Fear is one of the most adaptive human emotions that exist, and throughout history it has helped us deal with threats and risks that arise both in the natural environment and in interaction with others.
However, today there are many people who They live daily with limiting fears of all kinds; fears that prevent them from living the life they would like or achieving their goals both personally and professionally.
These fears can be more or less real, such as the fear of losing a job, a family member’s illness, or being rejected by our partner, or less well-founded, such as the fear of the dark, of certain animals, or of going on a plane. In any case, if we do not learn to manage this emotion well, it can lead us to enter a vicious circle of avoidance and renunciation.
If you want to overcome your fears successfully and want to know the main habits to do them, keep reading; Here you can consult our selection specialized in the most useful habits that we can apply to face any type of fear.
1. Gradual exposure to fear
Exposing ourselves to the source of our fear is one of the most useful ways to confront it and for decades it has been one of the main techniques used by psychology experts to treat all types of fears or phobias.
Exposure to the fear-generating source should be gradual and go from the easiest and simplest approaches to the most complex ones.ensuring that the person is not too affected psychologically.
In fact, if a person has social phobia or extreme agoraphobia, for example, they can begin to overcome their fears by going to psychotherapy and going through a program of exposure to what generates that emotional reaction (with professional support), leaving home until reaching to the street door and the next day until turning the first corner of a building, so on.
2. Communicate our fears
A good way to overcome any type of problem or psychological discomfort that we may have is to communicate our situation to family or friends around us who care about us.
Verbalizing our own fears and worries that haunt us to another person who offers us unconditional listening and understanding has a very positive effect on the person who suffers.
In the same way, by communicating our fears to another person we can obtain advice or solutions that we did not have before, which can help us overcome the problem and, in general, will help us feel more supported and therefore better equipped to face those fears. irrational fears.
3. Keep an emotions diary
As with verbal expression, written expression is another way that people have to communicate what we feel at a given moment, and it is an activity highly valued for its therapeutic usefulness, since it It is effective in developing self-knowledge and knowing how to distinguish between the emotions and feelings that we usually feel, and understanding what experiences elicit them in us.
Writing a diary during the week about the emotions we experience at all times is one of the best ways to get to know ourselves and understand our fears, by organizing our ideas about what is going on in our heads.
4. Healthy habits
Leading a healthy life is one of the best strategies we can follow to increase our self-esteem and gradually lose those irrational fears that condition our daily lives. If we are physically well, we also feel less vulnerable psychologically..
There are a wide variety of habits that increase both our physical and mental health, among the most important we can find: exercising weekly, sleeping enough hours, eating healthy and maintaining an active emotional-social life.
5. Identify maladaptive thoughts
Another strategy that we can follow to learn to successfully face our fears is to detect those trap thoughts that we often use as an excuse to face any type of fear.
Knowing the intellectual mechanisms that prevent us from overcoming our fears is the first step to begin the path that will allow us to face them successfully.
6. Acquire relaxation techniques
Both medicine and psychology have demonstrated the usefulness of the habitual practice of relaxation techniques such as meditation or diaphragmatic breathing in overcoming all types of psychological problems and alterations.
The integration of these types of techniques into our daily lives can help us reduce the levels of stress, anxiety or fear generated by any specific source, and also helps us focus our attention, know ourselves better and increase the quality of life.
Self-knowledge is essential when overcoming a problem in any area of ​​a person’s life, and as indicated above, there are many strategies that we can follow to improve our self-knowledge.
In addition to meditating, practicing relaxation techniques, communicating with other people or writing a diary, there are other exercises to get to know ourselves better, such as establish our strengths and weaknesses or talk to friends and family about our strengths and weaknesses.
8. Go to the psychologist
Psychological professionals recommend going to a psychological consultation when a person’s situation is unsustainable and their fear prevents them from living normally on a daily basis.
A psychologist specialized in fears or phobias is the best professional to help us overcome our fear.and he is the one who knows exactly what strategies we should follow to achieve this and what techniques are the most recommended for our case.
Are you looking for psychological support?
If you are looking for psychotherapy services, contact us.
In PSiCOBAi we serve people of all ages; You will find us in our center located in Majadahonda.
