How To Overcome Chronic Fear

Everyone is afraid of something: storms, snakes, fire, illness, job loss, heights, frogs, death. You name it, and somewhere there is someone who is afraid of it. The number one ranked fear is the fear of public speaking, even higher-ranked than the fear of death or pain.

We are born with a "fear instinct." Have you ever watched a newborn's startle-reflex when you uncloth him, for instance? As a child grows, this fear goes away. Then at age three, night fears are apt to set in. What is in the closet or hiding under the bed?

These things tell us that a certain amount of instinctual fear is a good thing. It keeps us from doing dangerous things or deliberately standing in harms way. It prompts us to take measures to keep ourselves and those around us safe when impending danger is near.

Worry and anxiety are two forms of fear, that in moderation, are normal. How will I pay the bills this month? Will my sick friend be okay? I wonder why my child is so late getting in. How will I do on my new job? These are the kinds of worries that are usually groundless, in that most things really do turn out okay.

If we over-worry about everything, all the time, though, this can become a crippling way to live. Normal worry or fear leads us to find solutions to problems and take action to solve them. Most anxiety passes once we face the situation and become familiar with it, like the new job or making a speech.

But chronic fear cripples us, keeps us up night after night, affects our appetite, gives us headaches. In that sense, not only is it a miserable feeling, but eventually a detriment to our health. It keeps certain hormone levels (cortisol) high, the ones exuded when our fight-or-flight syndrome kicks into gear. This is a good thing when we truly need to take quick, defensive action. But chronic fear keeps those cortisol levels chronically high, and this is not healthy. They harm our bodies by raising blood pressure, causing us to carry too much belly, and can lead to heart attacks or strokes.

--How To Overcome Chronic Fear

Condense the fear into a few concise words. Then, write it down or say it out loud. Put it somewhere besides in your head. Once you've narrowed down the fear and put a label on it, you have made it a more manageable size. Now, you can begin to deal with it, manage it, eliminate it, or if it cannot be eliminated, moderate your reaction to it.

The next logical step is to brain-storm. Let's say you are dealing with the fear of how to pay the bills each month. Aside from winning the lottery, the main options are to spend less and/or earn more. List all the ways you can do both. Then kick them into action. Get whomever you live with to do their share, too. Fear is managed, because now you are effectively working to address the problem that prompted it.

Some fears can be eliminated just by doing whatever scares us and getting it over with. So make that speech, start that new job, squash that bug. Each time you take this kind of action, you'll build up your confidence for facing other things you fear. Realize and reaffirm to yourself often, that whatever comes, you do have the strength and skills within you to deal with it.

If a situtation cannot be managed or eliminated, then the fear can be down-sized in your mind, kept in proportion. We cannot prevent loved ones from dying, for instance. We cannot change the fact that storms will come. But we can work at accepting with a calmer response those things that cannot be changed. We can work at thinking about these things less often and dwelling instead on the things and people we love in life. When fears like these come, we can meditate, pray, exercise, or distract ourselves until they pass. With practice, acceptance and perspective will come more easily.

This article touches only briefly, but hopefully with effectiveness, on dealing with fear. If your fear is totally out of the control of what you can do to manage it alone, then never be "afraid" to get help to cope. Recurring panic attacks and phobias or paranoia would fall under this umbrella. There is always help available to deal with fear. No one should have to live with its chronic darkness.