, there is nothing worse than passivity in response to some threats. Passivity only increases fear because it shows your mind that you don’t know what to do, that you are powerless in the face of threats, and this will make you even more afraid.

This is how we can cope with fears and prevent them from appearing and taking root in us. Once again, I want to remind you that our fears, or even more likely, our ability to experience fear, is by no means something bad for us. You don’t have to be a brave person who is not afraid of anything, this is wrong because it is dangerous. We must respond to threats, of which there are a great many in this world, and cannot ignore them. But first, we must notice them. Another thing is that our reaction must be competent, timely, and adequate, so that our fear works for us and not against us. And I hope this article will help you develop such a competent reaction, or even a competent response, to the threats that cause you corresponding fears.

Signs of fear

The emotion of fear can manifest itself at different levels (physiological, behavioral, etc.).

Phobia and anxiety

Phobia is a psychological condition when a person experiences constant fear. In such a state, thoughts and words have the same meaning as a real threat. During an attack, a person experiences fear, and the rest of the time - anxiety. The victim of a phobia is so afraid of repeating a negative experience that he constantly lives in it.

Why is increased anxiety dangerous?

• the body is constantly in a state of stress (psychological tension does not disappear day or night);
• anxiety makes a person paranoid;
• new responsibility causes new stress;
• a person withdraws into himself and into the feelings that he constantly experiences;
• fear makes a person apathetic and tired.

A state of fear and constant anxiety are two factors that affect overall well-being. Against the background of prolonged anxiety, nervousness develops (any form of neurosis). The more stressful situations, the stronger the phobia. The new threat creates the preconditions for the manifestation of mental disorders.

Causes of fear - why we are afraid

Fear does not appear in a person just like that. Typically, a number of reasons contribute to the occurrence of this condition.

How fear works

When a person is afraid, certain hormones and molecules are produced - peptides. The physiological abilities of peptides are being actively studied by scientists. Neuropeptides can shape mental states. For example: fear, anger and fright.

The two most well-known fear hormones are adrenaline and norepinephrine. The first causes a rapid heartbeat, constricts the blood vessels of the abdominal cavity and mucous membranes, relaxes the intestinal muscles, and dilates the pupils.

The main task of adrenaline is to adapt the body to the reaction to stress. It improves skeletal muscle function. With prolonged influence of adrenaline on the body, the myocardium and skeletal muscles increase in size.

Norepinephrine is not only a hormone, but also a neurotransmitter. Like adrenaline, its level increases under stress. Increases blood pressure and constricts blood vessels. The action time is shorter than that of adrenaline.

Both hormones cause tremor (shaking in the limbs). The hypothalamus, having detected a stressful situation, releases corticotropin into the blood. When it reaches the adrenal glands, it produces adrenaline and norepinephrine.

Why are we afraid for no reason?

Fear or anxiety are groundless when there is not the slightest reason for concern. For example, a person is doing well, nothing and no one bothers him or threatens him. But a panic attack is slowly growing in my head.

Fear for no reason is the most obvious sign of anxiety disorders. Among them: generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, panic attacks. Anxiety neurosis is the mildest form. Quite often it is associated with hormonal imbalance, caused by overwork and stress.

How does anxious anticipation work?

Suspense - anxious anticipation, anxiety. In English-speaking countries, the term is widely used to describe everyday life. In Russian, it is applied exclusively to cinema, computer games, and very rarely to literature.

Suspense means an artistic effect, a particularly prolonged state of anxiety that appears when watching a film. It is also a collection of artistic techniques that are used to achieve this state. Mainly used in horror, thriller and horror games.

What are inflated fears and how to counter them

Justification of fear is possible in the presence of a real threat. Exaggerated and imaginary fears greatly oppress the individual’s freedom of action, prevent them from realizing their potential, and over time become a pattern of thinking.

Decide whether to act on your fear. The habit of justifying fear increases every day. The sooner you start fighting it, the better.

The benefits and harms of fear for humans

If a person faces fear, this does not mean that he will have to live with it for the rest of his life. After all, if there were no fear and uncertainty, it would be more difficult for people to survive. From this we can conclude that in some sense fear is useful.

Benefits of fear:

Saves from attacks, accidents, self-harm; this is the main positive function of fear.

It has a positive effect on muscle tone, as the hormone serotonin is produced.

A person begins to think faster and act harmoniously (but some are paralyzed by fear).

The harm of fear:

Restricts movement.

It disrupts the respiratory processes, making breathing confusing and difficult.

A person may make strange, reckless or unfounded decisions when driven by fear.

A panic attack may occur.

Some particularly impressionable people may lose consciousness.

The body becomes tight, this can cause headaches, digestive problems, insomnia, etc.

Physiology of fear

Common manifestations of mental disorders are depression and anxiety disorders. The boundaries of their classification have not yet been found. Similar symptoms occur in different patients and may have different causes. Social phobia is quite difficult to give a biological explanation, because social thinking is directly intertwined with the description of the situation and people’s thoughts. At the moment, anxiety disorders are divided into 2 types. The first is biological, the second is psychological.

Two neural pathways of fear

Fear develops through two neural pathways, ideally functioning simultaneously. The first way is responsible for the development of basic emotions, has a quick reaction along with a huge number of errors. The second, on the contrary, is slow, but more accurate.

Fast way

Using the first path, a person quickly responds to signs of a threat, and this often triggers a false alarm. The second helps to give an accurate assessment of the situation and confront the danger more effectively. At this moment, the fear initiated by the first path is blocked by the work of the second, assessing some signs of danger as unreal.

The emotional stimulus in the first path closes on the amygdala nuclei of the thalamus visualis, stimulating an emotional reaction.

A long way

In the second path, the emotional stimulus, reflected in the sensitive nuclei of the thalamus, ascends to the sensory parts of the cerebral cortex and from them is sent to the nuclei of the amygdala complex, forming an emotional response.

If a person has a phobia, the second pathway works unstable, leading to the development of fear of stimuli that essentially do not pose any danger.

Directions for Fear Research

Psychologists have studied the phenomenon of fear from various points and directions, and it is interesting to track it.

Psychoanalytic

The founder of psychoanalysis is Sigmund Freud. Connected fear with feelings of attraction. The reason is sexual desires that were once repressed by the individual or his immediate environment .

Freud tried to structure the human psyche, dividing it into “I”, “It” and “Super-ego”. The “I” is usually covered by fears of a biological nature (pain, falling, attack). The “super-ego” may be afraid of the surrounding reality, thoughts about the future or upcoming actions. “It” is subject to neurotic fears.

Freud's ideas were further developed by the American researcher Karen Horney. She believed that the cause of all fears was unresolved conflicts.

Existential

The existential approach was first proposed by Viktor Frankl. He believed that emotion is closely related to the feeling of expectation . A person is afraid of something and waits for a reaction, which is later realized or not realized. Symptoms of a state of anticipation can only intensify fear and inflame it.

Frankl considered fear as a factor that helps avoid unpleasant situations. On the contrary, if a person looks his fear in the face, then the emotion will gradually begin to disappear and will be defeated.

Behavioral

The founder of behaviorism was the American John Watson. In his opinion, fear does not arise just like that; it is activated by certain stimuli (sudden loud sound, blow, push) .

A person has innate stimuli that provoke fear, but over the course of life this list expands (fear of a certain animal, fire, darkness).

According to Watson's conclusions, a person develops many fears during the first years of his life.

Another proponent of behaviorism, Burres Frederick Skinner, believed that fear needs reinforcement, and reinforcement can be positive or negative .

Positive reinforcement allows fear to flourish and develop. Negativity causes conflicting feelings, therefore, in order not to experience them again, a person will try to overcome his own fear.

Common Fears

Women's fears rarely differ from men's, because... these are human emotions, independent of gender. If the nature of fears is far-fetched (subjective perception), the person is unable to assess the situation. He lives around fear and does not see the problem with how his reactions manifest themselves.

Psychology assesses the patient’s condition as complex if he is unable to accept the fact of a mental disorder.

The most common phobias:

• fear of death;
• aquaphobia;
• fear of confined spaces;
• Fear of heights.
• Russophobia

Whatever the nature of fears, you need to get rid of them. The first sign of the development of a mental illness is inexplicable attacks of severe anxiety.

Rare type of fear: anatidaephobia

Fear of death

The phobia is based on the social function of human life: role in society, responsibility, sense of duty. A person is afraid of losing what he has. Fear of death is a phenomenon that occurs regardless of age and standard of living. In adults and older people, fear of death arises due to a number of traumatic events. Often death is presented as an event that threatens, because... it is unknown what will happen after death (this is another type of lost control).

What makes it difficult to get rid of a phobia is the prejudice that adults should not have doubts. A phobia does not allow one to realize oneself - a person is afraid to take risks or overload himself.

Fear of water

Fear develops in early childhood, when the child is guided by instincts. At this age, negative experiences with water are the basis of a future phobia. The influence of fear increases over time, and the patient’s body reacts sharply to any large bodies of water.

There can be many situations when a phobia manifests itself (you don’t have to dive to feel panic). In special cases, a feeling of fear does not allow the patient to take a bath or be near a pond or swimming pool. In the acute form, panic attacks are observed.

Fear of enclosed spaces

With this phobia, a person experiences discomfort because he is closed or locked in, he needs fresh air and space. Such fears manifest an instant reaction in the human body: increased sweating, dizziness, loss of consciousness. Even if there is a logical explanation for fear, it is difficult to argue with such a person because he does not admit his problem.

Social confinement is also scary - in a circle of unfamiliar people, a person becomes cramped and uncomfortable. Dealing with the fear of enclosed spaces is difficult. Usually a psychotherapist works with such problems and helps to get out of a difficult psycho-emotional state correctly.

Fear of heights

Fear of heights prevents many dreams from being realized - looking down from a great height or physically rising above your own height. Phobia does not depend on age, but pathological fear is often caused by childhood trauma or an event that is imprinted in memory. People with this phobia close their eyes when on any height; they need constant contact with a hard, stable surface under their feet.

When to seek help from a psychologist

Among people who love the feeling of fear, there are also adrenaline junkies. They constantly risk their own lives; if they give up this dangerous occupation, they begin to feel sad and depressed. Some of these people may need the help of a professional psychologist.

It is believed that such people take risks instead of love, communication, and the desire to enter into a relationship.

There are also people who believe that adrenaline junkies subconsciously strive for death. This is a very controversial opinion, but a person should talk to a specialist, otherwise the problem of fear and its incorrect implementation can lead to tragic consequences.

Video about ADME and find out what you are afraid of.

Treatment of fears

The best place to start treating anxiety disorders is by talking to your family doctor. During the conversation, the nature of the disease, the causes of exacerbations and relief of the disease are determined. The patient is given material that tells about the possibility of recovery, symptoms and course of the disease. If necessary, the therapist refers the person to a psychiatrist.

Why fear is not needed today, and how to overcome it

If the physical and mental symptoms are known, it will be much easier to cope. To relieve anxiety for the first time you need:

1. Regular and balanced nutrition
2. Limit caffeine consumption. It affects the physical symptoms of anxiety.
3. Try not to drink alcohol
4. Physical activity is the key to combating stress. Exercise at least 3 hours a week.
5. Find a hobby and do it in your free time.

How to overcome fear

You can learn to identify fear and cope with this emotion using the Fear simulator by following the link - LINK

The effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy has been scientifically proven in the fight against anxiety disorders. It is based on the idea that thoughts have a huge impact on a person's feelings and behavior. The goal of treatment is to move thoughts to an area that is close to you.

Treatment helps identify and change the beliefs that lead to anxious thoughts. When a panic attack occurs, therapy allows you to identify the thoughts that contributed to the appearance of the alarming symptom. Helps change beliefs about the danger of physical symptoms (tachycardia, chest compression, etc.).

Behavioral therapy can help change the patterns of behavior that maintain anxiety disorders. Fear of public places and avoidance of them leads to disruption of your life.

Therapy helps you stop avoidance tactics. During the session, the therapist will explain how to control anxiety using breathing and relaxation techniques.

How to get rid of fear - techniques and exercises

The feeling of fear is useful, but sometimes it can really ruin a person’s life. For example, fear of dogs prevents you from moving around the city calmly, visiting dog-loving friends, and feeling safe. But there are techniques and techniques to help overcome fears.

AWARE technology

The author of the method is A. Beck. It helps to cope well with obsessive and anxious thoughts. The meaning of the exercise is deciphered as follows:

• A cknowledge & Accept - To be aware of and accept the problem.
• W atch – Look at fears from the outside.
• A ctions – Act despite your anxiety.
• R repeat – Repeat the required number of times.
• E xpect - Expect an improvement in your condition.

The steps are worth considering in more detail:

1. Realize and accept. There is no need to give up your own feelings and convince yourself that they don’t exist. You should allow yourself to feel fear, anxiety, worry, irritation.
2. A look at fears from the outside. Observe your thoughts and feelings, but do not evaluate them. It's like things come and go.
3. Act. Try to behave in life as if fears have long been overcome and are a thing of the past. However, you should not try to solve the problem through avoidance.
4. Repeat as many times as necessary. The previous point must be repeated until the new thinking takes root in the mind and the person begins to feel confident.
5. Expect improvements. It is important to be completely confident in yourself, hope only for the best, but never rush things.

Diary

The previous practice is best done in a diary. Describing each step, especially the second.

Before you start working with your fear, we recommend answering a few questions in your diary:

• What is my situation now? Describe what you like and dislike about your behavior regarding fear.
• How do I want it to be? Describe your goal, namely what you will be like and how your life will change after working through the emotion.
• What will I do in the next month? Describe your actions, what techniques and exercises you will do, what changes in your behavior, what useful habits you will add, etc.

Every day, share your thoughts with your diary, note what went well and what didn’t, what was difficult and what was easy. Analyze, draw conclusions and correct behavior.

It's good if you share your observations in the comments. This will help you structure your thoughts and figure out what’s not working. And of course it will motivate other participants to meet their fear.

How to deal with phobias?

Starting to fight your fear is often hindered by a reluctance to acknowledge the fact of its existence. Society believes that being afraid of something is stupid and shameful. This makes it more difficult not to deny the presence of a phobia. As a result, fear is driven somewhere far into our subconscious and carefully ignored.

The following ways can help get rid of this sticky, unpleasant feeling:

1. Get over yourself. You need to look fear “in the eyes.” Try to survive the situation that seems monstrous and traumatic. Usually people who have managed to change themselves notice that their own idea of ​​how everything will happen turned out to be much worse and more terrible than reality.
2. Find the root cause. Try to remember or understand why you have such a fear or phobia. Once you realize this, it will be much easier to understand how to eliminate your fear.
3. Visualization . Imagine how successfully you will overcome a difficulty you have, for example, the fear of speaking in public. Think clearly about how you will emerge victorious from the current situation. Having experienced a positive (albeit fictitious) experience, it will be much easier to turn everything into reality.

How fears go away

For owners of any combination of vectors, fears go away if:

1. A person reveals the entire nature of his psyche, the full set of his psychological qualities and properties. On average, a modern city dweller is a carrier of 3–5 vectors at the same time.
2. There is an awareness of the hidden causes of the problem: psychological trauma, false attitudes and anchors that a person has received throughout his life. When the causes of problems are realized, fear ceases to control a person.
3. When psychological hindrances go away, a person gets the opportunity to fully realize all the talents inherent in nature. This becomes a prevention of any negative conditions in the future.

Author of the publication: Evgenia Astreinova
The article was written based on materials from the training “System-vector psychology”

How to overcome fear?

Practice normal communication: in line, on the street, in transport. Use neutral themes for this. The point is to first overcome small fears, and then move on to more significant ones. Practice constantly.

How to overcome fear using other methods? Boost your self-esteem. There is a certain pattern: the better your opinion of yourself, the fewer phobias you have. Personal self-esteem protects against fears and its objectivity does not matter at all. Therefore, people with high self-esteem are able to do more than people with objective self-esteem. Being in love, people overcome very strong fear in the name of their desires. Any positive emotion helps in overcoming fears, and all negative ones only hinder.

Feeling of fear

The emotion of fear would be more accurate, but there is no clear boundary between these two concepts. Often, when there is a short-term effect, they talk about emotion, and when there is a long-term effect, they mean a feeling of fear. This is where the two concepts differ. And in colloquial speech, fear is classified as both a feeling and an emotion. Fear manifests itself in different ways in people: for some it constrains and limits, while for others, on the contrary, it intensifies activity.

The feeling of fear is individual and reflects all genetic characteristics, as well as the characteristics of upbringing and culture, temperament, accentuation, and neuroticism of each individual person.

There are both external and internal manifestations of fear. External refers to how an individual looks, while internal refers to the physiological processes occurring in the body. Because of all these processes, fear is classified as a negative emotion, which negatively affects the entire body, increasing the pulse and heartbeat, accordingly increasing blood pressure, and sometimes vice versa, increasing sweating, changing the composition of the blood (releasing the hormone adrenaline).

The essence of fear is that an individual, being afraid, tries to avoid situations that provoke negative emotions. Strong fear, being a toxic emotion, provokes the development of various diseases.

Fears are observed in all individuals. Neurotic fear is observed in every third inhabitant of the Earth, but if it reaches the strength of affect, it turns into horror and this takes the individual out of control of consciousness, and as a result, numbness, panic, defensive aggression, flight. Therefore, the emotion of fear is justified and serves for the survival of the individual, however, it can also take pathological forms that will require the intervention of doctors. Each fear performs a specific function and arises for a reason.

Fear of heights protects you from falling from a mountain or balcony; fear of getting burned makes you not go close to the fire, and, therefore, protects you from injury. Fear of public speaking forces you to prepare more carefully for speeches and take rhetoric courses, which should help in career growth. It is natural that an individual tries to overcome personal fears. If the source of danger is uncertain or unconscious, then the state that arises is called anxiety.

Fear of pain

Since it is common for a person to periodically fear something, this is a normal reaction of our body, which reflects the performance of protective functions. Frequent experiences of this kind include fear of pain. Having previously experienced pain, the individual at an emotional level tries to avoid a repetition of this sensation and fear acts as a protective mechanism that prevents dangerous situations.

Fear of pain is not only useful, but also harmful. A person, not understanding how to get rid of this condition, tries not to visit the dentist for a long time or avoids an important operation, as well as the examination method. In this case, fear has a destructive function and must be fought against. Confusion about how to effectively get rid of the fear of pain only aggravates the situation and pushes towards the formation of a panic reaction.

Modern medicine currently has various methods of pain relief, so the fear of pain is predominantly only psychological in nature. This negative emotion is rarely formed from previously experienced experiences. Most likely, a person’s fear of pain from injuries, burns, or frostbite is strong, and this is a protective function.

Panic fear

This condition never occurs without reason. For its development, a number of factors and conditions are necessary: ​​apathy, anhedonia, anxiety, depression and anxiety, stress, obsessive-compulsive neurosis, schizophrenia, hypochondria, psychopathy.

A depressed person’s psyche quickly reacts to any stimuli and therefore restless thoughts can undermine a person’s capacity. Anxiety and accompanying conditions gradually turn into neurosis, and neuroses, in turn, provoke the emergence of panic fear.

This condition cannot be predicted, since it can occur at any time: at work, on the street, in transport, in a store. A panic state is the body’s defensive reaction to a perceived or imaginary threat. Panic causeless fear is characterized by the following symptoms: suffocation, dizziness, rapid heartbeat, trembling, stupor, chaos of thoughts. Some cases are marked by chills or vomiting. Such conditions last from an hour to two for one or two times a week. The stronger the mental disorder, the longer and more frequent the panic attacks.

Often this condition can occur against the background of overwork and exhaustion of the body in emotionally unstable people. In most cases, women fall into this category as they are emotional, vulnerable, and react sharply to stress. However, men also experience panic for no reason, but try not to admit it to others.

Panic fear does not disappear on its own, and panic attacks will haunt patients. Treatment is carried out strictly under the supervision of psychiatrists, and relieving symptoms with alcohol only aggravates the situation, and panic will appear not only after stress, but also when nothing threatens.

State of fear

Negative emotion is a normal individual response to the vicissitudes of life. In an implicit, expressed form, this state acts as an adaptive reaction. For example, an applicant cannot successfully pass an exam without experiencing excitement and any anxiety. But in extreme terms, the state of fear deprives the individual of the ability to fight, giving a feeling of horror and panic. Excessive excitement and anxiety do not allow the applicant to concentrate during the exam, he may lose his voice. Researchers often note a state of anxiety and fear in patients during an extreme situation.

The state of fear can be relieved for a short time by sedatives and benzodiazepines. A negative emotion includes a state of irritability, horror, absorption in certain thoughts, and is also marked by changes in physiological parameters: the appearance of shortness of breath, excessive sweating, insomnia, chills. These manifestations intensify over time and thereby complicate the patient’s normal life. Often this condition becomes chronic and manifests itself in the absence of a specific external reason.

Is it possible to live without fears

Any, even the most insignificant fears of people reduce their ability to live joyfully and happily. What can we say about phobias, panic attacks and similar forms of persistent and long-term fear.

It is possible and necessary to live without fear. Despite the fact that evolutionarily fear is the foundation of our ability to feel, for a modern adult it is a sign of psychological distress. This can be easily seen using simple real-life examples.

In ancient times, the fear of being eaten saved the life of the entire flock. Under the influence of a strong emotion, the heartbeat and breathing increased, a special muscle tone arose: the body was preparing to flee.

Today, the owner of the visual vector saves people’s lives in a completely different way. Feeling empathy and compassion for people, he often chooses humanistic professions (doctor, social worker). Or he participates in volunteer projects, saving the lives of the seriously ill and wounded, and takes care of the elderly and children.

But when a visual person suffers from psychological trauma received in childhood, cannot fully reveal his abilities in the profession, or experiences overstress, his psyche is subject to strong fears. When we sweat from fear, our hearts race and our breath takes away, we are not bringing any benefit to society. Predatory animals have not threatened us for a long time, but man himself suffers, not understanding the root and cause of the problem.

The situation is similar in any other vector of our psyche. For example, a realized, without psychological trauma, owner of the anal vector normally handles stress during a test test or during a public speech - he is simply calmly focused on doing his job perfectly, without mistakes.