Response To Fear

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In confronting any type of learned fear, you must reprogram your inappropriate fight or flight response. This means you must purposely do things that frighten you. When you are scared, an automatic reaction of resistance and anxiety occur. You don’t even have to consciously think about the feeling; it just happens. Your body reacts with an increased heart rate, breathing and muscle tension so you know to defend yourself. This built-in survival mechanism called the “flight or fight” response is hardwired into our DNA. This is why your reaction can occur without you even consciously thinking about.
Whenever you’re presented with the fear – no matter how big or small – your survival mechanism kicks in because it thinks that you need to be protected from some type of danger. Now how do you reprogram your flight or fight response? Again, …show more content…

Change your response to the fear as you confront it. You can, for instance, learn to laugh at your fear. This is what comedian Kevin Hart learned to do, and he became …show more content…

First, I have the client form a hierarchy of different fears. Next, I give a training session on relaxation, showing them how to control their breathing and release tension through meditation. In this step, they learn to relax when presented with their fear, for it is impossible to be both relaxed and anxious at the same time. Finally, my clients are presented with their fears according to the hierarchy they had documented. Thus, I start with the lesser ones and build up to the greater fears. Of course, if you’re terrified of spiders, I’m not going to put a tarantula on your arm. We would start with maybe something as simple as a picture of someone looking at a spider at the zoo or seeing a spider on television. Then I use the relaxation techniques to control their anxiety so they are able to lessen their anxiety when confronted with their

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