Reasons We Should Overcome Fear
Let us not look back in anger or forward in fear, but around in awareness. James Thurber
Nothing in life is to be feared. It is only to be understood. Marie Curie
Are you more of a courageous person or someone who is often filled with fear? Do you get intimidated easily? Do you make decisions based in fear? Do you look toward your future in fear of what will ensue?
Statistical Methods And Measurement Caveats
National Comorbidity Survey Replication
Diagnostic Assessment and Population:
- The NCS-R is a nationally representative, face-to-face, household survey conducted between February 2001 and April 2003 with a response rate of 70.9%. DSM-IV mental disorders were assessed using a modified version of the fully structured World Health Organization Composite International Diagnostic Interview , a fully structured lay-administered diagnostic interview that generates both International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision, and DSM-IV diagnoses. The DSM-IV criteria were used here. The Sheehan Disability Scale assessed disability in work role performance, household maintenance, social life, and intimate relationships on a 0â10 scale. Participants for the main interview totaled 9,282 English-speaking, non-institutionalized, civilian respondents. The NCS-R was led by Harvard University.
Survey Non-response:
- In 2001-2002, non-response was 29.1% of primary respondents and 19.6% of secondary respondents.
- Reasons for non-response to interviewing include: refusal to participate respondent was reluctant- too busy but did not refuse circumstantial, such as intellectual developmental disability or overseas work assignment and household units that were never contacted .
- For more information, see NIMH NCS-R study page.
National Comorbidity Survey Adolescent Supplement
Diagnostic Assessment and Population:
Survey Non-response:
Not Everyone Is Happy About Your Success
Toxic levels of envy and jealousy can be very, very destructive so you should watch out for those.
Jealousy or envy is popularly referred to as the green-eyed monster because it actually feels like another being emerging from inside. It takes a lot of self-control and the proper mindset to conquer the green monster. It takes a greater level of personal development to transmute envy and jealousy into inspiration and drive.
There is a famous saying which goes, There are two ways to build the tallest building in town: Build a taller building, or tear down all the other buildings around it.. While most people would allow their jealousy to just seethe within them without doing anything , few would go out of their way to rain on your parade, throw you under the bus or crash the party altogether.
They may try to downplay your success, push your buttons, spread rumors about you, connive, betray, and sabotage you as well as attempt to punish you by withdrawing from or ghosting you. The result of all these is often messy.
So, how do you deal with it?
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Fearof Being The Focus
Over the years Ive stood on many stages presenting to small and large groups. I still get nervous about being the main focus.
I really dont like it. It would come as a surprise to many who know me, but I dont like being the focus. And unfortunately thats exactly what interviews are. We are the main focus and that can lead us to being fearful of being the focus.
How Do You Get Trypophobia Skin Is It Real
Trypophobia skin is denoted by the allergic reactions in the skin, and they can range from paleness, redness, excessive sweating, trembling and sweating on the limbs and difficulty breathing.
In extreme cases, the skin can undergo Goosebumps and bright spots, but the images viral on the net aboutholes in skin disease that is shaped with a particular insect bite are all fake. The photoshopped pictures of trypophobia on hands, palms, knees, etc. all create holes in the skin phobia from the audiences.
An easy way to get rid of this phobia isnt to offer a profound thought or the look to such pictures. Or it may be another way around, i.e., keep studying these pictures often so that you become desensitized to them.
People hunt on the net about the test for trypophobia as they get worried by the content accessible online which horrifies them about if theyre phobic or not. But it is implied that as this isnt a phobia, so there is no particular test for the condition. However, as this fear is a response to watching specific images, i.e., of safe clusters of holes, its analysis can be completed with their aid. Trypophobia test images may create that particular response that may approve Trypophobia.
Hence the test and diagnosis for this can be done in the following manners:
- Present the pictures of these clustered holes to the individual
- Expose him to holes in clusters in actual.
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How The Brain Works During A Phobia
Some areas of the brain store and recall dangerous or potentially deadly events.
If a person faces a similar event later on in life, those areas of the brain retrieve the stressful memory, sometimes more than once. This causes the body to experience the same reaction.
In a phobia, the areas of the brain that deal with fear and stress keep retrieving the frightening event inappropriately.
Researchers have found that phobias are
Fearof Knowing You Really Need A Job
If you really need a job, we apply such pressure to ourselves that it can lead us to underperform. And that underperformance is driven by fear.
I wrote an article recently on Why Pressure Leads to Underperforming. Focusing on the fact you really need a job puts us under so much pressure. That pressure makes us fearful of the interview which leads us to underperform. Its a vicious circle.
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Prevalence Of Specific Phobia Among Adults
- Based on diagnostic interview data from National Comorbidity Survey Replication , Figure 1 shows past year prevalence of specific phobia among U.S. adults aged 18 or older.1
- An estimated 9.1% of U.S. adults had specific phobia in the past year.
- Past year prevalence of specific phobia among adults was higher for females than for males .
Figure 1
| Demographic |
|---|
| 5.6 |
When To Seek Help For Phobias And Fears
Although phobias are common, they dont always cause considerable distress or significantly disrupt your life. For example, if you have a snake phobia, it may cause no problems in your everyday activities if you live in a city where youre not likely to run into one. On the other hand, if you have a severe phobia of crowded spaces, living in a big city would pose a problem.
If your phobia doesnt impact your life that much, its probably nothing to be concerned about. But if avoidance of the object, activity, or situation that triggers your phobia interferes with your normal functioning, or keeps you from doing things you would otherwise enjoy, its time to seek help.
Consider treatment for your phobia if:
- It causes intense and disabling fear, anxiety, and panic
- You recognize that your fear is excessive and unreasonable
- You avoid certain situations and places because of your phobia
- Your avoidance interferes with your normal routine or causes significant distress
- Youve had the phobia for at least six months
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How Fear Works In The Brain
One of the ways the brain helps keep you alive is by warning you of dangers. When the brain senses danger, an internal alarm system is activated, sending out various signals that trigger feelings of fear or anxiety. These are physical and cognitive reactions triggered in response to whatever it is that your brain perceives as dangerous or scary.
Sometimes, we should be fearfulwithout fear, we would unknowingly put ourselves into life-threatening situations without taking proper precautions. But the difference between having healthy, occasional bouts of fear and having a phobia is that a phobia is by definition irrational: Despite the intense fear you feel, the circumstance or object of your fear poses little or no actual threat to you.3
Think of a phobia as the brains alarm system in overdriveit overestimates the threat of a particular situation, triggering intense anxiety and leading you to avoid that situation in the future. That avoidance actually makes a phobia worse because it solidifies the brains overblown association between the situation and its threat level.
How A Specific Phobia Impacts The Child At Different Ages:
Young children often rely on adults to protect them from immediate threat or danger more so than older children and teens. As a result, when young children are faced with a specific phobia they may cry, tantrum, cling, freeze, or want to be picked up. Young children are more likely to be afraid of concrete and immediate situations such as storms, insects, animals, and clowns among others. In contrast, when faced with a feared item or situation, older youth are more likely to express feared thoughts or predictions such as It will bite me, or Im going to die. In addition, unlike young children who have less control over their daily lives, older teens can choose to avoid certain situations or escape when confronted with their fear. For example, a teen that is afraid of enclosed spaces can avoid taking an elevator whereas a young child may have to go on an elevator if the whole family wants to travel that way. Finally, teens are more likely than younger children to realize that their fear is out of proportion to the actual danger posed by the specific object or situation.
Is there such a thing as a School Phobia?
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How Do Phobias Develop
We dont know exactly why phobias develop. Specific phobias tend to begin during childhood, likely because a child’s brain is still learning how to react to certain stimuli. For example, a child who develops a fear of heights may have had a bad experience with heights, like falling off a jungle gym, or may have taken in information that encouraged a fear of heights, like seeing someone fall on TV or seeing a fear of heights in a family member. However, past experiences are not the only potential cause of specific phobias. Genetics may also play a role in the risk of developing a specific phobia.1
The causes of other types of phobias, like social anxiety disorder and agoraphobia, are also thought to be a combination of genetics and life experiences. Social anxiety disorders typically start in the teen years, likely because of the hormonal changes and social pressures teenagers endure. Since agoraphobia is highly related to panic disorder, the average age of onset is similar to panic disorder. Panic disorder and agoraphobia most often begin in young adults.11, 6, 12
How To Cope With Phobias
Whatever your phobia is, and however much or little it affects your daily life, you do not have to live with it.
Here are some things you can do that might help:
- Learn some breathing techniques and grounding techniques you can use to help manage your anxiety in the moment.
- Speak to someone you trust about how youre feeling.
- Talk to your doctor if your phobia is seriously impacting your life. They can let you know what support is available and discuss next steps with you.
Talk to someone you trust about your phobia. Try not to get put off if you dont get the response that you wanted – its important to remember that most people are not experts in phobias.
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You Can Never Fully Run Away From Fear
It might not be obvious, but realize that you can never fully run away from fear. Mental fear is pervasive. As long as you let it permeate, as long as you run away instead of dealing with it, it will always be there, haunting you in everything you do. Running away only gives you an illusion of security you may feel safe for a short moment, but only for that short moment.
For example, if you see fear in point A, you can run to point B but the fear will catch up to you at point B in the form of other things. You can keep running and running, but eventually you are going to find yourself backed into a corner, with nowhere to escape. No matter how you run, you are just living in captivity of fear. In fact, the more you run, the more fear tries to catch up with you. When that happens, you either have to learn to deal with it, or cower in its presence eternally and become a fraction of the person you can be.
Treatment Mitigation And Alternatives
The medical literature suggests a number of treatments that have been proven effective for specific cases of needle phobia, but provides very little guidance to predict which treatment may be effective for any specific case. The following are some of the treatments that have been shown to be effective in some specific cases.
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How Do You Get Treatment For Phobias
Phobias are really difficult to manage alone, and luckily, you dont have to theres help out there. Like many other anxiety disorders, they respond well to treatment. The first step is to see your GP or mental health professional, or get in touch with a professional service online or over the phone.
Your doctor will work with you, at a pace that suits you, to figure out a treatment plan that works for you. This could include a combination of therapy, medication and self-management strategies. Get some more information about treatments for anxiety disorders here.
Do We Learn To Be Afraid Of Heights
According to behaviourists, fears and phobias are learnt, most commonly due to whats known as classical conditioning.
To demonstrate how classical conditioning of phobias occurs, consider the following scenario.
Imagine you climbed a tree for the first time. What is your reaction to being up a tree? According to the behaviourist perspective, youd be unlikely to be afraid. But if you then fell from the tree, you would likely experience distress and fear.
The first time you climb a tree, its unlikely youd be afraid. But if you then fell from the tree, youd likely experience distress and fear.pixabay.com
A behaviourist would expect that because the experience of being up high is followed by the trauma of falling, you may then learn to associate the negative event with heights.
You learn to associate the neutral stimulus with the fear-evoking stimulus . So, you feel fear and distress the next time you are faced with heights.pixabay.com
Because of these learnt associations between heights and trauma, behaviourists suggest people can then be afraid of heights in future encounters.
Linking fear with heights means when someone encounters the original situations they show a fear response to something that they previously showed no or a neutral response to.pixabay.com
In reality, the best explanation may be a mix of both behaviourist and evolutionary perspectives.
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Examples Of Causes Of Phobias
- Past incidents or traumas. Certain situations might have a lasting effect on how you feel about them. For example, if you experienced a lot of turbulence on a plane at a young age, you might develop a phobia of flying. Or if you were injured by a dog some years ago, you might develop a phobia of dogs.
- Learned responses from early life. Your phobia may develop from factors in your childhood environment. For example you might have parents or guardians who are very worried or anxious. This may affect how you cope with anxiety in later life. You might develop the same specific phobia as a parent or older sibling. If they have a severe reaction to something they fear, this might influence you to feel the same way.
- Reactions and responses to panic or fear. You might have a strong reaction, or a panic attack, in response to a situation or object. You may find yourself feeling embarrassed by this. Especially if people around you react strongly to your response. You could develop even more intense anxiety about the idea of this happening again.
- Experiencing long-term stress. Stress can cause feelings of anxiety and depression. It can reduce your ability to cope in particular situations. This might make you feel more fearful or anxious about being in those situations again. Over a long period, this could develop into a phobia.
- Genetic factors. Research suggests that some people are more vulnerable to developing a phobia than others.
Living with my phobia of bananas
Specific Phobia With Impairment Among Adults
- Of adults with specific phobia in the past year, degree of impairment ranged from mild to serious, as shown in Figure 2. Impairment was determined by scores on the Sheehan Disability Scale.3
- Of adults with specific phobia in the past year, an estimated 21.9% had serious impairment, 30.0% had moderate impairment, and 48.1% had mild impairment.
Figure 2
| Severity |
|---|
| 100 |
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Continue Learning About Phobias
Important: This content reflects information from various individuals and organizations and may offer alternative or opposing points of view. It should not be used for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. As always, you should consult with your healthcare provider about your specific health needs.
The Difference Between Fear And Phobia
The term phobia gets thrown around a lot these days, but having a fear and having a phobia arent exactly the same thing.
Essentially, fear is temporary phobia isnt.
Having a phobia creates a stumbling block in your life, and the fear it causes can be so strong that youll do anything to avoid the object of that phobia. Phobia that becomes debilitating is a type of anxiety disorder. Take, for example, a job offer. You made it through the hardest partlanding your dream positiononly to find out that your office will be on the 20th floor of an office buildingand you have a phobia of heights. In order to avoid being so high off the ground, you turn the position down and pass up a significant job opportunity because of your phobia.1
Phobias can be debilitating and crippling, and they can keep you from enjoying the things you love with the people you love. But it doesnt have to be this way. There is hope and help for people with phobias.
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