Fearful mind affects the quality of our lives. How? More the times you feel fear, worse the quality of life. Fear is the part and parcel of our lives. Life without its presence is difficult to find. Everybody feels fearful. So what is fear? How can we define it? What happens when you feel fearful. How to avoid fear? So please read the post and get the answers.
The Oxford Dictionary defines fear as “an unpleasant emotion caused by the threat of danger, pain, or harm.”
Fear is a feeling induced by perceived danger or threat that occurs in certain types of organisms, which causes a change in metabolic and organ functions and ultimately a change in behavior, such as fleeing, hiding, or freezing from perceived traumatic events as per Wikipedia.
Persistent fear makes you tense and hence affects your way of thinking. So you can’t think clearly. As a result, you make poor decisions. Few poor decisions can make your life miserable. So you can’t live a peaceful or happy life. Rather you live a depressed life.
Anxiety-It’s a fearful feeling or apprehension about what’s to come. It increases your breathing and heart rate. Persistent anxiety increases the risk of depression and dementia.
Worry – Worry is a prolonged and vague fear of future events.
What is its role in our lives? If we want to know the role, then we must know the types of fear we face.
Types of Fearful situations
Sometimes we feel the fear of fall, failures, insecurity, punishment, enemies, death and so on. If you write down the types of fearful situations you face in daily life , you will make an endless list.
Role of fear
Positive role: Fear plays a positive role in short-term. How ? It is beneficial for your performance to some extent. It not only improves your awareness and alertness but also prepares yourselves to do better. Its presence helps you to find out, analyse and check different options available to you. It motivates you to plan, build new set of skills, go out of your comfort zone and so on. In short, fear makes you a better manager or person.
Negative role:- Fear plays a negative role in the long-term. How? Persistent fear, anxiety and worries release less dopamine and hence make your life void of pleasures. You live a depressed life.The amygdala in your brain gets bigger and thus you feel more fearful. Moreover the frontal cortex of your brain meant for decision-making and control of emotions does not function well. So it affects your thinking as well as your bodily functions. Thus your physical and mental health deteriorates.
How to overcome fearful situations:-
First know what you fear and when you fear. Then know how you will take actions to overcome your fear. Inaction gives rise to fearful state of mind. So take action to feel fearless. Feel fear and do it anyway.
In addition, do exercises, use different relaxation techniques, build new set of skills and so on. This will make you more confident.Then you can manage and overcome fear.