Fear has both a biochemical and emotional response. Biochemically, when confronted with danger the body responds with increased heart rate, sweating, and adrenaline to either fight or flee. Emotionally, the response to fear is individual - some see it positively and seek thrills while others avoid fear. Phobias are persistent, excessive fears of objects or situations. The emotional response to fear can be reduced through repeated, gradual exposure which increases familiarity and is the basis of treatments like systematic desensitization. Overcoming fear involves recognizing hidden fears, challenging excuses, using imagination to reframe negative thoughts, and gradually exposing oneself to feared situations.

1. SUBJECT: Introduction to
psychology
and sociology
Presented
by:
Saswat Kumar Panda
Rishita Garg

2. Fear is a powerful and primitive human emotion. It alerts us to
the presence of danger. Fear can be divided into two stages,
biochemical and emotional. The biochemical response is
universal, while the emotional response is very individual.
What is Fear?

3. When we confront a perceived danger, our bodies
respond in either a Physical way such as: sweating,
increased heart rate and high adrenaline levels. - This
physical response is sometimes known as the fight or
flight response in which the body prepares itself to
either enter combat or run away. - This biochemical
reaction is likely an evolutionary development. It is an
automatic response and is crucial to survival.
BIOCHEMICAl RESPONSE

4. The emotional response to fear is quite
personalized. -Some people are adrenaline junkies,
thriving on extreme sports and other fear-inducing
thrill situations. - Others have a negative reaction
to the feeling of fear, avoiding fear-inducing
situations at all costs.
- Although the physical reaction is the same, fear
may be perceived as either positive or negative.
EMOTIONAL RESPONSE

5. Phobia
1.Specific (simple) phobias, which are the most common
and focus on specific objects.
2. Social phobia, which causes extreme anxiety in social or
public situations, and.
3. Agoraphobia, which is the fear of being alone in public
places from which there is no easy escape
A phobia is an anxiety disorder defined by a
persistent and excessive fear of an object or
situations

6. - Repeated exposure to similar situations leads to
familiarity.
- This greatly reduces both the fear response and the
resulting elation, leading adrenaline junkies to seek
out ever new and bigger thrills.
-It also forms the basis of some phobia treatments,
which depend on slowly minimizing the fear response
by making it feel familiar. (systematic desensitization)
ACCLIMATION

7. How to overcome fear?
Fear isn’t bad or good.
It’s a question of effectiveness.
In some situations, fear helps
whereas in others it’s a disability.
A disability that you must overcome.

8. Ways to overcome fear
Most times, you don’t know which thought is causing a headache. Yet,
you feel it so strongly. It fears like these that are most hard to
overcome because you don’t know what they are.
To verify if you have hidden fears, look at your levels of stress and
anxiety. The more you live in stress, the more unconscious fears you
have.
An effective way to do that is by making a list — “Make a list of all the
things you want to do but can’t. Take a deep look and question your
excuses. This inquiry will lead to some stupid little fear”.

9. Use the same imagination that exaggerates your negative outcomes
into exaggerating the positive outcome.
If you can make a mental movie of all the bad things that could
happen, you can also make a mental movie of all the good that can
happen.
Both have no basis in reality but one relaxes you. If you fear social-
situations, imagine making new friends. Imagine that everyone is
smiling at you. If it’s about your job, imagine getting a promotion.
Imagine that you succeed in your side-business.

10. Basic principle of exposure therapy, in which psychologists expose the
person to their fear gradually until there is no fear left.
Once you have made the list, your fears will look like — “I can’t work
because I won’t do good enough” “I can’t be honest because I will be
hated”
Once you have momentum, you don’t need any motivation to take
action. fighting fear becomes easy. The tiniest of steps can lead to the
biggest of successes