Fear and Anxiety

In order to overcome anxiety, you must first understand what its purpose is. It would be foolish to engage in battle with an enemy in which you do not know.

Since anxiety has probably caused you a great deal of inconvenience and suffering it may be hard to believe what I am about to tell you:

Anxiety is important!

Anxiety is our body's response to a potential threat (and real danger). Anxiety is a response that includes a thought process, behaviors, and physiological changes. It is a response mechanism with one goal in mind: self-protection.

Many animals experience this same response to danger, in fact, over the course of evolution individuals with anxiety were more likely to survive. For example, someone without anxiety or fear would hear the roar of a lion and not get scared. Since they weren't scared they may just stay there and do nothing before being killed by the lion. Anxiety is your body's way of trying to help you. Unfortunately, sometimes our body tries to "help us" during unnecessary situations which causes nuisance fear and anxiety.

The current lifestyle and habitat of humans with shopping malls, computers, phones, technology, and other settings has resulted in some people "forgetting" that we are still animals with animal instincts. Anxiety is one of these normal animal instincts. Haven't you ever seen a deer "freeze in the headlights" or dash off full speed just from the sound of a little twig snapping? That deer probably felt the same way you do when you experience an anxiety attack; it is an animal instinct meant to protect us from danger. If it wasnt an intense feeling then we may not listen to it, and if we didnt listen to it (in the proper situation) then we may be exposing ourselves to danger (if it is a real danger to begin with).

So the first step to overcoming fear and anxiety is to understand its purpose. A little anxiety can be a good thing, but the real problem is an over-sensitive "alarm system."

One reason anxiety is so common is because it has helped humans survive over the years. If you didnt have anxiety then when you hear a bear coming you would just sit there calmy and be exposed to the danger of being killed by the bear. Someone with anxiety would survive that situation because when they recognize the threat of the oncoming bear their body would get a boost of adrenaline and focus all of its attention on minimizing the threat. Their brain would go into overdrive and start thinking "Do I run? Do I fight? Do I hide? Will this help? Will that help? Should I do this or should I do that?" That is why you get racing thoughts when you are feeling really anxious; your mind is scrambling to find a solution, and constantly scanning for danger. It is a means of protection. Unfortunately for some, false alarms can make this useful mechanism
turn into an inconvenience.

As humans, we have the ability to think and use our imagination to come up with possible scenarios that we may encounter in the future. For example, if you are going out on a first date or a job interview, you have the ability to think about how those experiences may turn out. If you can imagine them going badly, this is likely going to result in anxiety, even though a negative outcome hasn't really occurred -- you only imagined that one would occur. Thus, our body's natural alarm system can be activated even if a real threat is not present.

Fearing some negative outcome may then lead to some kind of avoidance behavior. For example, if we expect a date to go bad we may avoid going out on that date. Or, if we expect a job interview to turn out negatively then we may seek out a job that is less challenging or easier to get. These choices may interfere with our ability to build a meaningful and positive life for ourselves.

Anxiety about something shows it matters to you. If something didn't matter to you then you wouldn't care and as a result you wouldn't be so anxious. This is why it is important to overcome anxiety, because it will prevent you from pursuing things that matter to you.

If a false alarm sets off your anxiety response then you might think you are going crazy because you are experiencing intense feelings when you know there is nothing dangerous; you may not even know why you are having these thoughts. If you felt those same feelings of urgency when you see a bear running after you then you wouldn't think you are going crazy because in that situation you do know why you are feeling anxious and having scary thoughts.

You just think you are going crazy because you may not understand why you are feeling the way you are feeling, so your explanation is "I guess I must be going crazy!"

The 3 stages of a panic attack are known as the fear cycle. It has a multiplying effect that intensifies until you reach a full blown panic attack.

The alarm stage is when you are exposed to a stimulus that may potentially cause anxiety. This may be an image, a thought, a feeling, a sound, or a variety of other things that may cause an onset of fear and anxiety. Your body's anxiety response system will be triggered and you must decide if this is a real threat or a false alarm. If you realize it is a false alarm then you have a better chance at curbing the sensations and preventing a panic attack. If you don't stop the onset of fear and anxiety at this first stage then you will enter the next stage: worry.

The worry stage begins after your alarm has been triggered and you perceive something as a threat or concern. You enter the second stage of the fear cycle as you begin to worry. This is the most crucial time to stop a panic attack in its tracks. You can do two things at this point. You can tell yourself that something is wrong and the worry will build up into panic, or you can tell yourself nothing is wrong and let the worry cool off a bit. If you don't get a grip during this stage of the fear cycle then your fear and anxiety will develop into a panic attack.

The panic stage is obviously the stage you want to avoid. Your mind is convinced that something is wrong and starts panicking. You get racing thoughts as your brain tries to scramble for solutions and scan for danger. Your physiological processes start changing at this point; you may get sweaty, start shaking, can't sit still, etc. Luckily, you can learn how to prevent this.

Anxiety can be learned behavior, which in return means that you can learn new behavior that reduces anxiety. It is time to reprogram your brain!

The key to preventing panic attacks and lowering your anxiety levels is to understand the fear cycle and learn how to stop it right in its tracks. You can see how a trigger leads to worry, and then the worry leads to panic. If you can break the cycle before the 3rd stage then you can prevent a panic attack, and if you can break the fear cycle in before its 2nd stage then you can significantly reduce your anxiety.

How do you break the fear cycle and lower your fear and anxiety levels?

Anxiety can be your body's alarm system; it alerts you to danger and tells you to react. The problem is when you react to false alarms. The good news is you can learn how to shut off those false alarms before your body goes into panic mode.

To break the fear cycle and lower your fear and anxiety levels, you must understand how anxiety works. The absolute most important thing for reducing anxiety is being able to tell yourself that you aren't in danger, nothing is wrong, and anxiety is just your body's normal response to a stimulus. It is a temporary feeling that will pass if I stop worrying about it!

If a stimulus sets off your anxiety response then you think, "is something wrong?" If you tell yourself something really is wrong then you will begin to worry. If you tell yourself nothing is wrong then your worry will reduce and the anxiety will go away.

If you tell yourself something is wrong and you enter the worry stage then you may start feeling more anxious; maybe you will get racing thoughts and can't sit still, etc. Then you will start thinking, "uh-oh something really is wrong!" and the result may be a panic attack.

You absolutely must learn to tell yourself nothing is wrong, anxiety is just a normal response and this will pass. I will feel normal again in a few minutes if I just relax and understand that this is a false alarm.

In addition to self-talk and telling yourself nothing is wrong, you should also practice slow and steady deep breathing techniques that will naturally calm your body.