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Phobias come in many forms: Some people are afraid of spiders while others are afraid of flying on airplanes.
But one thing they have in common is that they’re all irrational, according to one phobia expert.
“A phobia is an irrational response to a benign substances”.
“As humans, we’re hardwired that when we’re in danger, our amygdala kicks in and then we do one of several things. The most common is fight, flight or freeze. So either we get angry and punch that thing, or we run away from it, or we avoid it,” he said. The amygdala is the part of the brain that processes emotions like fear or motivation.
This trigger is useful when we’re fighting a saber-toothed tiger or if we’re in real danger, Jones says. But phobias are when that response is to something that’s not dangerous.
Jones’ clinic has treated a variety of phobias, from fear of water, fear of heights, fear of germs, fear of needles, and even fear of failure.
He explained that fear develops through conditioning, similar to Pavlov’s dog experiment. The famous experiment was conducted by Russian neurologist Ivan Pavlov, who would ring a bell every time he fed his dogs. Eventually, the dogs started drooling when they heard the bell ring because they associated it with food.
“Humans do the same thing,” Jones explains. “Most commonly with phobias, at some point in the past, your brain has associated the danger with something that has happened…then whenever you think about it again in the future, it will trigger that old response.”
Jones’ newly published book “Face Your Fears” guides readers through exercises to help them overcome their fears. He shared his top three tips for overcoming any fear with CNBC Make It.
Challenge your perception of the subject
Jones says a very simple technique to overcome your fear is to think about the object that scares you in a different way.
He calls it the “Harry Potter” effect, referring to a scene in the movie “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets” where students face their fears and use magic to turn them into something humorous.
“So when you think of that spider, people usually make it very big and close-up. If you imagine it small, in black and white… or imagine it on roller skates, smoking a few cigars, dancing with its little hands….. it feels very different,” Jones said.
He suggests using the same technique for your inner dialogue.
“If you say ‘Oh my God, I’m so scared’ or ‘This is going to startle me’ or ‘What if I embarrass myself?’ If you imagine that internal dialogue like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, with a high-pitched voice, it takes on all its power,” he said.
Now, this will change the way you perceive fear because it will seem “more silly and less real,” says Jones.
hug yourself
Jones says one of the simplest ways to comfort yourself when encountering the source of your fear is to hug yourself.
“Basically, if you cross your arms and move them up and down your shoulders, like you’re hugging yourself, it releases the same chemicals as when you hug someone else or when someone else hugs you,” he explains. “.
“This releases oxytocin and a variety of other chemicals and what happens is, if you’re doing anything relaxing or self-soothing while trying to visualize the thing you fear , the brain will struggle to hold two emotions at once, and thus the feeling of fear will lessen.”
Rewire your brain
Jones recalls Pavlov’s dog experiment and says that just as the brain can be conditioned to fear something, it can also be conditioned to eliminate that fear.
“If you get to those times when you feel really happy, calm or can’t stop smiling and you just picture those things in your mind, and visualize those moments at the same time, you do something unique at the top. high of emotion like clenching your fist, thinking about happy times, clenching your fist, thinking about happy times, clenching your fist, you create a response that has artificial Pavlovian conditions,” Jones explains.
He says that if you squeeze your wrist in the face of a particular fear, it will bring you back to those happy memories and remove the emotional intensity of the fear.
“Those are some very quick things you can do to break that old pattern,” he added.
“If you think about Reddit or YouTube, where people watch a horror movie and re-cut it into a funny movie because they change the music and the tempo, we can do that with images inside. in, our inner dialogue and inner emotions,” he added.
