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Easy Practice Exercises in Fear Control

Now that you have learned to  control the tension in your body, and gently breathe from the diagram, you next step is learn , in the safety of your home, how to use these skills to gently reduce your overall anxiety level. The technique is quite simple You l make yourself as comfortable as possible, lying down or sitting in an easy chair while breathing gently and getting your body as relaxed as possible for 2 to 3 minutes. Next you make yourself SLIGHTLY uncomfortable by what whatever means you wish. Many people look for scenes on YouTube, others look at uncomfortable photos, some have used scary music, others watch scary parts of movies. You can  simply think scary thoughts in your own head, if you wish, but without a real object to focus on, people can easily let their minds wander.  It doesn’t matter what way you scare yourself, but you need to be able to focus on the situation for at least 5 minutes. In general, having to

Before You Start This technique does not work unless you are able to keep your body in a very relaxed state, while breathing gently from your diaphragm. You should only try this exercise after you have thoroughly mastered the skills of gentle belly breathing and relaxation.

Getting Started

Follow these steps to rid yourself of uncomfortable and crippling thoughts:

• • Lie down on your back on your bed, or in a comfortable recliner.

• • Spend at least 2 minutes getting relaxed and breathing with your diaphragm.

• • Now bring to mind one of your less scary thoughts. 

• • Keep the thought in your mind and make it as vivid as possible.

• • Now focus on the feelings of fear that the scene is producing while staying relaxed and breathe gently as you can.

• • Keep the thought and the fear that accompanies in mind for at least 10 minutes, but no more that 20 minutes.

• • It is extremely important that you keep all physical movements to a minimum. If you can’t stay still, try the process again with a less scary thought.

The Daily Routine

To do this exercise correctly, you need to repeat the “Getting Started” steps above, but aim for doing closer to 20 minutes each session. You must stay completely relaxed the whole time while trying to scare yourself by making the thought as vivid as possible. You will find that the thought gets less and less scary each day. As it becomes less scary, introduce other scarier thoughts, trying to scare yourself as much as possible. The key through all of this is to stay relaxed.

What Results Can You Expect?

With continued practice of this new habit of acting as if you are safe you will override the old habit of preparing to flee. This habit will be replaced by a new habit of acting as if the thought is unimportant. And by definition, unimportant thoughts are precisely that, unimportant. In a few weeks, you will begin to find it more and more difficult to scare yourself and with further exposure, you will begin to get bored by the whole process.

Why The Exercise Works

Chances are you felt quite uncomfortable during this exercise. However, by feeling the fear, yet acting as if that feeling is unimportant, you sent a message to the worry center that you no longer will run away from this type of scary thought. Fear is a mechanism that prepares you to defend yourself from something that you defended yourself in the past. This becomes a well-practiced habit. Breaking this habit involves two parts. First, you must feel the fear (which is a preparation to escape), and then you must surprise the fear by acting in a non-defensive way.

“It is living with the mismatch of feeling scared, but refusing to run away from the thought, that teaches the worry mechanism that these thoughts are not dangerous.” Dr. Ball

You can usually recognize when people are scared.. They seem to be physically tense; they usually can’t take their eyes of the threat, they will back away if they can, they begin to breathe rapidly with their chests;, their facial expression shows alarm, eyes wide open, mouths wide open, agitated movements, they feel their heart is raciing, report shortness of breath, , and they need to distance themselves from the scary object. If they cannot escape from the threatening situation, they can work themselves up to have a full-blown panic attack. All these responses appear rapidly and automatically. People feel helpless in terms of controlling these extremely chaotic feelings. Having a panic attack is whole body response, involving many voluntary and involuntary responses. Using body language techniques to to break down the problem to a a simple set of behaviors that you learn to control independently, For example you first need how to get the technique of relaxation in a safe environment, before using it in a scary environment. In the same vein, you need to learn how to breathe in a safe environment, Then you need to use these new skills while imagining events that are scary, before being introduced to the really scary events. This gentle gradual approach allow you to eventually get rid of the problems without having to go through painful exposures. In this way, it is possible it is to replace the old behaviors with new behaviors that are compatible with feeling safe, without having to experience serious discomfort during the process. .In general, in general, you can tell when somebody is afraid they act in very specific ways across or coachesd you can even see similar behaviors no own pets. Where your full body is preparing to defend itself or to run away response is automatic and not under control.d you carefully learn to you to put a new behaviors that can teach Sofia to go to sleep. W when we are afraid, we automatically increase breathing rate as we prepare to escape from the scary situation.d which type of breathing helps to activate the other behaviors, so there is a synchronized escape from the threat. Learning to breeze in a way that is incompatible with your escape response can help enormously in breaking this.d cycle of ever in increasing panic. This is one of the first skills you need to develop a list of simple exercises in his paramount that you learn this skill well before you try some of messages. Learning how to breathe learning how to breathe, very gentle and calmly is the first step and one of the easiest steps where you are beginning to act as if you safe when facing one of your. irrational fears.acting as if. The most recommended treatment for all phobias is Exposure and Response Prevention. However this procedure itself can be quite scary itself, forcing many people to quit on this approach, specially in the hands of an overzealous therapist.

Exposure and Response Prevention ERP

The most recommended treatment for all phobias is Exposure and Response Prevention. However this procedure itself can be quite scary in itself, forcing many people to quit on this approach, specially in the hands of an overzealous therapist.

Gentle Exposure and Counter-Conditioning GECC

I use a slight variation of ERP to treat my patients. It is called Gentle Exposure and Counter-Conditioning. This variation is less uncomfortable and easier to use. The trick is to learn how to behavior non-defensively in everyday life before facing your phobias. Once you have practiced that skill, then you are ready to apply the gentle counter-conditioning to face your particular phobia. The best way of actingActing Non-Defensively is defined as acting in a phobic object the way that your non-phobic friend would act. friend stain in the way a acting in a phobic situatio

Learning To Act As If You Are Safe

• • The first skill involves learning the Gentle Belly Breathing, as this type of breathing sends a message to the Fight or Flight mechanism that you are not preparing to escape from the situation.

• • The second skill is learning how to be stay completely relaxed, which can be achieved by learning the Systematic Relaxation Exercises. Again, this skill gives a message to the Fight or Flight mechanism that you have no intention of running away.

I recommend you practice these two exercises for at least two weeks before you start the exposure work. Without these two simple skills, you are likely keep getting uptight around your phobias, which will greatly delay your progress. You also need to continue practicing these exercises as you go through the exposure treatment. Even as you go about your daily life, acting as if you are safe, you will find that the world in general seems to feel a less scary place.

Exposure and Counter Conditioning in Action: Treating Someone Afraid of Dogs

To illustrate this technique, I am going to give a step-by-step run through of how I taught a patient to overcome her life-long fear of dogs. This method can be easily modified to handle just about any phobia that you may encounter in the outside world. Nancy was a 55 year old woman who claimed that she had been afraid of dogs all her life. She had no idea what started the fear, but she certainly was aware of her mistrust of dogs from a very early age. She was happily married, held an important job in the corporate world, and had many friends. However, she would start to panic whenever she saw a dog. If she saw a dog when she was alone on the street, she would have to cross the street or turn back. When she was with her husband, she would hide behind him. She could not go into buildings that allowed dogs, and the thought of being in an elevator with a dog was her worst nightmare. She would even have to turn off the TV or leave the room if a dog appeared on the screen. She had been in many types of therapy most of her life, had tried many medications, but nothing appeared to help. As she got older, she also became depressed, feeling how most of her life had been ruined by this phobia. Having taken a detailed history of Nancy’s phobia, I next had Nancy go through the following steps:

• • Step 1 Nancy practiced the Gentle Belly Breathing, and the Systematic Relaxation Exercises every day throughout the whole of the treatment. I cannot emphasize enough that you need to practice these exercises so well that you can immediately act as if you are safe when facing your phobia.

• • Step 2 Nancy wrote down a list of scary situations where she might encounter dogs, starting with easy ones, and going on to more scary ones. The list started with her looking at still pictures of scary dogs, and ended with the image of her sitting on the floor and petting a big dog. We used this list to build the homework assignments where Nancy would start facing her fear.

• • Step 3 (Exposure with Counter-Conditioning) Next, Nancy started exposing herself to the easiest situation, where she felt the fear, but was able to act in a relaxed way, while breathing very gently. She needed to feel a mild fear, but was able to act as if she is not in danger.  It usually takes several days before the fear subsides to something close to zero.

A good rule of thumb is to try to practice this type of exercise for at least 30 minutes each day, working with the easy situations before moving on to the more difficult ones. It usually takes about a week for the counter-conditioning to reduce the anxiety to zero. Here is the list of Nancy’s assignments over the 8 weeks:

• • Looking at pictures of small dogs, 30 minutes a day. By the end of a week, she was unable to feel any anxiety when looking at the pictures.

• • Looking at pictures of large fierce looking dogs, 30 minutes a day. Again, she was unable to feel any anxiety after a week of this exposure.

• • Going to a pet stores with her husband for 30 minutes, 5 times during the week acting in a relaxed way and getting as close to the puppies as possible. She was completely relaxed by the fifth visit.

• • Walking with husband to a dog run that contained small dogs on a daily basis.

• • Walking alone to the small dog run.

• • Sitting alone in small dog run.

• • Standing alone outside of large dog run

• • Going inside large dog run

• • Sitting in therapist office with a large dog, while stroking it, stating, “where has all the fear gone?”

To overcome a fear you always need to act in the same non-defensive manner as Nancy. And the trick is to use the right level of fear. If you push too hard, you begin to be unable to maintain your relaxed state. At the same time, it is important to feel some discomfort, otherwise you will show little progress and get discouraged. If you have made the task easy enough, and if you have stayed relaxed, you should find that your fear will initially fight you, but should subside in about 4 or 5 sessions. When you have become comfortable in one situation, you move on to the next slightly more scary situation on your list. Altogether, it takes a person with a severe dog phobia about 20 hours of exposure to reach the point where they can comfortably pet a large dog. Related Reading on Quora: How do I overcome fear in the real world? Related reading on Quora: How do I stop worrying about death? More Techniques: Relaxing Away Stress Gentle Belly Breathing Conquering Procrastination Facing Fear In The Real World Fighting Depression Through Movemen Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.