Contents:
- Medical Video: Turning Fear into Power: Understanding and managing anxiety - Longwood Seminar
- 1. Face your phobia slowly
- 2. Learning relaxation techniques
- 3. Challenge your negative thoughts
Medical Video: Turning Fear into Power: Understanding and managing anxiety - Longwood Seminar
Living with a phobia is certainly not easy. Let alone seeing or touching a feared object, imagining or just hearing the name of a feared object can make you anxious and scared. Finally, a person who has a phobia will continue to avoid the feared object, without realizing that avoidance will only make the phobia more frightening and creepy in his mind.
Therefore, it would be better if people who have phobias look for ways to overcome their fears of certain objects or situations; especially if the feared object is an object or situation that will be encountered everyday, for example rice, fruit or vegetables, crowds, etc. Then, is there a way that can be done to overcome phobias? Of course there is. Here are some tips that can be done to overcome phobias.
1. Face your phobia slowly
Avoiding the feared thing is natural. However, to overcome phobias, you need to learn to deal with them. Exposure is one of the most effective ways to overcome your fears. During the exposure process, you will learn to get out of anxiety and fear because of the phobias that you have.
If you do it repeatedly, then it will make you realize that the fears that you have been thinking about will not happen. You will feel more confident and in control, until the phobia you have begins to lose its strength. The longer you expose yourself to the thing you are afraid of, the more you will get used to and calm down with it.
Suppose you are a phobia flying by plane. To deal with it, try choosing a flight with the shortest travel time from your city. Ask your family or friends to accompany. Also choose the airline that you trust the most. Only after that you can slowly try a flight that takes longer, for example, two hours.
Tips for dealing with phobias are as follows:
- List scary objects or situations related to your phobia.
- Start with an exposure that you can handle (from the list you have made). For example, if you are a phobia with durian, you can start by controlling yourself when you hear durians being mentioned. If you feel better when you hear it, you can train yourself to see a picture of durian, then see the durian directly, hold it, smell it, and so on. This gradual exposure will help you control the fear that arises because of durian phobias.
2. Learning relaxation techniques
Learning to overcome phobias is not easy. Simple exposure such as photos of objects you fear can sometimes make your heart pound, breathing too. If you begin to feel burdened when facing your phobia, immediately retreat and use relaxation techniques to calm down. Because by learning to calm down, you can become more confident with your ability to manage the sensation of discomfort and face your fears.
Tips for relaxation that you can do:
- Sit or stand comfortably with your back straight. Place one hand on the chest and the other on your stomach.
- Take a slow breath through your nose, counting to four. The hand in your stomach must go up. The hands on your chest must move very little.
- Hold your breath until it counts seventh.
- Exhale through the mouth in the eighth count, pushing the air out as much as you can when sighing. The hand in your stomach must move when you exhale, but your other hand must move very little.
- Inhale again, repeat this cycle until you feel relaxed and focused.
Practice this deep breathing technique for five minutes twice a day. After you feel comfortable with this technique, you can start using it when overcoming your phobia.
3. Challenge your negative thoughts
When you have a phobia, you tend to overestimate how bad it is if you face a situation that you fear. At the same time, you underestimate your ability to overcome the phobia. Therefore, the way to overcome this is to challenge your negative thoughts.
Did the thing you feared have really happened? Will certain situations or objects make you hurt? And so on with other questions related to your negative thoughts.
If the answer is "no" or "not necessarily", then you need to change your mind with, "I'll be fine," or other positive thoughts. This will help reduce your fears and anxieties when overcoming phobias.
