Fear? This is how you regain control

5 exercises that will help you master your anxiety

Sweaty hands when you have to take the elevator. Completely stiffen when suddenly a spider dangles in front of you. Everyone is scared sometimes and there is nothing wrong with that. But what if it really hinders you? You can master your fear, says health care psychologist Arentina Drenth.

Fear has an important function: it ensures safety in a dangerous situation. When you’re about to cross the road and suddenly a car looms up, you’ll be startled and shrink back. If a dog comes at you growling in the distance while walking, you quickly take a different route. Fear protects you and that’s a good thing. Your emotional brain plays a major role in this. This stores threatening situations and warns you later if a similar situation arises. Then you feel fear. But sometimes you also feel fear when there is no real danger. Fear can then hinder you from living the life you want. “For example, if you avoid parties or fun outings out of social anxiety,” says GZ psychologist, behavioral therapist and EMDR practitioner Arentina Drenth. “Or if you don’t go to an amusement park with your grandchildren because you don’t dare to get in the car. Then fear rules your life.” It’s worth tackling your fear if it gets in your way, Drenth knows. In her book This is how you overcome fear She gives practical and scientifically based advice and exercises that you can use right away.

small steps

There are several methods to overcome your fear. Drenth mentions three: Step by step, Immerse yourself and Accept your fear. “In the first way, you look for an increasingly difficult situation in small steps. Suppose you have a fear of driving through tunnels. Determine what you think is the least scary and most scary tunnel and which ones fall in between. Then start with the least scary step , a mini-tunnel for example. Drive through it and see what happens. You are probably scared, but you are still alive. Practice again a few times and then take the next step, the slightly narrower tunnel. By increasing it gradually, your fear decreases You teach your brain so step by step that nothing bad happens when you drive through a tunnel, even if it is very long.” Helpful exercises include ‘Worst That Could Happen’, ‘Here and Now’ and the ‘Flash Technique’. You can find these exercises at the bottom of the article.

Not in danger

Method two is Immerse: Stay in the situation without any safety behavior until you calm down. For example, safety behavior is asking someone else to come along or taking sedative medicines. Drenth: “For example, walk into Albert Heijn on a Saturday afternoon if you find it scary to be in a busy supermarket. And stay there until you calm down. You will experience the fear physically, for example through dizziness, nausea and palpitations. Yet those reactions disappear within an hour or much sooner. That also lowers your anxiety. Your brain realizes: I am not in danger.” Here too, helpful exercises are ‘The worst that could happen’, ‘Here and now’ and the ‘flash technique’.

Self behind the wheel

A third way is to accept your fear. This method means that you do not run away from a fear situation, but that you endure fear and the physical reactions that come with it. “With this method, you accept that fear is part of life, but you don’t let fear sit behind the wheel anymore. You determine the direction of your life yourself. And will – with the fear monster in the back seat – do what is important and valuable to you. For example, going to the playground with your (grand) children, even if you are afraid to go outside. You do it anyway, because doing something active with them is more important to you than the fear.” Helpful exercises with this: ‘The worst that could happen’, ‘Thing-in-body’, ‘Here and now’, the ‘flash technique’ and ‘increase readiness’.

These exercises will help you master your anxiety

1. Thing-in-body

This creates distance between you and your fear. This is how it works: Feel where in your body you feel the fear. Then examine whether the fear has a color, shape, size, weight, texture, temperature, or smell. That’s how it becomes a thing. Then focus your attention on the thing in your body for 5 minutes. Then you will do something that is valuable to you, for example exercise.

2. Flash Technique

A technique for reducing anxiety caused by a particular event. That is how it works:

Sit down.
Choose a situation, feeling, memory or thought that makes you very happy and that you can completely immerse yourself in.
Think briefly about the fearful event.
Write your fear on a scale of 1 to 10 5. Set a timer for 30 seconds.
Slowly alternately tap your right and left leg with your right and left hands.
In your mind, immerse yourself in your positive situation or memory as you continue to tap.
Is your timer going off? Then blink your eyes quickly 3 times.
Reset your timer to 30 seconds. Tap your legs alternately again and go back to your positive thought.
Repeat steps 8 and 9 about 7 times.
Now briefly think back to the frightening event. How great is the fear now on a scale of 1 to 10?
Repeat steps 8 and 9 until you can write a score of 2, 1, or 0.

3. Here and now

If you bring your attention and your senses to the here and now, you divert your attention from your fear. For example, list five things you see or hear. Or find all the green things around you. Or describe an object you have in your bag, such as a pen. What color is the pen? Are there any letters on it? How heavy is he really?

4. The Worst That Could Happen

In this exercise you may think disaster about a situation where you are anxious. For example, going to the movies alone. What’s the worst that could happen? That people look at you? How big is that chance? And is that really as bad as you think? Are you going to die from this? Thinking about this can change your view of a scary situation. In your head you often make what can go wrong bigger than is realistic. Maybe it’s not as bad as you thought.

5. Increase Willingness

Determine what is valuable to you and associate a valuable action with it. If fear prevents you from doing what is important to you, think about the consequences or problems this has caused. This can make you aware of the impact of your fear. And it can increase willingness to do something about it. Suppose you value being together with family, but because of your fear of crowded spaces you do not dare to go to the party that your parents organize for their wedding anniversary. Then ask yourself how you feel down there. Can you increase your willingness to put your fear monster aside? And what ‘valuable action’ can you link to this (go, despite your fear)? In the book This is how you overcome fear find a fill-in exercise.