Fear is a perfectly normal phenomenon in a person's life. It plays the role of a protective mechanism, which warns us of a possible danger. This is how the natural instinct of self-preservation works. Since birth, we already have two fears - a sharp sound and a loss of support. Acquiring life experience, living different situations, we learn to fear a variety of things. Often our fears protect us effectively. For example, being afraid that money will be stolen in public transport, we hide the purse more reliable, we hold the bag in front of us. We are afraid of being a victim of a street attack - we try to stay crowded, do not walk alone at night. Such "useful" fears do not prevent us from living; on the contrary, they awaken reasonable care in us. But it happens that, fearing something, we cease to control ourselves, we panic or become depressed. With such fears, you can and should cope.
Breathe deeply
The feeling of sudden fear, as the driving force of mankind, is familiar to everyone-it arises in situations where something concrete threatens our security. Either it seems to us that it is threatening. The real threat, or imaginary, of the reaction to it is about the same: the increase in the pulse, the tension of the muscles, the cold sweat ... The more serious the danger seems to us, the more intensely we think about the bad consequences, the sooner the fear grows into a panic. And now there is not enough air, the head is spinning, arms and legs are weakening, and the mind is enveloped in horror. We are afraid that we are about to lose our senses or go crazy. To prevent this from happening, we will take urgent measures to help the body.
First of all, one should normalize breathing. Hollywood movie heroes in the case of a panic attack breathe into a paper bag - and correctly do, because carbon dioxide, exhaled and re-inhaled with air, has a relaxing effect on the brain and blood circulation.
You can do without a package, just focusing on your breathing. Deeply inhale the stomach and slowly exhale through the mouth so that the exhalation is at least twice as long as the inspiration. Dimensional and deep breaths and exhalations will start the process of relaxation in your body. Continue to breathe properly, and soon you will notice that the nervous tremor subsides, the heart beats more smoothly, the blood flows again to the extremities.
The body is in the business
In moments of fear, as the driving force of mankind, our body resembles a compressed spring, the muscles are stretched to the point of trembling. To remove muscular blocks, try to take a stable position. Concentrate on the most "problematic" areas - as a rule, it's limbs, shoulders and abdomen. Feel how they are strained - and try to strain them even more, to the most possible limit. And then abruptly relax. At the same time, represent the speedometer needle or the scale of the steam boiler - any visual image that visually measures your efforts. Here you are maximally strained, and the arrow has reached the highest value. Relaxed - and the arrow went back. Mentally "inspect" your muscles, one after another, as if playing with them in "compression-relaxation."
To balance the level of adrenaline, any physical discharge is also useful. If the situation allows, do a few simple exercises - sit-ups, lunges, mahi's hands, run or at least jump on the spot. Just do not forget to try to breathe deeply and smoothly! All these methods, in addition to purely physical benefits, will bring a psychological effect. By switching attention to your body, you unload the consciousness and stop "winding" yourself with negative thoughts. So you will be distracted from fears, and they will recede.
I'm not a coward, but I'm afraid
Some fears persecute us and manifest themselves even when our security objectively does not threaten anything. Say, if you are afraid of getting into an elevator with a suspicious stranger - this is understandable caution. But if you are basically afraid of elevators and avoid driving in them - this is already an obsessive fear. Such states are usually called phobias.
Suppress obsessive fears useless, it is better to directly admit that the problem exists. What to do next depends on you. The most effective way is to go to your fear and meet him "spitefully." So, for example, people suffering from social phobia (fear of society) go to courses of speaking or acting skills, afraid of heights - they jump from the "tarzanka" or from the parachute. There is a case where a person, who is afraid of hijacking, spent several days in the air, changing from an airplane to an airplane. One can only guess what nerves and money it cost him, but in the end he overcame his aviaphobia.
If you feel that you do not have enough will for such radical actions, try to train the mind first. Take the above-mentioned fear of the elevator. Mentally rehearse the trip in it, imagining it in detail. Imagine that something nice is waiting for you at the end of the journey. Periodically scrolling this picture in the imagination, you will form a model of behavior, and consciousness will perceive it as a fait accompli. Then go to the steps: stand in the elevator. Ask someone close to ride along with you (well, if in the process you will be hugged or amused). Then make a trip yourself - first to one floor, then two, and so on. After the "operation", praise yourself for your efforts, treat yourself to something tasty, to consolidate a positive emotion.
And remember that your main goal is not the absence of any fears at all (nothing is afraid only of biorobots and crazy ones), but confidence in oneself. If you learn to act, regardless of fear, then you have won it.
"I am not afraid of anything!"
Psychologists say that the first fear, even, or rather, horror, a person experiences at birth, passing through the birth canal. Therefore, for a long time it was believed that people who appeared with the help of Caesarean section are distinguished by special fearlessness. In the first weeks of life, the child should be in a particularly quiet environment, because now his trust in the world around him is being laid. After all, if many children's problems are overgrown, then fears grow with us. In the process of the game, you can, for example, draw what the child is afraid of, and then, tearing the picture into small pieces, or throw it into the toilet, or arrange a ritual bonfire. The earlier you help the child to overcome his fears, the less likely that they will develop into a phobia.
Why do we watch horror movies?
Why is interest in horror in cinematography not quenched? After experiencing a negative experience, we do not aspire to repeat it, but watch horror films all the time. Watching horror movies makes people have the illusion of relieving stress. According to professor of psychiatry Zurab Kekelidze, horror films support an inner alarm in a person, and the tendency to watch these pictures is inherent in people with an anxious, suspicious psyche. Therefore, the main spectator of horror movies is teenagers and young people. And yet, this is the best way to survive the events that frighten you in the most secure environment. Feeling for two hours of viewing a sense of fear, at the end the viewer feels euphoric, free of these emotions.