You are home alone in the middle of the night and you are watching a show on television. Suddenly, you hear a distinct bang on your door, as if someone was trying to break in. Your heart is racing. Your muscles tense. You start breathing quickly. To your relief, the sound was only that of the wind slamming against the door. For a second, you were so scared that you completely seized up and there wasn't even any real danger. It's fear. But for a more scientific explanation, fear is a chain reaction in the brain that starts with a stressful stimulus (a spider, heights, crowds, a slamming door, etc.) and ends with the release of chemicals which cause an accelerated heart rate, rapid breathing. and muscles under tension, other things, also known as the fight or flight response. Fear is a common phobia. In fact, almost 6.2 million American citizens suffer from some sort of specific phobia. If so many people suffer from fear phobias, how can they effectively overcome their fears? People have the ability to overcome their fears by analyzing, taking control, and changing the way they think about their fears. The first way people can begin to overcome their fears is to analyze them. They can start by recognizing their fear. People often try to ignore their fear, which is a mistake, because when they face it, they won't know how to react correctly. Name your fear and write it down so you can begin to eliminate the feelings of anxiety lingering in the back of your mind. For example, you can write a journal to record your progress in overcoming your fear. This can be useful for everyday fears such as large crowds, but not necessarily for extremely improbable fears like being thrown from a building or stranded on an island. The next part of the analysis is to look for the... middle of document ......o don't be hard on yourself if you can't do something because it takes time. It's important to look back and see how far you've come to overcome your fear. By analyzing first, you were able to question and identify exactly what your fear was and what caused it. Then you were able to desensitize yourself from your fear by familiarizing yourself. Finally, you changed your mind about it and found the courage to overcome your fear. Congratulate yourself on the small steps in your journey, whether it's stopping yourself from screaming and running away from a spider or riding your first roller coaster. Every step makes a difference, no matter how small. You will soon discover that you have opened doors for yourself that you could not have done before. “Only when we are no longer afraid do we begin to live.” -Dorothy Thompson