1) Predict
When you can predict accurately what you are about to do, your body and your mind will be more prepared for what is ahead. However, “An incorrect prediction is profoundly disorienting at a visceral level – as when we mistakenly think there is one stair left going into the basement.” It is when you don’t know what is coming, when there is darkness or the unexpected, that you generally have the greatest fear. If you can stop, breathe, and think about what is to come, you will be in a much healthier frame of mind to tackle your fears.
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2) Stats don’t help
Don’t try to talk yourself out of fears because statistics say that one thing is less scary than another. This is going to put you in a false-security mindset because regardless of the stats, your fears will be there. Try addressing them and the reality behind them rather than using a faceless number to try to argue with yourself or reason out of being scared.
3) Tetris
Emily Holmes, a professor at Oxford in the United Kingdom, “has discovered that if you play a repetitive, absorbing game like Tetris within six hours of viewing something disturbing, it will reduce the emotional weight of the memory.” When you need to distract your mind, working on something that captures your attention will help you to relax. Holmes explains, “The part of your brain responsible for emotional encoding is too busy watching falling blocks and trying to figure out where to put the crazy Z shape,” to think about your emotional strains. Give it a shot!
4) Scream
Let it out! Screaming when you are scared is cathartic. Maybe you can’t do this in the office, but you can at home … if you warn your family. Maybe try it somewhere that won’t have the neighbors calling the cops, but nonetheless, when you find a place to scream and let out the emotions, you are going to feel better because you “provide a safe space to give your internal impulse-control police a break.”
5) Stick together
When you’re scared and the people around you are scared, research has shown “feelings intensify when you experience them simultaneously with others you know.” So, just like how things get scarier, try maintaining positivity in a group. Get everybody working towards being happy and positive and you can all move into a better frame of mind together.
6) Visualization and self-talk
Kerr suggests visualization and self-talk to get out of scary situations. When you think of the fear, of falling from a building as Kerr once feared, you begin to feel as if that is happening. Visualize the opposite. For her, “I wasn’t falling; I was flying, and I felt powerful.” When you change how you see an event, you’re going to change your frame of mind for the better and it will help you move beyond your fear.
7) Train yourself
When you think of your worst memories, if they bring you fear, you can work to move beyond them. Reframe the ideas with a more positive mindset and think of the strength you showed in the scenario. Kerr used this tactic to move beyond a scary event, and now looks back at a time she was stuck in an elevator as a memory that “is not so bad anymore… since it’s now connected to exciting new experiences and personal growth.” How you think is how you live. Change the way you think and you will change the way you live.
Source: Ziglar Vault