How to overcome a phobia? We all have or know someone who has a phobia, some people may be afraid of things that are not very present in our daily lives, so we can live perfectly by ignoring them, for example, being afraid of snakes or rats will not generate great anxiety in your daily life if you live in a big city.
However, other phobias, such as driving phobia, can become a problem today. Or the phobia of flying, if you have to travel frequently for work reasons, so it is important to work on the anxiety that cause us, in turn, some harmless stimuli To produce behaviors that avoid the situation that fuels panic?Find out how!
“The man who is afraid of what is not dangerous invents danger to justify his fear. -Alain Emile Chartier-
Anxiety is the emotion that appears when we have a phobia, so first of all, we must learn to decrease its intensity when it appears, so we can find out what causes fear, informing us we will realize the opportunities. that produce anxiety are based on unrealistic beliefs, and that we can deconstruct them and eliminate phobia. Similarly, it will be beneficial to acquire skills to manage the dreaded situation.
Let’s see an example of this: if we have a phobia of dogs we can believe that everyone is dangerous, if we discover them we will see that this is not true, we can also try to understand how to behave with dogs. so that our behavior regulates the dog’s behavior according to the situation, in this way we will have more resources to use in situations where we are prisoners, being able to act more safely and with less anxiety, because the threat will not be so great.
“You mustn’t be afraid of anything in life. Everything has to be understood. -Marie Curie-
In addition to the information of reality about phobic stimulus and learning how to handle it, it is essential to work on another set of tools, in this sense learning to relax will be of great help, there are several techniques to achieve this goal, we must find the one that suits us best, depending on both thephobic stimulus and our personal characteristics.
When phobia makes us appear before us, anxiety begins, we feel the heart beating at full speed. Breathing accelerates, we’re paralyzed and we’re eye-catching, we just want to run away or avoid it, don’t we?In fact, that’s the behavior we usually have, so low anxiety?Until thephobic stimulus reappears and we act in the same way against anxiety, this reinforces this behavior.
It is clear that this avoidance strategy is very effective in the short term, but in the long term it is not ideal. So what could we do? We have to stop running, I know it sounds quite difficult, but the first step is to learn to relax and control our anxiety as well, when our phobia appears, we will be able to handle this negative emotion.
To do this, we must begin to gradually expose ourselves to phobic stimulus, for example, we can prepare a list of situations related to our phobia and sort them in order according to the level of anxiety they generate. If we have this list, we can propose that we review every situation without running away.
You have to start from the situation that brings you the least anxiety and, when you realize that this unpleasant emotion appears, you have to put into practice the strategies you have acquired to face it (for example: relaxation, attention dissociated from stimulus, blocking the cycle of thoughts, etc. ). Instead of avoiding it, once this situation is overcome, we will be ready to expose ourselves to the next one, in this way we will see how little by little we can keep calm in situations that previously caused us enormous anxiety.
Whenever we want to turn behavior into a habit, we need to strengthen ourselves to achieve that goal. Therefore, it is very important that we prevail after exposing ourselves to thephobic stimulus and successfully face anxiety without avoiding the situation. After all, have we been through a very unpleasant time?and we deserve a reward for being on our way to overcoming a phobia.
In this way, we can increase our self-control in the face of the refusal to follow this first impulse to flee, but it is not only that, thanks to the exposure, we have also realized that the negative consequences we expected before we really experience that the situation is not as bad as we thought, or there may even have been no consequences, it is already a reinforcement in itself and a motivation to deal with the next situation on the scale of difficulty , which given the previous success does not even seem so difficult.
Anxiety is a river of fear that runs through the mind, if it feeds, can it become a strong current that drives all our thoughts?-Roche-
Overcoming a phobia is relatively simple, if you know how to apply the techniques you just saw, so if you think this problem is present in your life, it is important to look for a suitable psychologist, who can guide you in this process so that you can take the reins of your life!
Images provided by Aziz Acharki, Tertia Van Rensburg and Connor McSheffrey.