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Phobias come in many forms: Some people are afraid of spiders, while others are afraid of flying.
But one thing they all have in common is that they are irrational, according to one phobia expert.
“Phobias are irrational reactions to benign substances,” Christopher Paul Jones, a London phobia specialist at the Harley Street Clinic in London, told CNBC Make It.
“As humans, we’re wired to think that when we’re in danger, our amygdala fires up and we do one of several things. The most common ones are fight, flight, or freeze. So, Either we get angry and hit that thing, or we run from that thing, or we hide from that thing,” he said. The amygdala is the part of the brain responsible for processing emotions such as fear or motivation.
Jones says this trigger comes in handy when we’re fighting a saber-toothed tiger or are in real danger. However, a phobia is a reaction to something that is not dangerous.
Jones’ clinic treats a variety of phobias, including fear of water, heights, germs, needles and even the fear of failure.
He explained that phobias are created through conditioned responses, much like Pavlov’s dog experiments. This famous experiment was conducted by Russian neuroscientist Ivan Pavlov, who rang a bell every time he fed his dog. When dogs hear the bell, they eventually start salivating because they associate the sound with food.
“Humans do the same thing,” Jones explains. “The most common phobia is that, at some point in your past, your brain associates the danger with something that has already happened…and then whenever you think about that event again in the future, it triggers Old reaction.
Jones’ most recent book, Facing Fear, guides readers through exercises to help them overcome their fears. He shared three top tips for overcoming fear with CNBC Make It.
Challenge your perception of objects
Jones says a very simple trick for challenging your phobia is to think about the feared object 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” in which students confront their fears and use magic to turn them into comic relief.
“So, when you think of that spider, people usually picture it very big and very close. If you imagine it’s small and black and white…or imagine it’s wearing roller skates, smoking a little cigar, with a Little hands dance.
He recommends using the same technique with your inner dialogue.
“If you say, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to be scared,’ or ‘This will make me jump,’ or ‘What if I embarrass myself?’ If you think of your inner dialogue like Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck, with A squeaking sound and it takes all the power out of it,” he said.
For now, Jones says, this will change the way you think about your fear because it will appear “sillier and less realistic.”
give yourself a hug
Jones says one of the easiest ways to comfort yourself when you encounter the source of your phobia is to give yourself a hug.
“If you basically cross your arms, shoulders up and down, like you’re hugging yourself, it releases the same chemicals as if you were hugging someone else or if someone else was hugging you,” he explains.
“This releases oxytocin and various other chemicals, and if you’re doing anything relaxing or self-soothing while trying to imagine something you’re afraid of, your brain is trying to hold both emotions together, so the fearful emotion will be reduced. “
repair your brain
Jones recalled Pavlov’s dog experiments and said that just as the brain can be conditioned to be afraid of something, it can also be reconditioned to eliminate that fear.
“If you’re feeling really happy, calm, or just can’t stop laughing, and you just imagine those moments in your mind, and while you’re imagining those moments, you do something unique at the peak of your emotion, like clenching your fists, Think about happy times, clench your fist, think about happy times, clench your fist, and you create an artificial Pavlovian response conditioning,” Jones explains.
He says that if you squeeze your wrist when faced with a specific fear, it will take you back to those happy memories and take away the emotional intensity of the fear.
“These are some very quick things you can do to break old patterns,” he added.
“If you think about Reddit or YouTube, where people re-edit a horror movie into a funny movie because they changed the music and the tempo, we can do that with our internal images, our internal dialogue, and our internal feelings. A little,” he added.
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