The expert on the show was Major Roy, the proprietor of an adventure arena in Chennai.  His primary advice was that anyone with fears of any sort should – Recognize, identify, confront/deal with the fear and move on!

 

He said there are 2 types of fear:

(1)    Perceived – it is primarily in our minds

(2)    Actual – exists and is normal

 

The 1^st caller was a young student. She spoke about her first time fears when she did rappelling and bungee jumping. She did them when she was less than 10 years old and was only able to do so because her father was there to help her and talk her out of her fears in the first few minutes. Her biggest fear was not being able to see the bottom of the sea when she did snorkelling as it was such a different feeling than being able to see the floor of a swimming pool. She next wants to do sky diving and conquer that as well.

 

Major Roy says-The best way to rationalize fear is to think about the people who have done the activity that you are scared to do. You are not lesser than those people, so go ahead and do it! You must be willing to overcome it as external pressure does not work as much as your own conviction.

 

Is fear only about the mind? Major Roy says yes, mostly it is psychosomatic and can be overcome.

 

The next caller felt that his fears make him to feel that he doesn’t have the freedom that other people have to enjoy life. Major Roy said he then needs to confront his fear; stop saying that those fear exists. Basically he needs to – Get out and stand on the edge!

 

The 3^rd caller, also a student, is an outdoor person and is extremely claustrophobic. Major Roy told him to analyse his fear to see if it is perceived or actual.  What are you afraid of, he asked? Is it about falling down? Or the roof falling or something else? He felt one will soon realize that there is no specific reason!

 

Major Roy said his years in the army definitely helped him overcome many of his fears.  He strongly felt that the way you are brought up makes a huge difference. Children are born without fear, so any fears that form are because of the immediate environment and people, including parents, friends and family.

 

His final words – Go there, do that!

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Acrophobia  is an extreme or irrational fear of heights, especially when one is not particularly high up. It belongs to a category of specific phobias, called space and motion discomfort that share both similar etiology and options for treatment.

Most people experience a degree of natural fear when exposed to heights, known as the fear of falling. On the other hand, those who have little fear of such exposure are said to have a head for heights. 

Here’s some of what you can do to help overcome a fear of heights.

1) One step at a time, please

There is a technique used by some psychologists called ‘flooding’. The idea is that if you confront your fear head on, in one fell swoop, then your fear system will be so overpowered that when you calm down, the fear will be gone.

Way back when, kids who feared water used to be thrown in at the deep end of a pool. I’m not saying this never works, but in my experience of clearing up the psychological mess of people who’ve survived this ‘technique’, it can often deepen the trauma if it doesn’t work (and it often doesn’t).

So I’m suggesting you only do what you’re comfortable doing – one step at a time. Practice visiting one level of a building, then eventually the next, and so on, until, bit by bit, you become accustomed to getting higher.

Set small challenges for yourself: “Okay, today I’m just going to walk across that low bridge over the stream and see how that feels…and next week I’ll have a look at going up a notch by seeing how it feels to walk halfway up that office block in town…”

2) Lower the fear as you get higher

Fear, terror, and anxiety feel like they just ‘happen to us’. We don’t describe, say, panic as something we ‘do’, but as something that ‘attacks’ us. But there are things you can do even when you are up high (or about to be) to quickly calm down and thereby take control.

• Breathe yourself back down to calm: When people are scared, they either forget to breathe (for short periods of time, obviously) or they just breathe quickly in but forget to breathe out. To lower panic, pause your breathing for 5 seconds, then take a big breath in and exhale slowly. Ensure you breathe out for slightly longer than you breathe in, as this will rapidly start to calm you right down.
• Scale the fear in numbers: Because your ‘thinking brain’ tends to be ‘swamped’ by the emotional brain when you feel fearful, you can actually diminish the fear by forcing your thinking brain to work – thus diluting the anxiety. The easiest way to do this is through scaling the level of fear.

Think: “If absolute terror is 10 and total calm is 1, where am I right now on that scale?” You might decide you’re at an 8. Now, as you start to extend your exhalations, notice how those numbers go down as you feel calmer.

3) Forget the past

Well, don’t actually forget the past, but learn to feel relaxed about old high up situations. For months after my first bungee jump, I could ‘get the fear back’ simply by remembering that time. If you also find that you can feel fearful just by recalling previous times you were anxious up high, then you’ll need to start to feel relaxed when you recall those old fearful times so as to ‘unhook’ the fearfulness from the memory. This is often the first step to overcoming fear of heights.

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Article Credits: http://www.uncommonhelp.me/

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In today’s world, stress from one’s surroundings has become a part and parcel of life. How each one of us deals with it differs and hence the actual results vary in their impact. The expert on today’s show was Dr.Krishna Raman, a follower of B.K.S Iyengar, who integrates the practice of yoga with modern medicine.

 

Dr. Krishna Raman said that when people come to consult with him they are initially sceptical of performing the asanas prescribed, but once they start realising the positive impact it has, they want to continue learning it at a higher level. Doc said that Yoga definitely helps with Anxiety attacks as it addresses both the Psyche and the Soma i.e. mind and body – it is holistic.

 

The show had a couple of callers. One caller had a nephew who had gone through a bad bullying experience in school which was still affecting his daily and college life.  Dr.Raman said that such an individual needs both medication and counselling for a period of time along with yoga and pranayama. In time only yoga and pranayama, practiced regularly, would be required to calm him, giving inner stability and hence help in dealing with social pressures.

Another caller wanted to know if yoga could help an 80 year old arthritic patient with Bipolar disorder. Dr. Raman advised him to bring him for a consultation while saying that yoga can be practiced by people of all ages. He also said that the patient has to be willing and also make an effort from their part to be open to this multi-pronged treatment.

Dr.Raman also spoke about the perceptions of yoga and that people think it can cure everything. He said like all things yoga has a specified scope and its set of limitations. For example, it cannot cure Cancer, but it can help in the treatment of various other problems such as anxiety, gynaecological problems, breathing disorders etc. One needs to understand that yoga first helps with the problems of the body which gives feedback to the mind and hence helps the mind.

He said that ideally yoga has to be done under supervision. A wrong angle can change the blood flow to a part of the body causing problems. However simple asanas like Apanasana, Shavasana, simple hand stretches and child’s pose can be done at home.

Medical knowledge is very important to prescribe yoga postures also. Most yoga teachers nowadays do not know this. So be careful who you learn yoga with. Yoga used to be a way of life and should become line that again he feels. It can be primary form of medicine instead of secondary like it has become now.

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