Fear and Anxiety

Good day everyone, I’m here today to introduce one interesting issue in Psychology. I hope this will benefits many of us. I’m pretty sure that many of us having the problem to deal with anxiety and fear. First of all, we must able to understand what is fear and anxiety is about, then we may try to avoid or overcome it later in our daily lives. Below, I have some suggestions too where we can overcome our fear and anxiety.

A fear is composed of both operant and respondent behavior where the person is afraid of a particular stimulus or stimulus situation.

Example: Sarah feels nervous when tend to speak out in front of the class, her heart beats faster, palm starts to sweat and she felt the fear of getting in front of the class.

This explains that, when the stimulus is present, the person experiences unpleasant bodily responses such as mentioned above. The bodily responses are respondent behaviors we called as anxiety. The autonomic nervous system arousal involved in anxiety is an establishing operation that makes it more likely that the person will engage in escape or avoidance behavior ( Fight or Flight response).

Source : Google Images of The difference between fear& anxiety

PROCEDURES TO REDUCE FEAR AND ANXIETY

	RELAXATION TRAINING

 

                                                                                                                                            

That people use to decrease the autonomic arousal they experience as a component of fear and anxiety problems. There are four types of relaxation technique which were progressive muscle relaxation, diaphragmatic breathing , attention-focusing exercises and behavioral relaxation training.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

The person systematically tenses and relaxes each of the major muscles in the body. Tensing and relaxing the muscles leaves them more relaxed than in their initial state. To use this technique, the person must learn to do this from a therapist, from listening to an audiotape of the procedure, or from reading from a description. I have posted a video regarding this relaxation technique, where we can use to overcome our anxiety as well.

                                                              Relaxation Training video

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Another relaxation exercise involves diaphragmatic breathing also called as deep breathing or relaxed breathing in which people breathes slowly and in rhythmic fashion. To learn this technique, a person should get in a comfortable sitting position and place a hand on the abdomen, just below the rib cage. On inhaling, the person should feel the abdomen move outwards as the diaphragm pulls the breath of air deep into the lungs. After learning to breathe correctly, with the abdomen expanding at each inhalation, the person is ready to begin the breathing exercise.

Source : Google Images on The correct way of breathing

Attention-focusing Exercises

This produce relaxation by directing attention to a neutral or pleasant stimulus to remove the person’s attention from the anxiety-producing stimulus. Procedures such as meditation, guided imagery and hypnosis all produce relaxation through a mechanism of attention focusing.

Behavioral Relaxation Training

The person is taught to relax each muscle group in the body like in progressive muscle relaxation. The person is taught to breathe correctly and his/her attention is focused on each of the ten relaxation behaviors involved in the procedures.

It is important to learn relaxation techniques and procedures because relaxation training is a component of fear and anxiety reduction procedures. Thank You and see you again in next post. Have a nice day !!!