How to overcome Fear

By

Er.M.K Gupta
 Contents:

1. Fear your uninvited guest

2. Brothers and sisters of fear
3. Types of fears
4. Causes of Fears
5. Removal of fears
6. Overcoming the greatest fear: fear of death
7. Physiological reactions of fear
8. Behavioural responses of fear
9. Phobias
10. Medical approach
11. Relaxation Therapy
12. (Mind elevating thoughts) not typed

1.) Fear Your uninvited Guest

There is a fellow who lives with you day and night. He sleeps with you, he wakes up with
you. He goes to office with you. He eats with you. He travels with you. Possibly he is sitting
with you even now as you read this book. Look around and see if he is there. In the evning
when you lose yourself in some beautiful park or in a swimming pool for a while, you
temporarily forget this fellow. But all of a sudden when you look around, you again find this
fellow at your side.

Can you name this fellow which is your constant companion all day long? It is none other
than Fear. You have given him so much power that he has now become your master and
enjoys full authority over you. You, like a puppet, move around him as a sub-ordinate moves
around his Boss, inspite of the fact that you hate him and want to get rid of him.

Fear is one of the greatest enemies which robs us of all our joy, contentment and peace.
Fear gradually eats us and practically converts us into a slave. Our worries and fears about
the future prevent us from experiencing the joy and happiness which exist here right now.
We must conquer our fears if we are to enjoy our life to the fullest. Our search for
fulfillment in our life can be successful only to the extent that we understand and overcome
our fears.

Fear is really the anticipation of loss or harm to ones sense of i-ness or ego. Thiss loss or
harm may be physical but more often it is psychological.

It may involve the person himself or the other persons or objects wo whom he is
emotionally attached and identified such as his family, friends, house, car, job, status, name,
fame etc. So fears are tied with perceived uncertainties associated with loss, agony or pain.

2.) Brother and Sisters of Fear

There are many other emotions which cant be exactly called fears but they are similar to
fear in nature. This can also be called disguised forms of fears. Freedom from feaer
presupposes freedom from these emotions also. Let us briefly understand about these
harmful associates of fears.

Anxiety:
It is a kind of apprehension about something you are waiting eagerly and excitedly. For
example you may be anxious about your examination result, about your childs admission in
a particular school, about the engagement of your colleagues daughter or about the
announcement of your promotion.

Sometimes people have free floating anxiety also when there is no identifiable reason for
this. This happens in certain types of persons in whom the general level of arousal remains
high due to excess of adrenaline hormone in the blood and over-activity of sympathetic
nervous system.

Nervousness:

It is generated out of the feeling of self inadequacy, eg whether you will be able to face
certain situation; whether you will be able to handle that challenging assignment; whether
you will be able to answer all the queries in the meeting etc;

It is different from the fear in the sense that here nobody is threating your psychological ego
or physical survival. It is generated out of your own feelings of self inadequacy and generally
indicates a lack of self confidence in you. For example you may feel nervous while facing an
interview board. You may feel nervous while facing your boss. You may also feel nervous
when you are asked to deliver a speech.

Worry

Like anxiety and nervousness, worry is not the result of acing some specific situation. It is a
generalized syndrome which hangs more or less all the time in ones mind. The worrier
knows what he is afraid of and what is causing trouble to him but he just cant let the mind
rest. The worrier focuses upon the feared object all the time and cant let that fear out of his
thoughts. He dwells upon it, thinks about it all the time and finally he himself falls to
sickness.

So while anxiety and nervousness are a short term phenomena generated out of a sudden
and specific stimulus appropriate to flare the emtion, worry on the other hand is a long term
condition. Moreover the degree of arousal of the body and mind during emotions of anxiety
and nervousness is quite high(although for a short duration) while the degree of arousal of
the body and mind in case of worry is moderate although extending for a longer time.
Phobia:

Phobias are exaggereated and unreasonable fears which a normal person(without phobias)
will not fear but a phobic person would do. We will discuss about this condition in detail in a
separate chapter.

3.) Types of Fears

The list of fears is endless. There may be as many fears in the world as the number of stars
in the Universe. you can go even to the extent of fearing yourself. However, it will be
appropriate to list out some common fears which all os us come across sometime or the
other in our lifes journey.

Fear of failure in an examination or in a project or in a game

fear of rejection and disapproval by others
fear of accident
fear of death
fear of being shot or murdered by a terrorist or enmy
fear of being robbed
fear os losing the job
fear of being killed in a bomb blast
fear of attack by animals
fear of insult and misbehavior by others
fear of criticism/comments in your work by others
fear of public speaking
fear of getting diseases
fear of separation from children in old age
fear of being left alone in old age after the death of ones life partner
fear of extra marital relations by the partner
fear of physical assualt by an enemy
fear of molestation and rape
fear of natural calamities eg
Fear of loss in business
 Fear of lagging behined your competitors or colleagues
fear of attack by a neighbouring country
fear of theft of your belongings and money
fear of sexual inadequacy
fear of inadequacy of your children compared to other children
fear of not getting right bridegroom fory our daughter
fear of being bankrupt and insolvent
fear of kidnapping of your family and/or yourself
fear of raid in your house
fear of being screened and caught by tax authorities
Fear of building collapse
fear of being caught and burnt alive in a fire
fear of monetary inadequacy at the time of need
fear of being ridiculed in a social gathering, party or meeting
fear of attending interviews
fear about your children in not getting suitable employment
fear of nuclear war and mass destruction
fear of a comet striking on earth
fear of self-incompetence compared to others
fear of your car breaking down in a forest where no help is available
fear of ghosts
fear of food adulteration and poisoning while eating
fear of singing and acting on stage
fear of incapability in handling an assignment or a project or a challenge
fear of leakage of harmful gases, radioactivity, radiations from a factory or nuclear
installation
fear of aircrash
fear of darkness
fear of train accidents of various nature
fear of aeroplane crashing into your roof
fear of drowning in water while travelling by ship or boeat through the sea or river
fear of heights
fear of enclosed spaces like lifts
Fear of socializing
Fear of being cheated in sale/purchase transactions
Fear of biased behaviour of bosses in your evaluation and promotion
fear of getting a heart attack while walking or driving a vehicle
fear of getting punishment after doing an illegal or immoral act.
fear of being implicated in a conspiracy
But this long list of fearful situations neednt frighten or despair you. All these fears can be
overome. Enlightened persons have proved after facing all sorts of situations that existence
of fear is in mind only. It has no concrete existence anywhere other than your mind.

Existence of fear is like a cloud which disappears as soon as the ray of knowledge appears It
is our wrong beliefs and ignorance about the realities of life which give so much power and
momentum to these fears. Once the true knowledge dawns and your consciousness
awakens from its deep slumber, fears melt away on their own. They cant stand against an
awakened and rational soul.

In fact the following chapters of this book will try to convince you that there is really nothing
in the world for which we really need to be fearful. Every experience can be accepted and
handled with serenity. There is a cosmic order in the world and nothing has been designed
to frighten us. Rather everything has been designed to support our evolution and growth.

Hence, control of fear is basically control of your mind and imagination and removal of false
beliefs anchored in the mind by knowledge and acceptance of realities of life because as
mentioned earlier, fears are nothing but thoughts. So, for removing fears there is no point in
fighting with external circumstances and conditions. This fight has to be fought with your
own mind only. It is more an internal fight than external. Fears look for residence in a weak
mind only. They cant dare stand against a strong and awakened mind.

4.) Causes of Fear

On the surface level, several causes of various types of fears can be pointed out but if we go
deeply we can convert all these causes into the following root causes:

Attachment and dependence on external objects:

If we are depending on external objects and people for our existence and feeling of self-
worth, we then experience fear by anticipating the loss of that object. Without a habit of
dependency there could be no fear. We would then allow objects and experiences to come
and go without trying to cling to them. But when we feel the intense dependency on
something we are inevitably afraid of losing it. Whatever we feel that we must have, is what
we fear losing.

Clinging to the things to which we are attached is like fighting our way upstream, struggling
against the basic law of change which pervades our universe. Rather than squarely facing
the fact that everything in life is subject to change, we desperately try to hold on to o0bjects
and situations. With such an attitude, fear is inevitable. But sooner or later we will have to
forgo such attitudes which we cling so resolutely. Our new car will eventually rust and break
down. our children will grow and may go out of our home in search of better future an
prospects.

To be free from fear we will have to gain freedom from this false clinging. We should realize
that we cant depend on the external world for abiding joy and happiness. These things are
temporary and wont stay with us for ever. We will achieve freedom from fear when we
realize that the source of fulfillment is within us rather than in the external world of objects
and events. When we direct our attention inwards and look there for our joy and
satisfaction, we find a sense of fulfillment which always abides within us.

When we reach this new understanding, we gradually learn to see our external world in a
new way. We can then accept and ejoy what comes our way without clinging to them. Our
fears indicate that we are clinging to somebody or something too tightly. Such a stress can
only be relieved by psychologically letting go our our possessive attitude. When we have
learned to let go, we would have found one of the greatest secrets of life for experiencing
peace and happiness. Letting go is always accompanied by a feeling of openness and
lightness. We normally fear letting go of our dependency on objects and people, but if we
are truly able to do so we will find what is gained is greater than that which is left behind.
Feeling of separateness

There is another root cause of our fear our sense of separateness from each other and
from God. We remain unaware of our natural connection with each other and experience
ourselves in individual egos separate from each other. What-ever we see as separate frmo
ourselves, inevitably becomes a source of fear.

We live in a world of duality which consists of that which is me and mine and that which is
not mine. We have created for ourselves a self concept which excludes the rest of the
world, an artificual sense of separation. This separation, this duality creates discomfort,
disharmony and at times even a feeling of loneliness and isolation.

The more narrow and more rigidly held is ones; concept of identity, the more insecure he
will be, feeling small and insignificant in the world, which seems large and threatening.;
Such a person works primarily to achieve security and his chief concern is self-protection. He
looks at himself as an isolated being struggling against the rest of the world. Such a person
considers everything which is outside the boundary of his little ego as foreign to him.

Disbelief in God and cosmic order:

This is also one of the major causes of our fear. If we dont believe that there is a rule in the
world who is running the world according to some cosmic order and divine laws, we are
bound to be fearful. This is because in such a condition of disbelief in God and a cosmic
order, we will tend to think that anything can happen to us at any time in this world without
any visible cause or any notice. We will depend upon chance and accident for our survival
and safety in this Universe. Such and attitude is bound to keep you in a state of constant
insecurity and fear. With disbelief in God, you lose a firmi base to hold on in times of crisis
and adversities.

Feeling of Self-indequacy
Many people think that they cant do what others do. They dont have confidence in their
calibre and capability and consider themselves as worthless persons. These people also feel
that unless they can do anything perfectly or in a right way, they are no good. They develop
an inferority complex and always remain self-conscious and shaky before others. They
always fear rejection and disapproval from others and remain apprehensive of being
ridiculed for their incompetence. So they avoid socializing also and suffer the pangs of
loneliness. The constant feeling of inadequacy lowers their confidence more and more and
thus creates a vicious circle of increasing fear for them. The basic cause for this is a lack of
trust in themselves which requires to be restored if the fears associated with this factor are
to be eliminated.

5.) Removal of Fears

There are several ways to get rid of different fears as mentioned in the following
paragraphs. It is desired that we should be sincere and consistent in our approach.

Know the things you fear.

Fear is always of the unknown. When you dont know a thing properly and just imagine
about it, your imagination can play havoc. It always makes a mountain out of a molehill and
presents sometimes such a dreadful picture of the whole thing that you feel terrible. It
exaggerates and distorts a danger to you beyond all proportions.

Hence the first step and for that matter, a large part of the campaign against ones fears, is
to get a complete and thorough knowledge of themnot as they seem to be but as they
really are. The reason that fears are apparently so difficult to defeat is because we allow
them to remain vague and shadowy. Like any object in the darkness, they assume dreadful
shapes when they are not known properly. Lay your fears out before you , bring them into
light and see them as they really are. They will disappear like mist in front of sun. Fear is like
an imaginary ghost which frightens you in the darkness but there is not much to it when you
see it in the light.
Most of the things, one fears, never happen and whatever things happen, they also dont
amount to anything. It is only our imagination which creates all trouble.

Do the things you Fear

Unless you are willing to take a chance and to expose yourself to the very thing you are
most afraid of, you have a very little chance of overcoming your fear. People who have
flown in an aircraft a thousand times dont have the seame fear as a person who is taking his
first flight. Similarly someone who has given many speeches can enjoy what the novice
dreads. It doesnt matter what kind of fear it its, whether it is climbing mountains or
standing upto your boss; principle is always the same. To overcome the fear you will have to
take the risk which you have been avoiding all through and finally do the very thing you are
afraid of. And you have to continue to do this exercise till such time when the fear totally
disappears. The causes of your fear leap on you again and agian until you overcome fear. It
is a natural law that the more you fear a thing, the more it frightens you. However if you
dont fear and stand before it untouched and indifferent, the opposite happens and the fear
goes away from you.

SOme people hesitate to do a task with active interest simply because of the fear that they
wont be able to do it well or perfectly. They belive that everything they do must be perfect
and they will be considered worthless unless they excute the same perfectly all the times.
Please note that for anyone, it is virtually impossible to do something perfectly or even upto
the mark at time first times effort. Of the millions of complex tasks of which we are now
masters, isnt it true that they were all done badly when we attempted them initally and
they were only improved gradually as we continued to do them.

Practically anything of value requires that one takes a risk of failure or being rejected. this is
the price we all must pay for achieving the greater rewards lying ahead of us. To take risks
means you will succeed sometime but never to take a risk means that you will never
succeed. Life is filled with innumerable risks and challenges and if you want to get away
from all these, you will be left behind in the race of life ending up finally in extreme
frustration and depression. A person who can never take a risk cant learn anything. For
example if you never take the risk to drive a car, you can never learn driving, if you never
take the risk of being rejected, you can never have a friend or partner. SImilarly by not
taking the risk of attending an interview, you will never get a job.
Hence no matter how badly or insignificantly you do a thing, go on trying the thing you are
afraid of . Are you afraid of appearing on stage? Then get on a stage and try your best, no
matter how poor it is. Are you afraid of speaking in public? Then dont lose any chance of
speaking. First you may try speaking to small groups and later to large gatherings. Get up in
public gatherings and ask questions to the speaker. Dont care too much whether or not you
are doing well. Do you feel awkward at parties and social gatherings? Then instead of
allowing yourself to become an introvert or more afraid, try to go to more parties and
attempt light chatter and mingling with the people regardless of how badly or inadequately
you socialize. Sooner or later you will get to the point where you will feel more and more
comfortable mingling with the people and you may even get to the point where you enjoy
it. But you must attend more of the, no matter how badly you are faring currently. To do
otherwise is to invite more fear and retreat from the activity.

To conclude, please remember that avoiding fearsome situations is not the solution to
remain free from the tyranny of fears. This will lead to more discomforts of other kind which
will be more unpleasant than facing the original fear. Discomfort connected with
overcomingy our fear has an ending whereas the discomforts and frustrations that you will
have if you dont face your fears can go on until you die.

Dont identify yourself with the dangers;

One of the reasons why fears overwhelm us is that we normally identify ourselves with
dangers and become on e with them.

You should treat the dangers coming to you as something different from you and not a part
of you, having only temporary association with you. Observe your dangers from a distance
like a spectator. See them coming to you and gradually passing away.

When you can so witness your dangers like a distant observer, dangers become smaller than
you and you become bigger than your dangers. Hence although dangers will be there, yet
you will remain unaffected because you have shifted yourself on a plane of awareness from
where dangers can be distinctly observed and manipulated.

Fear exists in past and future only. It cant exist in the present.
As mentioned earlier, fear occurs due to a perceived probability of loss or pain. It is
important to see that when this probability becomes a reality, fear gets transformed into
depression, or anger or even relief. Fear only exists within the confines of anticipation, it
cant exist within the direct experience of the event itself. It disappears when the actual
event that was feared takes place. The anticipation of harm in experiencing fear is normally
based on some past experience; that past memory of pain is recalled and projected into
future. However, sometimes emotion of fear arises purely because of the self-preservation
instinct of lower mind. Thus we can see that fear has something to do with the past and
future but it doesnt really exist in the present. This time-dependent aspect of fear provides
us the key to the elimination of fear. Thus if we can control the minds tendency to
anticipate and run towards future and train the mind to always remain centered in present
moment, we can control and eliminate fear. Many simple meditative practices, eg breath
awareness can help us increase our ability to remain in the present moment and reduce our
wandering into future or past.

In fact, as your consciousness grows, you will realize that emotion of fear is quite distinct
from object of fear. It is is possible to perceive danger and take self-protective measures
without experiencing fear. Fear is felt either before or after the fearful event has passed but
it is never in the present because in the present you are busy confronting the danger and
there is no time for thinking or imagination and fear is the product of your thinking or
imagination only.

Experience your inter-relatedness with others

We are all a part of this overall creation of God. We are not separate from each other and in
turn we are connected to God. This realization of this inter-relatedness allows us to remove
our false sense of separation which produces a great deal of loneliness, insecurity and fear.
Our realization of oneness with each other creates a feeling of openness and lightness, a
sense of fearlessness and ease. As our sense of separation between ourselves and others
becomes less and less acute, we begin to work for the common benefit, for all of us rather
than for me and mine. There is a new sense of harmony with everyone which was absent
when our identity was constricted and narrow. We ralize that the isolation which we felt
earlier was not real but a misconception and illusion based on our ignorance of our true
identity.
With the expanded identity we begin to act from a sense of fullness and inter-relatedness.
We now view ourselves as intimately connected with the whole and working for the greater
benefit of the whole. We see ourselves as one cell in the large body of humanity. In this
state, the idea of working and living for only ourselves seems quite absurd.

Dont think constantly about the things you fear:

To be upset by a thing, we have to be thinking about it. It is impossible to be fearful about

something unless you are thinking about it. If your thoughts are on something pleasant
rather than your fears, you cant be disturbed, no matter what that fear is. Suppose you are
thinking about a delicious meal or a football game instead of your court case, you wont feel
disturbed because your thoughts are elsewhere. Emotionas ralways require the base of
thoughts for their existence. It is the same thing when you turn your eyes from something
unpleasant then you are not able to see it. You can look in only one direction at a time. So is
with your thoughts. If you are feeling uncomfortable what you are thinking about, you an
focus your thoughts elsewhere.

Turning away our thoughts from fears is not the final solution of eliminating fears because it
is simply evading the problem but not solving the problem. But often when nothing works, it
is a great deal better to distract yourself and get your mind off the situation rather than to
dwell upon it all the time.

There are many more dangers in life than the ones you are fearing, so be rational about
your fears.

Although you may have picked up a few dangers in life in your imagination and will be
constantly fearing their materialization, yet you are ignoring a hundred other dangers
around you which are a great deal worse than the ones you are presently focussing upon. If
you are to be consistent about your fears, then you should also worry about an aeroplane
dropping on your house, a comet striking on earth, an atomic bomb blast by some country,
an earthquake, a house collapse, food poisoning in a restaurant, being shot by a terrorist on
the street, being robbed in the house by dacoits, an accident by a careless and speeding bus
driver, a heart attack while sleeping etc.
In fact the possibility of occurence of unpleasant things to us exists everyday of our lives.
We get up and havent the foggiest notion of what painful things might happen to us today.
I and you cant eliminate all the dangers of life.

But does this meant hat we should focus upon all possible dangers at all times. Dont we
have any faith in our ability to survive any crisis. Dont we have any faith in God, ruler of the
world. Once we have done our bit by taking normal desirable precautions about the
perceived dangers in our vicinity, we should leave the rest on God.

By constantly dwelling on the dangers of life, you convert them into greater dangers which
continuously erode you mentally and physically whether they actually materialize in your
life or not. You should assert that nothing outside of you have the power to upset you
unless you allow it to do so.

Dont make a catastrophe of lifes situation

We cant feel fearful about a stiuation unless we say to ourselves that it is a catastrophe or a
life and death situation. If you can persuade yourself that the issue you are dealing with is
not really all that serious, then you are bound to calm down. But if you continue to tell
yourself that this is the most important thing in life and world will end if this thing happened
then you are bound to remain anxious and disturbed.

Fortunately most of the events in our life are not catastrophic. If we look at our fears
carefully and allow sometime to pass by, we will realize that we are not in such a bad shape
as we thought initially.

Experience of thousands of enlightened men who themselves faced many storms in life have
also proved that there is nothing in this life which can be called terrible or unbearable. every
experience can be accepted and handled with serenity and detachment. It is only when we
start taking things unduly serious and giving them more weightage than what they desewrve
that fears start dominating us.
If you can learn to view things, from a distance with a larger perspective maintaining some
separation between you and the things, you will find that things are not as terrible as you
imagined them from a narrow perspective.

How to decatastrophize situations: If you have the habit of making catastrophe of the
various situations and thereby making yourself fearful and upset, then you must learn how
to decatastrophize any such situation so as to bring yourself back to a fearless state. To
decatastrophize any situation you must ask this question to yourself Is this thing so
important? What is the worst which can occur if this thing happens?

For example, suppose you are feeling fearful and anxious about an interview you have to
appear tomorrow. Just ask yourself what it is that you are feeling so nervous? Is it because
you are afraid that you wont be able to reply all the questions? How does it matter if you
are not able to reply their (interviewers) questions? At the most you wont be selected. So
what? Heavens will not fall. You will not become a beggar on the street. If you are afraid
that interviewers will consider you a fool then what will happen even if they think so. There
are many fools in the world including greater fools than you. Is it going to make any
difference to the world even if you are a fool? Will the world become standstill because of
this fact? Then why are you so perturbed?

So this way by questioning and challenging your fears you can decatastrophize any situation.
Nothing is that important.

Everything which happens has a reason. Nothing happens by chance or accident.

Normally we develop the feelings of fear because we assume that any mishappening or
calamity may fall on us any time all of a sudden. But remember nothing happens by chance
or accident in this life. Our life and infact the whole universe is governed by some divine
laws. Nobody can overstep these laws. These laws are operated and implemented by
Almighty God personally with hundred percent precision. Hence there is no scope for
injustice. We, due to our ignorance, may apparently feel some calamity as an injustice to
bus but is never so.

So this assurance should eradicate our fear to a considerable extent that whatever will
happen to us in life will be according to some law and it will be with the knowledge of God.
Nothing will fall on our head just like that. This law justifies various situations in our life on
the basis of various cuases which we have created in hte past. Every cause leads to an effect
and every effect results from a cause.

Hence instead of dreading various sad events which may appear in our life, we should face
them with a welcome attitude and allow their effects to smoothly pass by us. You may learn
not to be affected by whatever happens to you and make your mind independent of outside
circumstances and conditions. If we oppose adversities and generate irritation and
resentment in facing them, then instead of allowing their effect to dissolve, we generate
fresh causes which will create more troubles for us in the future

Dont think about mishappenins and dangers in your life; just face them as they come.

By the law of psychic attraction whatever we constantly fear, we actually attract those
conditions and circumstances towards us and thus make our prophecy selffulfilling. Hence
one shouldnt constantly dwell and focus on the possible future mishappenings. To quote an
example, dont think what will happen if I get cancer? What will happen if my children leave
me alone in old age ? What will happen if I lose my Job? and so on. In fact as already
explained earlier, most of these things are not likely to happen to you. They are just
constructs of your doubtful mind and wild imagination. But by your constant thinking and
fears about them, you might attract them towards you and make them happen to you as a
reality.

Hence, instead of thinking, just go on facing dangers as and when they come to you. Even if
you belive that you will feel pain or suffering at the time of facing the danger, suffer that
pain only at the time of the actual incident. Why do you want to suffer that pain now and
throughout life in your imagination? A philosopher has very rightly written the following
lines for those who were afraid of the pain of death:

Even if you belive that death is painful; why do you want to suffer that pain throughout
your life? Die only at the time of death. Why do you want to die every moment of life in
your imagination

Imagination increases the fear manifold

In fact, actual mishappenings are never that fearful and painful as our imagination about
them. It is our imagination which exaggerates everything beyond all proportion and
prevents us from seeing the reality.

YOu will yourself realize that at the appropriate moment you are able to face any danger
which comes to you and even overcome it as the time passes. It is only your imagination
which holds you back from mustering the necessary courage and keeps you dreaminig about
all negative consequences.

Hence in your thoughts, think only positive and good things happening to you. Negative
things or mishappenings in life should only be faced and not thought.

IN this connection, I would like to pen down the quotes of two great visionaries.

When you dramatize misery, you make it a hundred times worse. The actual misery will be
much less. When you grow spiritually, you dont dramatize a calamity before it happens, you
simply face it with a clear, free and energetic mind

---Swami Jyotirmayananda

The accident is not as terrible as you feared. The hill is not as steepas you thought before
you began climbing.

hence, adopt a hopeful, confident state of mind. SThen the trouble is half overcome before
you start

---swami Sivananda

Adversities in life always come along with solutions

This knowledge should also lesson your fear to a considerable extent that whenever
difficulties come to us in life, their solutions also come along with. We are never given a
burden which we cant bear. If you can look back upon your life, you will surely find that
although you were trapped in many problems in your life yet you could always find some
solution or the other. It was never that you got stuck to a problem for ever and couldnt go
beyond it. So what makes you think that in future it wouldnt be so?

Moreover, as explained earlier, the various difficulties and adversities you undergo in life
have a reason and purpose. They come to teach us certain lessons and to strengthen those
aspects of our personality where we are lagging. In the apparently looking cruel and adverse
circumstances of life is hidden the infinite mercy of God. In fact if you ponder over deeply,
you will find that everything which happens to you is for your good only. Morever no
problem or difficulty is permanent. After serving their necessary purpose, they all will pass
away.

Knowing the above truths and benevolence of God in allotting various problems to us, we
should set aside our fears once for all. Moreover we should develop the confidence that
with the help of our higher mind and Almighty God we can overcome any adverse situation
in life no matter how serious it is. You should keep your mind always in a masters position to
tackle any situation and treat the situations of life as your servants. No situation or problem
of life can be above you. It must bow down before a strong and determined mind.

Overcoming fear of psychic phenomena

Incidents of ghosts, magic disturb only those persons who themselves invite them by
constantly dwelling on these matters and making themselves sensitive to them. The more
you think and fear these things, the more they are attracted to you. This is the law of
psychic attraction. So if you want to remain immune to such disturbances, first of all dont
think constantly about these things and secondly, deny mentally that these things can do
any harm to you. The denial is the positive neutralizer of any negative psychic influence
cominig towards you. What you fear is psychically attracted towards you and what you deny
is repelled from you. Such is the law of nature Denial has a great power of self-protection.
For the purpose of comparison you can understand it like this that an ounce of denial
overcomes a pound of psychic attack directed towards you. I hope you understand that all
the above matters fall in the realm of psychic attack and it is the mentally weak, fearful
person who becomes an easy target to this attack. These things cant touch the mentally
and spiritually strong persons.

Have unshakeable faith in God

Remember that you may take any outward precautions or steps in removing dangers from
your life but still you cant guarantee that you are now hundred percent safe. This world or
life has so many uncertainties that no matter whatever you plan for your safety, there is
always a misstep. It is not within our power to remove all thedangers from this life. In spite
of all our precautions, world can run amok any time. Natural disasters, man made
calamities, accidents, divorces, change of bosses, someone changing his mind, stocks going
down, all are beyond our control. Our final security is in God only.

You are never left alone in any adversity. Omniscient and Omipotent God is always with you
in whatever situation you may be. The whole world may leave you but He wont leave you.

So instead of dwelling all the time on possible dangers of life, we should have an
unshakeable faith in the benevolence and justice of God that whatever he ordains for our
life is right and good for us. No danger can show its face to you without permission of God.
God is above all and under his authority nobody or nothing can cross their designated limits.
No sooner you or anybody crosses his limits, immediately a slap comes from God in some
form or the other.

To know this you should remove the fear that anybody or anything can just harm you in this
world. Everything has to pass through God before harming you. With your firm faith in God
you can assure yourself to ride over any storm in life.

Have Trust in Yourself

Many people have inferiority complex and constantly fear their rejection and disapproval by
others. To remove the fear of rejection and disapproval, it is necessary to have trust in
yourself. Feel that you are as good as any other person. You can do everything what others
can do.
It is not simply a theoretircal preaching. It is a spiritual truth that all of us have got the same
ultimate potential. There is not even an iota of difference. It is only a question of awakening
this potential. If you are feeling self-adequate now, it only means this potential is still lying
dormant in you and you have not yet made efforts to awaken it.

To awaken this dormant potential, first and foremost thing is to belive in it and the second
step is to just start doing what you feel you cant do. Havent you seenmany times that
although before performing many tasks you were a little apprehensive and nervous as to
how you will do it; but when you started doing the same you could do it pretty well. This
clearly shows that you are much better and much more competent than what you think and
it is only your negative and self-defeating thoughts which are holding you back from giving
your best.

6.)Overcoming the greatest Fear: the fear of Death

Although death is the most indisputable fact of life, yet most of the people find this fact very
hard to digest. In fact it can be doubled whether any other thing will happen to you or not in
this life but there can be no doubt about this fact that you will die one day.

Fear of death is no different than other fears of life. Actual death is never that painful as
your imagination about it. In some cases when you find a person dying a miserable death, it
is due to some other factors and not because of the basic nature of death. Have you not
seen those persons dying such a peaceful death. They are talking to you and in the next
moment you find them slipping int o the lap of deaht. No pain. No tension. You also might
have seen many persons whose face radiates peace and joy after death. It is a sign that they
have died peacefully. A person who has lived his life righteously and according to the
dictates of God slips into death, when the time becomes ripe, as naturally as a fruit
spontaneously falls from a tree after gaining full maturity.

Hence death in its true form is a very natural thing and anything which is natural is neither
painful nor to be feared. In the words of a great man it is impossible that anything so
natwural, so necessary and so universal as death should ever have been designed y
providence as an evil to mankind.
In fact much of the fear of deat comes from the fact that man always fears the unknown.
Your imagination always makes a mountain out of a molehill and distorts the reality. Hence
to overcome the fear of death it is first of all necessary to know the realities about death.
The more correctly you understand death, the more free you will be from the fear of death.

Death is the separation of your mind or consciousness or soul from the body. Soul which is
the the real you and gives you the feeling of I-ness, still exists and very much the same as
before your death. It is the body which dies and not the real you. The body is simply your
possession justl ike you possess a car, a house. But you are certainly not the car, not the
house. You are different from them. Similarly we dwell in our bodies but we are not the
bodies. Creator has put us into this body for the duration of our earthly life.

So after death, we are just the same as before except that you dont have a physical body.
Soul now starts life in a new phase of existence which is non-physical while on earth soul
lived a life of physical existence by hiring a body. This change from physical to non-physical
existence is as natural as breathing and we should be as fearless about it as we are about
breathing. There is nothing to fear in death anymore than when we lie down to sleep for the
night. Do we fear when we go to sleep at night? Do we fear when your body undergoes
change from childhood to youth and from youth to oldage. It all happens so spontaneously
and naturally. Actual passing out from the body is not only painless but often accompanied
by a feeling of relif from the heaviness of the body; a natural transition never to be dreaded.

Painless as we know dying to be, it is natures own process and is arrived at the exact
moment scheduled for us by the creator in his great plan. When will it be for me? Forget it.
It is none of our business.

The new world in which we awaken after death is called the Astral world. We discover that
still we are our ownselves. Same thoughts and feelings. We have only shed the body.
However, we quickly become conscious of the fact that things other than yourself are
slightly but defnitely different. There are many spheres in this world known as Astral planes.
You will go into that particular sphere which you deserve as per the Cretors plan. Nothing
can keep you out of that sphere. We will be normally with people of same tastes and degree
of spiritual advancement as ourselves, just as we naturally gravitate to and choose suitable
associations on earth. You may meet in the astral your parents, relatives or friends.
The astral world is not some place far away from earth. It is right here interpenetrating the
same physical world. But since it is at a different vibration so there is no interference
bteween the two worlds. Like the physical world, the astral world also has its own
geography and scenery but you on earth cant see them because it is not in physical
dimensions. It is in astral dimension. It can be vividly experienced by the dead living in the
astral plane. Similarly the astral world has its own laws an dorder. no body can break these
laws and order. If someondy does that, he suffers the consequences just like on earth. In the
astral world although you dont have a physical body, but you do have another body called
Astral body. It is exact duplicate of the physical body except that it doesnt have solidity and
weight. It can also be called shadow body. SInce you dont have a physical body in astral,
most of the activities there are mental and thoughts and imagination play a vital role there.

Your astral stay is basically a transition period between two earth lives, a time for rest and
self-evaluation. This period is used for pondering over what you have done in the past and
what are you supposed to do in future. After remaining in astral for a fixed period as
decided by God, you again take birth into a new body. The place and parents of your next
birth are all decided by the creator depending upon your aspirations and your needs. The
period of stay in astral varies from person to person because every person is different. His
requirements and his degree of evolution are different from otehrs.

The description given above is a very short description about life after deaeth. Volumes
after volumes have been written to unravel this mystery. But for our present purpose this
description is enough and should alleviate any fears in your mind about death. Death is
definitely a major change in your life. But this change is for the better and efinitely not
horrible and miserable as some people wrongly belive. We have not touched here about the
fate of some low level souls who remain earth bound after death because of their acute
emotional disturbances and attachments to earth. They are not able to go their respective
astral plane for a long time. These souls themselves remain in miserable states and alsot ry
to create troubles for those to whom they are related emotionally or by way of revenge. But
these wicked or disturbed souls cant touch spiritually and mentally strong persons. They
can disturb only those who are mentally weak and fearful and belive that they can be
disturbed by these spirits. By such an attitude they give an open invation to these entities to
disturb them. The very fact that you are reading this book and trying to raise your level
proves that you do not fall under this category of souls. So you need not worry at all on this
account.
7.) Physiological Reactions of Fear

When you are under fear, a lot of internal changes in your body are going on. Intensity of
these changes depend upon the intensity of your emotion of fear. Fear is a condition of
stress which activiates the stress mechanism of the body. Body senses your fear as some
kind of threat and gears up all body functions so that you can take immediate action for
fight or flight. Body cant differentiate whether your fear is due to any real physical threat
on your life or it is just an imaginary fear, a product of your doubtful and wavering mind.
Physical reactions in both cases are just the same. These physical changes are brought about
by one branch of autonomous nervous system known as sympathetic nervous system(SNS)
which gets aroused in such circumstances. The important changes in the body which occur
in such a state of mind are summarized as below.

the heart rate increases

the breating speeds up
the stomach produces too much acid
the liver releases sugar into the blood stream to provide more energy
the brain becomes more active and the brain wave frequency increase
the adrenal glands increase the output of adrenaline hormone
all the postural muscles tense up. Blood supply to them increases
Digestion slows down or stops. Muscles in stomach tighten up
The reproductive system stops working
Saliva production slwos down. Mouth driers up.
The skin sweats and there is a decrease in skin resistance
The pupils of the eyes dilate
the hair stands on its end
blood pressure increases
the excretory system closes down
the immune system stops working
tendency of the blood to clot increases
stomach upset and diarrhoea may occur
decrease in blood flow to the periphery of the body producing effect of cold, clammy
hands
hand and body tremors
blood vessels to the skeleton muscles dilate to allow more blood there.
bronchial tubes(airways to lungs) dilate to allow more air to lungs
Red blood cells increase in the blood.
Purpose of writing all these physical changes in the body is that you may increase your
awareness about them when they are occuring. These symptoms can be asily identified by
you than the feelings of anxiety and fear to which you are not even aware of sometimes
when they are going on in your mind. Once you notice that these physical symptoms are
occuring in you, you can take corrective action to alter these symptoms by various
relaxation and other techniques(as described elsewhere in the book). Once the physical
symptoms of fear and anxiety are controlled, mental anxiety is also reduced since mind and
body are close interlinked.

Both(mind and body) affect and are affected by each other. They cant function
independent of each other.

If the body continues to have these symptoms constantly as happens in free floating
anxiety(where the person is in a continous state of anxiety and overarousal), then the
person becmoes the victim of a lot of psychosomatic diseases because the body is not able
to come to the state of Homeo-stasis which is very vital if the body is to remain in a
balanced and healthy state. Some of the psychosomatic illnesses which can be caused by
constantly remaining in stress due to fear are as follows:

Respiratory disorders (a) asthma (b) Hay fever (C) Vasomotor Rhinitis (D) Allergy

Gastro-intestinal disorders a) Peptic ulcer B) Colonic disorders

Skin disorders a) Eczema b) Ringworm c) Scurvy

Disorders of muscles and joints a) rheumatoid arthritis b) Fibrositis

Endocrine disorders a) Hyperthyroidism b) Diabetes melitus

Cardiovascular system a) Essential hypertension b_ Cerebrovascular disease c) Coronary

disease 3) Migraine

Disorder associated with menstrual and reproductive functions

a) pre-menstrual tension b) menopausal disturbances

Now which disease one will catch depends upon which system is weaker in ones body.
Fears and anxieties (and in fact any kind of stress) lower the general resistance of the body
making the individual vulnerable to infections as well as other diseases. This comes about
because stress interferes with the immune system by reducing the overall number of
lymphyocytes. Lymphocytes are the cells which attack foreign objects like bacteria, viruses,
fungi and tumours as well as tissue grafts and organ transplants. Experiments with
artificially frightened animals have also proved the impairment of the immune system and
reduced lymphocytes level during fear.

8.) Behavioural responses of Fear

Continued and irrational fears affect the general behaviour of the victim significantly. His
behaviour no more remains normal and healthy. It becomes a little abnormal. The following
tendencies are specifically observed.

Escape and avoidance:

Escape is one of the most basic behavioural responses to fear. The victim normally tries to
avoid and remain far away from those situations which he fears. For example, a child who
anticipates that some aspect of his school will be unpleasant may well try to avoid it by
staying at home. Similarly an office going person who has become an escapist by nature may
well try to take a lot of holidays and leaves to avoid the threats which he anticipates in his
job. But this type of behavioural response only reinforces the fears of the victim more and
more instead of helping him to come out of his self made net.

Consumption disorders

This type of fear related behaviour involves eating, swallowing or otherwise taking things
into the body. Smoking, drinking, overeating, undereating and the taking of medicines or
other drugs are all behaviour patterns.

Some people overeat as a response to fear and anxiety and may become overweight or
obese. this leads to dissatisfaction with ones apperance and puts a strain on the heart.
Conversely fear can also lead to severe loss of appetite and undereating(anorexia). Smoking
and drinking are other fear related forms of behaviour. Quantity of smoking and drinking
increases considerably in moments of intense anxiety.

Psychological responses:

Under conditionsi of fears and anxieties our mental alertness and concentration in our day
to day work decreases. Our mind keeps on dancing from one thing to another very fast. Our
memory weakens. We become confused and fickle minded in taking decisions. Our sense of
humour is lost. We also become victims of sleep disorders. We react nervously and irritably,
losing control over our reactions. We also become accident prone at home, at work and on
the road.

9.) Phobias

Any amount of knowledge about fear would be incomplete without understanding phobias
and the nature, causes and treatment of them. Hence a special chapter on this is included in
the book.

What is a phobia

A phobia is an exaggerated and unreasonable fear about something. If someone reacts to

something as if it were dangerous, when in reality it is not, we speak of a phobia. In all of
the common phobias the degree of fear the individual experiences is quite out of proportion
to the actual danger.

Phobias are different from fears in the severity of reaction.

With phobias the level of emotional disturbance and the level of physical arousal of the
body is abnormally high. People with phobias reach a state of panic whereas those with
simple fears rarely do. It is to be noted that things which are really associated with real
dangers in life such as driving a car on road, almost never become the focus of phobias.
Other such as a spider are generally harmless, frequently become the subject of phobias.

The most important ingredient of phobia is avoidance. A phobic individual is acutely

conscious of the possibliity of coming into contact with the thing for which he has phobia.
For example a person with a spider phobia may avoid going into the bathroom in cause
there is a spider in the bath.

Types of Phobias:

There are three main groups of phobias

a) Specific phobias
b) Social phobias
c) agoraphobia

Specific phobias involve distinct objects, animals or defined situations. Some of the
commonest specific phobias are of spiders, birds, dentists, injections, heings

social phobias include phobias of parties, public speaking, eating in public places and
interaction with opposite gender.

agoraphobia is really a set of problems centering around a fear of being away from home by
oneself. This fear is often associated with a feaer of enclosed places(Claustrophobia) and a
fear of travelling by public transport. Agoraphobhics become highly panicky if they are
unable to get back to home due to any problem. Agoraphobics will often have other phobias
particularly social phobias. The social isolation that agoraphobia leads to, can finally result in
loneliness and depression.

Causes of Phobias

There can be many causes which can lead to the development of different phobias:
 If a person, specially in his childhood has undergone any extremely frightening
traumatic experience he is likely to develop a phobia against that particular situation
or against thatt ype of person or whatever it is.
If we are told repeatedly by reliable individuals that something is dangerous we may
develop a phobia against it.

There is a tendency among children to develop phobias for those things for which their
parents( either mother or father) are phobic and repeatedly show their fearfulness for those
things. Psychologists have proved that we get many of our emotional responses through
observing others.

Treatment of Phobias

Obviously the treatment of phobias will vary depending upon the nature of the phobia. One
would not treat the phobia of snakesin the same way as the fear of public speaking.
Nevertheless, there are various techniques which can be used either singly or in
combination to treat various types of phobias.

Systematic desensitization

This technique involves teaching the phobic person how to relax and then exposing him/her
to a grades series of feared scenes or objects, starting with the simple scenes. In the case of
a spider phobia, the series might start with pictures of spiders, progressing through small
dead spiders and ending up with larger live ones. The powerful effect of relaxation will act
to neutralize the fear associated with each item in the series. This has proved to be a highly
successful method for treating a wide variety of specific phobias.

Flooding

Flooding

In contrast to the gradual approach of systematic desensitization, flooding involves

prolonged exposure to the feared object. This can be done either with real life situations or
with imagined ones, in which case the technique is known as implosion. These methods
work because experience has shown that even very intense fears naturally subside after
prolonged exposure of several hours duration.
Modelling:

This involves observing non-fearful persons in contact with the feared object, and then
imitating the person by the fearful person. This is the process by which most children lose
their childhood fears. The fearful person has the opportunity to learn more appropriate
ways of behaving toward and dealing with the feared object by observing the other persons
behaving in the same situation.

Self help for fighting phobias:

Common element in all forms of self help is exposure to or confrontation with whatever it is
that you are phobic to. It is important to do it gradually, because sudden and full fledged
confrontation might lead to shock and further increase in the phobia also.

In the case of specific phobias such as fear of certain animals, gradual confrontation may be
achieved using pictures before moving on to the real thing. The gradual approach may also
be used to combat social phobias by first practicing on sympathetic friends and then
gradually extending to any social situations.

If you are agoraphobic, try longer and longer trips from home or journeys on public
transport, first accompanied by some one and later alone.

Another important tool in fighting with your phobia is that be aware of the physical and
behavioural symptoms you develop everytime during a phobic reaction. This awareness will
enable you to apply necessary controls whenever such situation arises again. This is a basic
law that once you become aware of what is happening, then that situation loses it power on
you and you can regulate the situation like a master instead of being helplessly driven by the
situation like a master instead of being helplessly driven by the situation like a slave.

In addition to practising all the above mentioned techniques, a phobic person must practice
daily consicous relaxation as described in chapter 10
10. Medical approach

When your fears and anxieties have reached to such a stage that you remain intensely
fearful and anxious all the time even without any apparent cause then it is not a bad idea to
resort to some medical help. This state of the patient in technical parlance is termed as Free
Floating anxiety and in this state any amount of psychotherapy or preachings wont work at
the first instance. For acceptance of knowledge and suggestion, one has to calm down at
least to a certain limit. This is where medical science comes to our rescue. But this is to be
kept in mind that medical therapy is not to be relied upon for a long term treatment of the
problem because it provides only symptomatic relief and doesnt attack the root causes. It
should be resorted to only as a short term treatment till such time when the patient starts
responding to your life changing suggestions and other nature cure methods for relaxation.

Medical treatment has many side effects also hence it should be used in a restricted manner
only when no other thing works to calm down the patient.

Tranquilizers:

The first group of drugs that are used to calm down an anxious mind is known in common
parlance as tranquillizers. They act as cerebral depressant. The most common of the
modern tranquillizing drugs is the group of chemicals known as benzodiazepines. This
includes the well known diazepam and Nitrazepam better known to many people under
their original trade names of valium and Mogadon. Temazepam is another widely used
member of this group, often prescribed as a sleeping tablet because of its shorter action.
These drugs have largely replaced the older drugs, of which the most important were the
barbiturates, because of their greater safety, especially in overdose.

In cases of serious and continued anxiety in response to a serious stress, a short course of a
long acting tranquillizer such as Diazepam for a week or two will lower the background level
of anxiety sufficiently to be able to cope and deal with stress. Similarly if the anxiety is so
sedvere as to disrupt sleep, which in turn makes your working on the next day still difficult,
then a short acting sedative such as temazepam can be useful for a few days.
The long term use of these drugs creates addiction. It can also produce a continuous state of
mental slowing and even evidence of brain damage. Particularly in the elderly, the
drowsiness and unsteadiness which they cause can result in falls and mental confusion.
Hence the adminis tration of these drugs should be under close medical supervision.

Another point is when the user tries to cut down these drugs, he or she experiences
withdrawal symptoms because of which he or she continues to take them. The only way out
of this vicious circle seems to be slow, gradual withrdrawal over a long period under close
medical supervision. Attempts to cut down too rapidly or just take one when I really need
them can do more harm than good.

Beta blockers

There is another group of drugs which can also reduce the anxiety by affecting the nervous
system in another way. These are known as Beta blockers. Beta blockers decrease the
activity of the sympathetic nervous system. As already described this part of the nervous
system outside the brain is responsible for many of the physical symptoms of anxiety.
Blocking its activity with these drugs stops the rapid pulse and all other symptoms which are
related to anxiety which ultimately results in reduction of mental anxiety.

Unlike the other drugs discussed earlier, these are not addictive and they dont act on the
brain but on the autonomic nervous system outside the brain.

11.) Relaxation therapy

When a person remains generally fearful and anxious without any clear identifiable cause, it
is due to his general high level of arousal. It is related to the type of personality he has.

In such cases it is also advisable for the person to carry out some relaxation exercises to
calm him down and to reduce the general level of arousal which always underlies the
anxiety. It will be in addition to the constant endeavour of changing ones mental attitudes
based on the matter given in earlier chapters.
In relaxation techniques, the aim is to decrease the overactivity of the sympathetic nervous
system which underlies your anxiety. Once the physical factors associated with anxiety are
brought under control by suitable relaxation techniques, it is difficult to be mentally
anxious. These is such a close interconnection between the body and mind.

There are normally three approaches available for relaxation and calming down

1.muscular relaxation

2.Breathing

3. Meditation

Muscular relaxation

Almost always when someone is fearful or anxious, his muscle tension is increased. This
muscle tension makes you further prone to anxiety. By making yourself muscularly relaxed,
you can reduce your anxiety level. Muscular tension is best removed by Hatha Yoga
stretching exerciss. By fully contracting and stretching a muscle to its limit, it comes to a
relaxed and balanced state in its resting position. Some of the stretching exercises to loosen
your muscles are shown above.

You can remove the tension of your muscles by aerobic exercises also because the energy
bound in the form of tightness of muscles is released and consumed in exercising. Massage
is another way to relax tight muscles.

Sitting meditative postures are also very good for calming down your anxiety and
nervousness.

You should sit in any one of them convenient to you for as long as you can sit, making sure
that your trunk, neck, and head remain in a straight line so that spine remains in the correct
alignment. In yogic parlance these postures help to take prana upwards towards the head
which helps in the calming of mind. You can practise padmasana or siddhasana or
swastikasana or vajrasana or Sukhasana.

There is a very good yogasana called Shashankasana which very effectively calms an anxious
and fearful mind. It is described below.
Sit in the position of vajrasana; inhale and then while exhaling stretch your hands ahead,
and bend your body forward from the buttocks. Put your head on the floor. Buttocks
shouldnt be raised above the heels while bending. Breathe normally and rest in those pose
for as long as you wish. Those persons who are fat, and cant bend easily and touch their
head on the floor, they may spread their knees apart while bending.

Breathing

Breathing plays a very key role in relaxing the body and mind. When you are tense and
anxious your breathing is shallow, rapid, jerky and irregular. This type of breathing is only
limited to your middle and upper chest with no movement of the diaphragm. The
relationship is reverse too, ie anybody who is habituated to upper chest breathing will tend
to remain in a state of anxiety and stress.

When your mind is relaxed, your breathing is slow, deep, even and rhythmic. This type of
breathing involves full movement of diaphragm and the breath goes right upto your lower
lungs. This is also called abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing.

So whenever you feel anxious and fearful, you can immediately counter this state by
starting slow, even and diaphragmatic breathing. To ensure that your breathing is
diaphragmatic, just put your ahnds on your abdomen. With every inhalation abdomen
should go up and with every exhalation it should go down. Keep the process easy and
effortless. So by learning to control your breathing you can control your anxiety at will.

Nadi Shodhan pranayama is also said to be very effective for reducing anxiety and bring
balance to your nervous system. This pranayama is very helpful in balancing both
components of your autonomous nervous system, namely, the sympathetic and para-
sympathetic nervous system, and therby stabilize yhour mind.

Holding your right nostril, shut with the edge of your right thumb, inhale to a count of eight
through the left nostril. Then close your left nostril also with the index finger, and hold your
breath for a further count of eight. Release your thumb from the right nostril and exhale to
a count of sixteen, keeping your index finger on the left nostril. Then begin inhaling again
through the right nostril, reversing the sequence. This is one round. Do more rounds as per
your capacity. Retention counts can be gradually increased but the ratio of inahaltion and
exhalation time should be maintained as 1:2. To keep your exhalation extended as required,
you may have to adjust your inhalation and retention time.
Meditation

Relaxation by meditation involves the use of mind itself to achieve relaxation. In this
method mind is made calm and still by focussing it on some neutral thing. This focus can be
a visual object, a sound or a mantra being repeated mentally. The beginners usually find it
convenient to focus their mind on their breath noticing how abdomen swells during the
inhalation and how it falls during exhalation. This breath awareness is good enough for most
of the people to achieve sufficient relaxation. Bringing your mind to the perception of a
single stimulus immediately puts a break to the inner chatter going in your mind and
thousands of thoughts moving across your mind immediately come to a standstill. This is
because while you are perceiving, you cant think. Perception and thinking cant be carried
out simultaneously. But while doing this sort of mental relaxation, the body should be
completely comfortable, clothes should be loose, posture should be straight and balanced.
If there is some discomfort in the body while sitting, it will not allow your mind to focus and
calm down. You can also do this ty pe of relaxation while lying in the bed before going to
sleep to induce an easy sleep particularly when you feel that you are not able to sleep
because of some anxiety.

In addition many other miscellaneous approaches for relaxation and calming down can also
be used. For example, cold water acts as a great relaxant for an anxious and aroused person.
It immediately soothes the frayed and tense nerves.

As you gradually calm down by these relaxation techniques, you feel at ease even in the
midst of fearful circumstances and you know that your fear will not grow into something
that will overwhelm you. When you know you are capable of taking care of your fear, it is
already reduced to the minimum, becoming softer and not so unpleasant. You now have the
opportunity to go deeper to the source of fear and let it go.