Are you trapped by anxiety and wonder how to overcome fear?
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Do you feel like you are stuck with your worries, and are your fears out of control? This feeling of anxiety often gets out of hand. This page will give you practical information which you can use to overcome anxiety and fear.
Anxiety often feeds itself, and if you allow it to grow by fueling it with your negative thoughts, it may not be long before you develop a fear of anxiety itself. But read on because I’ll help you first understand the problem you have, and then we’ll move on to how to overcome fear.
Pills are not the answer
You may be tempted to think that a pill may be the solution. Don’t get me wrong, medication has its place in treating anxiety as it does with depression. There are pills for anxiety such as tranquilizers, but these do not solve the problem and commonly used benzodiazepines like Valium may have side effects which may cause other problems for you.
You really would not want valium use and its long-term effect on your health get the better of you, would you?
As well as medication specifically for anxiety there are also anti-depressants and SSRIs and various other pills which do help with the symptoms but once the effect of the pill wears off how will you feel? These pills do nothing to help cure the reasons why you may be suffering from anxiety and may leave you with a very groggy head.
An alternative I often suggest, and have seen great results with, is Self Hypnosis, which you can read more about here.
Possible side effects of medication for anxiety may include:
- Tiredness
- Constipation
- Reduced sexual desire
- Headaches
- Insomnia
- Dizziness
- Feeling sick
- And many others including some serious side effects such as fever or even kidney problems
It is therefore very important to be careful and take advice when considering any form of medication, and perhaps a good reason to try self hypnosis and other methods first.
Negative Thinking and Fear
Your anxiety is fed by negative thoughts and as these build up they seem to have a life all their own and that’s why you feel out of control. Most people who suffer from anxiety can recover naturally by changing the way they think. Medication may also help because it relaxes you but in order to treat the cause rather than just the symptoms you need to dig deeper into why you feel anxious.
Right now you could either think about something stressful and worrying from your past or fro the future and worry about it. This will increase your feelings of anxiety. Or you can think of a wonderful time when something went well and you felt excited and happy.
If you suffer from anxiety you have probably been thinking negatively and worrying for a long while and that means you need to learn to think positively again. This is not difficult other than you are trying to break a habit. For this reason, you will not be able to change the way you think quickly, it takes time.
You may be so focused on what is wrong with you and the symptoms you are feeling that your anxiety constantly gets worse. You need to change your focus and we will now talk about how you can do that.
Want to find out how you can conquer depression, stress and anxiety naturally and quickly? I highly recommend you check out the Conquer Depression Program!
Steps to Take to Become Worry Free
Do you accept that worrying achieves nothing? Really – if you worry more does the situation change or get better? By worrying do you become more successful? Probably the opposite. And how many times have you worried only for nothing bad to happen?
Worrying is a waste of your time. Nothing good comes from it. Let me quote Jesus: “Which of you by worrying can add a single strand of hair to your head?” The psychologist Dr. Smiley Blanton
also commented: “When we worry excessively, we disintegrate our inner workings as humans and really put a lot of things out of order.” Having said that, how do you stop worrying? Anxiety means that you constantly worry.
That will change if you follow some of these steps:
- Empty your mind. At least once a day when you feel confused and negative, sit quietly and close your eyes. Slow down your thoughts and breathing and empty your mind until your negative thoughts stop. Replace it with a lovely scene and imagine being somewhere peaceful. Relax for a few minutes.
- Now think of the things you are grateful for. Even if your life seems bad there are always good things you can choose to focus on. People, places, pets, things you enjoy doing, things that make you happy. Say thank you for each of them twice every day.
- At the end of each day remember one thing no matter how small that went well. Even if the rest of the day was horrible what was positive? What did you do well? What gave you pleasure?
- Take up exercise. Running or going to the gym takes your mind of the negative and improves your health. You’ll feel better and look better. Force yourself to get started on this.
- Change your language, both words inside your head and the words you speak to others. Stop saying “but”, “if only” or “I can’t” and start saying “what if…?”, “I can”
- Eat healthy food which will have many benefits including providing you with more energy.
How to Overcome Fear and Anxiety
Fears are often one of the main causes of negative thinking and discovering your fears and facing them is an important step in curing yourself of depression and anxiety.
Fear is a belief that something bad will happen in a certain situation and often this may not be realistic. Some fears are justified but many are in your head and if you let them they will limit what you can or can’t do and this will prevent you from living your life to the full. Anxiety comes from fears and is a strong feeling of worry which can make you very cautious, nervous or shy depending on the situation. By dealing with your fears and the stress they cause you ease your anxiety.
It is easy to understand that a person filled with fear and anxiety is an unhappy person. In time depression can set in if you allow fear or anxiety to control your behaviour and choices.
How to Become Less Afraid and Anxious
So fear is a big problem we all face and have to overcome. When it gets too much what can you do? You have to deal with it. The best way to deal with fear is face it because if you run away from it your self esteem will suffer.
Answer the following questions and write down your answers:
What do you fear and why? Are these fears reasonable? How would your life change if you no longer had these fears?
What positive step could you take now to begin overcoming your fears? If your fears were gone, what would you do?
Your Biggest Worry
Take your biggest worry. Write it down. Look at it and question why you are worried. Don’t accept it, question it. Why is it such a problem for you? Do you know anyone who doesn’t worry about that? What evidence do you have that your fear is justified? Could you be wrong?
List all the things you don’t worry about that you can do. What are you confident about? How did you become confident?
Now, how can you try to become more confident about things that worry or scare you? What small steps could you take to move forward?
If you are worried that you are not good enough at something or don’t know enough then how can you improve your knowledge? Don’t give in to your fears and don’t let depression rule you, fight back. Think of the successes you’ve had and list your strengths.
If you start from a negative point it is very difficult to move forward so do consider what is good in your situation at the moment and then you will be able to focus on improving on that. Worries and fears build on negativity and they multiply so start to change your focus and they will weaken. Be strong.
Try Self Hypnosis
Once again I highly recommend you read more about self hypnosis and it’s benefits for anxiety recovery.
The enemies of depression are action and belief. Hope creates both but you can only break free of depression by starting with the positive that exists now.
Karl Perera is a fully qualified Life Coach, Teacher and Author of