How to Overcome Fear: Simple guide with 5 easy steps
What is Fear?
Ever felt someone behind you while in a dark and lonely place? You wouldn’t have felt the same if you also had eyes on the back of your head and could see what was behind you. Alternatively, there is less fear in well lit places, Isn’t it? Why? In order to answer this question, lets first understand what fear itself is. Fear is a safety mechanism of our mind that encourages us to stay away from situations where our senses cannot judge the situation. That is why we all fear darkness because our eyes cannot see the situation properly. After understanding fear and its causes, later we will discuss how to overcome fear.
We all experience fear. Its how our brain naturally responds to certain situations it perceives harmful. As we will soon discover, our brain creates fear to keep us out of the harm’s way. All the fears are caused by a combination of our reflexes, natural instincts, and cognitive processes.
Causes of Fear
Lets identify the factors that cause fear and study them in more detail, in order to eventually learn to control them and overcome fear.
- Ignorance
Fear grows in the void of unknown. Its our brains’ natural reflex in the absence of information. If left unchecked, it can overwhelm our lives. This explains the humanity’s fear of UFOs. Fear of alien abduction is the consequence of an ignorant species not knowing what’s beyond the solar system. - Cognitive Thinking
Fear is the outcome of our brain’s cognitive process, especially when it is desperately is trying to make sense of an unknown situation. Unless it is able to explain the situation and ascertain its cause, it remains in a state of unrest. Lets consider for example, we hear a strange sound coming from somewhere around us. Now until we find the source of this sound, our mind will temporarily attribute it to some paranormal activity. To support this phenomenon, I cite an interesting example. There was a house that gained notoriety as a haunted house and strange sounds could actually be heard from that house at night. After a long, painstaking study by paranormal experts, it was found that there was a query nearby that used to function only at night and whenever they used to run the stone crushing equipment in the tunnel, it used to produce infra sound (sound below 20 Hz). Humans cannot hear this sound but the windows of the house happened to have the same natural frequency as the infra sound, so they used to resonate and make strange sounds in the house. Once the mystery was solved, the house was inhabited, without any further problems. - Uncertainty
When the outcome is important but uncertain, we fear such a situation. Examples are a job interview, an examination, a romantic proposition etc. The importance of the outcome makes the situation explosive and the uncertainty adds fuel to the fire by generating uneasy thoughts of failure. These two parameters together create fear and anxiety. - Mental Conditioning
When we experience or witness incidents that are unpleasant, we develop fear for them, as well as, for the subjects or objects that were part of the incident frame. Take for example, a child, who was learning to ride a bicycle fell down and she was not encouraged to get up and start riding again. Instead, she was comforted and told to not ride the bicycle. Chances are, she will never be able to ride it again in her life!!
Summarizing The Causes Of Fear
Psychologists have gone to great depths to uncover the mysteries of fear and have written reams of paper on the topic. However, that may be too intimidating for a commoner to understand. Hence, I have tried to explore and explain fear from a layman’s perspective. Let me quickly summarize what I said above and I promise not to lead you into the labyrinths of psychology and will keep it simple. Here’s how it goes;
Fear is an emotion that our brain uses to fill up voids here and there within the repository of our knowledge. Where ever there is a gap in awareness, our brain perceives it as a risk and incites fear to encourage us to stay away from such a situation. That way our brain tries to steer us away from the unknown. It hates risks, but the mankind’s quest for knowledge is not befuddled by such trivial reflexes. Many have dived deep into the vast ocean of fear to come back with the pearls of wisdom.
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How to Overcome Fear
A lot has been already written about our understanding of fear, so instead of reinventing the wheel, I present to you 5 simple tips on how to overcome fear that I found useful in my life and also will help you too in overcoming your fear!
- Stay Informed
The more knowledge we acquire about the source of our fear, the less afraid we are of it progressively. Take for example, the Coronavirus. Last March, the entire world had slipped into panic with the outbreak of the pandemic. Its not that the pandemic is over now but in 2021 we are not panicking as we did last year, instead, we are bravely battling it. Why, because we know much more about the virus now than we did back in 2020. That is the difference between fear and concern. Whether you are afraid of the dark or the examinations, or a thief, find out how it can affect you and figure out ways to conquer it, rather than simply shivering in fear. You will realize that you are slowly transforming from being afraid to being concerned about the cause. Being afraid makes you only fragile whereas being concerned makes you prepared. - Reduce Anxiety
Anxiety fuels fear. If you must face a situation that makes you afraid already, like the surgery of a loved one, an examination, or your first flight in life etc. you must not let your brain fuel fear. Stay calm and tell yourself that your fear is not going to set things right. Someone has rightly said, “why trouble trouble before the trouble troubles you”. The best way to overcome fear would be to keep yourself engaged in your favorite pastime in anticipation of the event till the event. Fear turns into a monster on a diet of imagination. So go ahead and starve it! - Be Prepared
Preparations help you conquer fear. There is no use being afraid of an event you cannot avoid, like having to go to the washroom at the end of a dark corridor on your first night in the hostel. Instead of trembling in fear, think of the rich rewards it will give you, if you conquer your fear and go to the washroom and come back. One, your bladder will thank you and secondly, you will slowly start feeling more confident with each passing night. You could also arm yourself with a flashlight and a rod to protect you from your fears. Use anything that helps, a religious symbol, or a recitation, or any other object of faith that you believe in. The idea is to convince your mind that you are covered and protected. - Control Your Mind
We are programmed to fear. Most fears are imbibed into our personality as a part of our upbringing. We were told to go to sleep quickly otherwise a monster would come. Not only because of such specific examples, but generally, we all have been raised to fear something or the other. In order to get rid of your fears, talk to yourselves and confront your fears. Some people are scared of spiders. They should read more about spiders, look at their pictures, and slowly come to terms with their coexistence with us. Similarly, confronting dark places and finding out that, there is nothing there except darkness, will help in reducing our fear of darkness. As they say, if a person learning horse-riding falls from the horse and takes some time to get back on the horse, will either find it impossible or extremely difficult to do so. The best approach is to get back on the horse immediately, because that way you are actually not giving time to your brain to develop the fear of horse-riding. Same goes for a car accident. If you temporarily stop driving after an accident, chances are you will never be able to drive again. - Be Positive
Finally, its ok to be afraid, but do not let the fear cripple you. Recognize your deepest fears, dig them out, and confront them. Don’t feel guilty about them and don’t ever feel sorry for yourself. Keep a positive outlook towards your fears, and talk to people about them more often. After all, every human is afraid of something or the other. Be conscious of your fears and work upon them. This will ensure that your fears do not metamorphose into unmanageable proportions.
If you make these adjustments to your lives, it is very likely that you will be able to conquer many of your fears and for those that are left to be conquered, they will be at least become easier to live with. Now that we have discussed how to overcome fear, remember, rational fear in healthy proportions, is good for us to stay safe and out of the harm’s way!!!
“In the vast ocean of fear, knowledge is your lifeboat”
Unsung thinker!
Disclaimer: This article is written by an author narrating their own experiences with fear and the strategies they adopted to overcome fear. It may not be true for everyone and the readers are requested to use their own wisdom to follow what is written or advised in the article. The publisher or the author will in no way responsible for any consequences that may arise out of reading and following the contents of this article.
