by Ruth Belena

Created on: June 19, 2009

Excessive feelings of fear or anxiety are harmful to emotional health and wellbeing. It is very important not to live in fear. If you worry all the time about what might happen, you are unable to appreciate what is happening in your life right now. The things you fear most will probably never happen anyway.

~ Build Courage

You need to build courage, and put anxiety behind you. When you build courage, you start to improve your personal life. With courage you can leap forward, rather than hold back when opportunities come your way. The fear of failure will prevent you from trying anything new, so you will never really move on, and can never know success.

Building courage is the process of admitting that you have fears. It shows you are willing to find a way to defeat those fears and not allow fear to take control of you.

There is nothing wrong with fear itself, the problem is when fear has a hold on your life. When you build courage, you learn to direct your own life.

Courage allows you to take a view of your mistakes gracefully. There is no point in worrying over what happened in the past. With courage you will be motivated to accept responsibility, review your actions and use what you learn to leap ahead.

~ Stop Worrying

You need to develop an outlook that will prepare you for whatever happens in life. There is no point living in constant fear, by worrying about getting cancer, having a fatal heart attack, falling from a great height, or being brutally murdered.

You should, of course, try to avoid bad things happening, by taking good care of yourself and your loved ones. Put an end to dangerous habits and promote good health. Encourage physical activity and eat nutritious food.

When you are less affected by anxiety and worry you can deal more easily with any serious illness or injuries that may happen. You can focus more on recovery and consider ways of making the best of life, despite illness or injury.

~ Overcome Anxiety

Stress prevention can be more effective than feeling anxious in a stressful situation, so try a few stress reducing techniques and learn to relax more.

Try this exercise to reduce your levels of anxiety.

1. Think about a recent event and look at the positive side. Then think of a negative aspect to it. If, for example, you have just been accepted for a job, you will enjoy having a better income. The downside could be that you will have less free time.

2. Now think about a recent failure or disappointment. Consider both the positive and the negative aspects.

3. Keep repeating this exercise, always trying to be more positive, where previously you felt fear, stress, anxiety or worry .

As you change your outlook on life, you start expecting good results rather than worrying, you will find that you are overcoming your anxiety. You will stay strong and feel powerful, rather than powerless, depressed, angry or afraid.

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