How to overcome anxiety and fear

Anxiety and fear are relatively common in life, which has a great impact on physical health. Not only can it easily lead to increased psychological pressure, but it can also cause physical discomfort. Therefore, when anxiety and fear occur, you must use certain methods to overcome and alleviate them. First of all, you should understand that you do have this symptom, and then clarify the specific cause and take remedial measures through certain scientific methods.

How to overcome anxiety and fear

1. Understand why you are anxious:

We usually have a general idea of ​​why we are anxious, such as an upcoming job interview. This is enough to prove that you suffer from reality anxiety. But the downside is that you don’t know what to do to relieve your anxiety. By summarizing various anxiety-causing events, psychologists believe that the main factor causing anxiety is "fear of being evaluated by others." For example, we are afraid to speak in public because we worry that we will make a fool of ourselves and that others will think we are a bad person. If no one saw my speech, my anxiety quickly disappeared. Knowing this you can understand why we do the following work.

2. Anticipated remedial measures:

Since we are worried about making a fool of ourselves, we should anticipate the remedial measures we should take after making a fool of ourselves. The concept of "remediation" is very important. Individuals with a strong tendency towards perfectionism cannot understand the "concept of remediation". They feel that since they have already made a fool of themselves, remediation cannot restore their image, so people with a strong tendency towards perfectionism will become more anxious. In order to reduce anxiety and avoid anxiety when encountering the same thing in the future, you should start anticipating remedial measures as soon as possible. For example, if you are going to participate in a debate competition and are very anxious, you should anticipate what kind of mistakes you will make and how you can make up for them. Through this kind of activity, on the one hand, you will gradually understand that "mistakes are inevitable for everyone" and therefore you will not be too afraid of making mistakes. On the other hand, once you really make a mistake, you will not be very panicked because you have prepared for it.

3. Learn event-centered coping strategies:

Event-centeredness refers to whether you consider your own emotions first or the challenge itself first when you face a challenge. The former is called a self-centered strategy. Taking the interview example, if you feel anxious and you are self-centered, you have to find ways to escape from the anxiety. You may go to a psychologist to learn relaxation techniques. If you are event-centered, you have to make comprehensive preparations for the interview. Studies have shown that although event-centeredness may make you feel anxious at first, once you start preparing, your anxiety will drop rapidly. So don't be scared by anxiety. Endure the anxiety and then prepare for future challenges.

4. Appropriate selection of self-centered strategies:

When the plane was hijacked, the passengers who had just received relaxation training felt less anxious. This is a study conducted by researchers together with the US FBI. Relaxation technique is a self-centered strategy. Although it cannot help you solve your current dilemma, it can effectively divert your attention and make you temporarily forget your current anxiety. We must learn to choose appropriate coping strategies to effectively resolve anxiety. Research has found that when we face events that cannot be resolved, such as the loss of a loved one, we are best to adopt a self-centered strategy. You can go out for a walk, talk to someone, or do many things that have nothing to do with this loved one.

5. Learn to use humorous strategies:

The researchers invited college students to do an experiment. They told the first group of students: "You must catch the mice with your bare hands and then draw their blood with a syringe"; they told the second group of students: You can catch the mice while wearing gloves. I didn't tell them that they needed to have their blood drawn. Obviously, the first group of college students felt anxious, but when they actually arrived at the laboratory and found that the mice they were going to draw blood from were made of rubber, they laughed and thought it was very humorous. The second group of college students did not find this funny. The experiment was originally intended to explain why people laugh (stress contributes to our perception of humor). In fact, when we are anxious, watching some humorous films can effectively relieve our anxiety. If you are a humorous person, try to show it when communicating with others.

6. Lower your expectations:

Buddhism says that when you have no desires, you will be strong, which means that when you have no desires in your heart, you will become strong inside. This has also been confirmed in psychology. For example, if you are going on a blind date, you will feel very anxious before meeting the other person. That is because you want to be recognized by the other person. This is your own expectation. After meeting him, you find that he is not the type you want, and your anxiety is eliminated because you don't want to establish any relationship with him. Moderately lowering your expectations can help reduce anxiety, and don't feel like you're bound to get more than you deserve when the monthly bonus is paid.