Fearing fear perpetuates fear, psychiatrist says.

Did you know that fear can control your behavior if you let it? David Ropeik an instructor at Harvard University and co-author of “RISK! A Practical Guide for Deciding What’s Really Safe and What’s Really Dangerous in the World Around You” argues that humans are hard-wired to fear first and think second.  Knowing that you have a surgery scheduled you worry about all kinds of things; needles, anaesthetic, whether you will wake up or die under the knife. This writer for instance has a bizarre fear of heights.

On a trip to Mecca five years ago I could not climb higher than a certain height as when I turned around I was almost looming over the city and felt like giving in to gravity and toppling over. How does one deal with phobias and this kind of fear? People who have never experienced anxiety and had full-blown panic attacks do not understand the fear of the sufferer and even though it is demonstrated to you time and again that you can conquer fear, the person does not believe it. Not fully. Not easily. Scientists agree that fear originates in a part of the brain called the amygdala where the ‘fight or flight’ response is launched. 

According to Dr Christopher Leonhard of the Chicago School of Professional Psychology who specializes in phobias and anxiety, our bodies come biologically prepared to go into a fear reaction’. The question, however is not whether a fear is learned or instinctive, but rather what it is that causes the person to respond so fearfully. To paraphrase, ‘what is learned early on and quickly, is the type of circumstance in your environment that causes you to go into that fear response.’ What can be learned from this is that while fear is instinctive and necessary for survival one can be taught what to fear.

Treatment for fear

Some medications can effectively treat fears and anxieties and this should be administered only after consulting a doctor. Another way to treat fear is extinction which involves a step-by-step approach to confront your fears. The idea behind this kind of therapy is to ‘feel’ and process the fear, to face it, and in time to conquer that fear. Leonhard is quick to remind you that while the benefits of extinctions are long-lasting it does not mean that the person will not have another fearful response. “But now you’ll know what to do.”

©2001 - 2012 Medill Reports - Chicago, Northwestern University.  A publication of the Medill School.

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Peeling back the skin of 2012

Has it been a good year, a bad year, a year of growth, of depression, of betrayal, a year of discovering that things are not always what they seem to be? Had someone told me at the beginning of the year that I would develop Parkinson’s I would have laughed. But that is the surreptitiousness of life. When we least expect something, we get it. And when we most wish for it, it is nowhere in sight. There is an old saying that goes like this: “be careful what you wish for.’ There is a reason for it and probably a reason too as to why you should not have everything you wish for. 

Taking stock

Why not look at the coming year as the year of spiritual enlightenment and change and do something we have never done before? Not merely handing a beggar twenty cents, but actually stopping the car and talking and listening to him? We have become such a self-absorbed lot that we hardly look at people on the street for fear that if we look we have to do something to help them. If we don’t look we can forget about it. There are several things we can do that won’t cost a cent but will bring a smile to someone’s face and even give him or her hope.

What you can do to help

·         Read a short story or two at the hospital for old people every Saturday afternoon and engage with them. They need to have people to talk to.

·         Take some magazines and books for hospitalized patients who have nothing to read. Reading is a good pastime and keeps them occupied.

·         Give parents who have children with special needs the night off by looking after the kids for two or three hours. 

·         Instead of celebrating Christmas with the family, roast a turkey and make all the trimmings and take it down to the shelter for the homeless. You can also buy socks and blankets for winter with money you were going to spend on things you don’t need. Have a great New Year!

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Questions which have never been satisfactorily answered

If you cannot answer these questions can you at least think about them and let me have your random thoughts? It might help you make your New Year resolutions and help answer some life questions for scholars.

Q1          Is there any record anywhere of someone who came back from the dead or a near-death experience to confirm there is an after-life? What evidence is there of an after-life and heaven and hell?

Q2          How does one reconcile free will and predestination? If your death is set for a certain hour of a certain day in a certain year, how is there free-will?

Q3          At the time of the Nicene Creed in 325 Constantine did not know what to make of Jesus and said he just called him the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost. If this is true, how do those words make Jesus God?

Q4          Why was the Gospel of Barnabas not included in the Bible? It is this writer’s understanding that there is mention of the last prophet Muhamad in those gospels – not by name but by such terms as the Comforter and so. Correct me with references if I am wrong. 

Q5          Were the two angels in white standing guard at the tomb not friends of Jesus who belonged to a religious group called the Essenes? In the Bible it states that there were two men in white standing at the mouth of the tomb. It makes sense as it was the Sabbath and Jesus’s wounds could not be immediately seen to. Appearing in public then after a few days when his wounds had been treated and after some rest, it would appear that he had risen when in fact he had never been dead in the first place.

Q6          In both the Bible and the Quran it states that heaven and hell are places of rivers and gardens and all things spiritual. How do we know this? Go online and contact me at http://www.raydajacobs.blogspot.com