Fear can Fuel your Disease. Find out how to beat it.

The goal is to move yourself from pain, paralysis and depression to power energy and love.

Let's start with saying that all fear is not bad. Have you ever felt fear and done it anyway?

To start off with it may not feel good but we realize it is good for us, good for others and good for the greater good.  We stretch our selves and feel exhilarated afterwards.  This can be like public speaking, we are scared before hand and then exhilarated after a successful presentation. That's growth and we love that.

What happens when it doesn't feel good, it's not good for others and not good for the greater good.  We are frozen in a place carrying around unwarranted fear.

I mean unwarranted because we all want some fear.  If you are standing on a road and a car is coming I want you to move fast.  What I'm talking about here is the unwarranted fear we may carry around long term, it may hold us back and actually cause disease in the body.

Let's look at 11 ways to beat the FEAR

Leave the Thoughts Alone

Think of a pink rabbit

Researchers validated this by separating people into two groups. One group they told to think about a pink rabbit and click a button every time they think about it. One group was told not to think about a pink rabbit and to click a button every time they do think about a pink rabbit.

The group that was told not to think about the rabbit clicked the button more, probably because when they were not thinking about the rabbit their brain said "hey, don't forget not to think about the rabbit" which, in turn, caused them to think about it. Those that were allowed to think about it all they want didn't need that reminder, since it simply didn't matter.

It's for these reasons that trying to fight your thoughts is counterproductive to your ability to stop anxiety. Accept that you have anxiety and be okay with any negative thoughts and you may have the thoughts less frequently.

Validating Your Fears

One of the greatest mistakes people make is trying to validate their fears. This is easy to do, our brains are always looking for similarities.

We do this all the time, when you have a cold, you notice everyone has a cold,

When you are pregnant you start seeing pregnant people everywhere,

Once you know someone with a specific disease the odds are that you will hear of someone else with a similar disease.  Our brains are trained to pick up information from our surroundings through our senses that mean something to us.

In this case GOOGLE is not your friend, don't validate and justify your negative emotions by finding extra information on the web, it causes more anxiety and makes it harder to get out of it.

Try little doses of Anxiety Stimuli

When you know for a fact that some thing or situation makes you anxious, another thing that makes anxiety worse is purposefully avoiding it.  Studies have shown that you can decrease your anxiety if you allow yourself to be afraid without trying to avoid it. 

Spending Time With Positive People

Spending time with happier people that bring positivity into your life is the best way to make an impact of your mental health.

Breathing slowly and evenly

Hyperventilation is common with panic disorder, and it causes many symptoms that contribute to the development of panic attacks, including:

• Chest pains
• Rapid heartbeat
• Lightheadedness
• Tingling limbs
• Shortness of breath

Slow down your breathing dramatically and fight the urge to breathe too deeply .

Activity

Everyone talks about the importance of exercise for living longer and staying fit. But perhaps the greatest reason to exercise is because science has shown that a lack of exercise can cause anxiety, and exercise can actually cure it.

Sleep

Sleeping with anxiety can be hard. Stress often keeps you awake. Create some stragegies around sleep to aim to get 8-9 hours sleep at night.

Some people with anxiety avoid sleep on purpose, and that's not good. Sleep debt makes it much harder to control anxiety. So you should make sure that you're doing everything you can to get a full night's sleep, and never purposefully trying to stay up simply so that you don't have to go to bed.

Poor Diet/Unhealthy Living

Your brain functions on mineral vitamins, essential fatty acids and proteins.  Leave them out and your brain cannot function well.  Healthy living is simply one of the most important things to having good mental health.

Forget Unhealthy Coping Behaviors (Drinking, Drugs, Etc.)

Unhealthy coping behaviors are a big problem.  It's ease  to go out on a drinking binge, but do it continually and your brain essentially stops trying to help you cope with stress on its own, and instead lets the drug cope with stress for you.  Your ability to cope without them shrivels away, and it takes a lot more work to get it back.

Stay Active and Busy  

One of the secrets to curing anxiety is staying busy and active. The more you can keep your mind off your anxious thoughts, the easier it will be for you to cope.

Spending time with friends, staying busy with fun activities, and trying to bring as much enrichment into your life as possible is actually a genuinely effective way to control stress and rebuild your natural coping ability. 

Adding Anxiety Into Your Life on Purpose

Anxiety can be a cumulative problem. The more you experience, the more anxious you feel, even if those experiences are unrelated. So make sure that you're avoiding activities that create more anxiety.