Fear can occur in any number of situations.  It can be both effective — for instance, when it compels us to run from a burning building — and a blockade that can keep us from living our lives fully.

In a recent article in GQ Magazine, behavioral neuroscientist Mona Lisa Shultz, PhD, describes illogical fear — involving that which does not threaten our lives or well-being — as a “corrupted file that you downloaded by accident that keeps coming up.”

3 Strategies to Ease Your Fears

Fear is elemental and, because of that, incredibly powerful.  When we are afraid of something real, our fear is communicating something important about our world. According to the article, at these times the simplest strategy to reduce your fear is to make friends with it.

Befriending fear is incredibly effective because it short-circuits our natural desire to run when we’re faced with something scary.  Instead, ask yourself “what’s my fear telling me?”  You might find that fear, worry and anxiety are not your enemies, but are signals of important events and circumstances in your life.

If you think of your anxiety about an upcoming meeting as a buzz of energy or as a sign of opportunity and excitement (an emotion that is closely linked to fear), you can harness that power and improve your performance.

Staying with fear, rather than running from it, allows you to respond to its cause and use its intensity to motivate you to act.

The intensity of fear can make you want to stick your head in the sand and ignore it.  But that strategy only increases your fear over time.  A second fundamental strategy for reducing fear is to face it — avoid avoiding it.

Often our fears are based in nebulous, incompletely formed ideas and beliefs.  You may avoid going for a promotion, never start a conversation with someone you admire or not ask for help when you need it out of fear.

Avoiding these situations only intensifies fear based in faulty beliefs.  For example, you may believe “if I put myself out there and am rejected, I’m worthless” or “I can’t handle failure” or “needing help is weak.”

The only way to challenge these faulty beliefs is to throw yourself into the feared situation and learn that you’re not worthless if you’re rejected; failure is painful, but survivable; and asking for help makes it more likely that you will achieve your goals.

You  might just find that much of the time you aren’t rejected; you succeed instead of fail; and asking for help strengthens your relationships.

The third strategy for reducing fear is to think bold, daring and gutsy thoughts.  Shultz suggests that you train a voice inside your head to counter your fearful automatic thoughts.

By doing this, you are teaching the brain a new memory and breaking the link between a circumstance and the experience of fear.  You may need to write down fearful thoughts, such as “I’m going to lose my job” or “I can’t handle it” with direct contradictions.  You may say to yourself, “I contribute a lot to this organization,” or “I’ve overcome difficult situations in the past.”

Fear is a physiological, often illogical experience.  We might experience it recurrently (e.g., every time we think of death), or it can blindside us, throwing us off-guard when we least expect it. 

Try these strategies and see if your fear no longer gets the best of you.

But after working from the inside out, as she puts it, Tristan was able to move past her overwhelming anxiety and panic. Through the use of specific techniques, she’s been able to quell them and lead a fulfilling life.

Below, Tristan, who’s also author of the forthcoming book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living (available December 4, 2012), reveals the four strategies that have helped her overcome anxiety and worry.

I discovered four key strategies or steps to overcoming my fears and worries. I call these CORE concepts because they draw on inner resources, tug them back to the surface of the conscious mind and create the foundation for recovery.

The C in CORE stands for Choice. I learned a very powerful truth: Worry is a Choice. I can accept or veto what my mind is suggesting.

The O stands for Outlook. How I think about anything determines how I experience everything.  In other words, I can choose to change my outlook regarding any situation. This creates a fundamental shift in how I think about my challenges. I become the one who controls my responses and reactions. That places me squarely in the driver’s seat of life.

The R stands for Risk. Worriers don’t embrace the idea of doing anything risky that might amplify feelings of fear. As I began to take small steps out of my comfort zone, I found something amazing: The joy I felt doing new things and challenging myself far outweighed the discomfort of taking measured risks.

Finally, the E stands for Embracing Your Spirit.  By cultivating the highest part of myself (the aspect that loves life, gives direction through my feelings and perceives meaning beyond the five senses), I created a core of self-perpetuating inner power. No matter what happens, I know I can handle it.

Although trapped in a prison of fear and worry for more than 20 years, I found the strength to break free by choosing to make positive changes in my life and cultivating an inner sense of peace and power.

Learn more about Tristan and her upcoming book at her website.

One focus is on the concept of “normalization.” Our brains can be trained, through various exercises created for this process, to understand that flying is a normal, routine activity. Our brains can normalize routine situations, even if these routine situations involve risk.

For example, we likely don’t ruminate over the possibility of slipping every time we shower because our brains have become trained to expect that we will safely take our showers, based on many years of successfully completing this task.

But since most of us only experience flying on an occasional basis, if at all, our brains automatically go on alert when we think of flying.

Whereas showers are routine, flying is not.

This brings us to what I call the “Fear of Flying Mindset.” We do things every day that, if they were to go catastrophically wrong, could result in injury or death. But since these are things we do every day, we don’t fear them. Here’s just a small sample: crossing the street; taking a shower; eating food at a restaurant; riding the subways; driving; riding a bike; eating (generally); and many others.

Every day we probably do at least five things that in the worst-case scenario could have life-changing results. And in fact, if we were to research statistics, we’d most likely find that the things we do every day have a greater chance of harming us than does flying. However, the point of the Fear of Flying Mindset isn’t to train us to feel that flying is 100 percent safe, it’s to train our brains to understand that we already routinely do things with greater risk than flying.

People tend to think that if they get on an airplane that they are heavily increasing their risk of death. Because the normalized areas of our lives involve risk, people subconsciously take for granted that getting on an airplane breaks some form of invincibility — that if they don’t get on the airplane, then nothing else will stand in the way of a long-lasting life.

This is where the cognitive distortion is found. We magnify the risks of flying while diminishing the greater risk of almost everything else we already do. The exercises that accompany the Fear of Flying Mindset are meant to train our brains that flying on an airplane is really no different than anything else we do in our daily lives. We are already risk-takers, we just don’t think about it until we’re doing something out of the ordinary.

Now, I’m sure some of you may be reading this thinking, thanks a lot, now I’m going to be anxious about everything I do. However, it’s usually tough to break normalizations without experiencing a trauma in particular areas. Some people have actually felt liberated seeing that they already take risks in their lives when they’ve previously felt constricted by their perceived inability to take risks.

The next time you feel like avoiding a flight because of the fear that it could cut your life short, think about the things you already do every day that you have normalized over time. While this may seem like a very “glass is half-empty” approach, it’s actually an approach that people have found significantly helpful (and one of the overall favorites) in the process of overcoming fear of flying.

Offhand, I can’t think of anything that we do on a regular basis that involves less risk than flying. It may seem counterintuitive since we’re high in the sky and seemingly more vulnerable on a plane, but flying is actually one of the safest things we can actually do.

Keep in mind, there are still other psychological factors that need to be addressed as part of overcoming fear of flying (see articles below), but normalizations are one of the key components. The overall hope with the Fear of Flying Mindset is that we become more realistic about the role flying has relative to how we live our daily lives.

In conjunction with the normalization exercises, and other facets of Fear of Flying?…Not Anymore!, getting on a plane may become an afterthought, just like crossing the street.

See also:

• Why Do We Fear Flying?

• Fear of Flying — How to Overcome
• Fear of Flying?…Not Anymore!

But your anxiety isn’t that random. “Your anxiety is actually a process,” writes Holly Hazlett-Stevens, Ph.D, an assistant professor of psychology at the University of Nevada, in her book Women Who Worry Too Much: How to Stop Worry & Anxiety from Ruining Relationships, Work & Fun. “It’s made up of a series of thoughts, feelings, sensations and behaviors.”

The key to better understand your anxiety and worry is to examine all these components individually. Once you know how your anxiety and worry manifest, you can work on reducing them.

Your Thoughts

What you say to yourself can serve as a major trigger for anxiety. According to Hazlett-Stevens, worry thoughts often begin with the question “What if?” What if they get into an accident? What if I fail? What if everyone thinks I’m an idiot? What if I lose my job? What if my husband loses his?

In addition to worrying about the future, you might worry about the past. You also might (mis)interpret certain physical sensations, assuming that a racing heart signals something is really wrong, Hazlett-Stevens says.

To identify the specific thoughts driving your anxiety and worry, consider the following, according to Hazlett-Stevens:

• “What thoughts run through your mind when you’re feeling anxious?”
• “How do these thoughts impact other anxiety components, including your feelings, physical sensations and behavior?”
• Compare your worry thoughts to the thoughts you have when you’re happy, calm or angry.

Your Feelings & Physical Sensations

When you’re anxious, it’s common to feel frustrated, uncomfortable or annoyed, Hazlett-Stevens says. Our physical signs can be either voluntary sensations such as furrowing the forehead, shallow breathing and clenching your jaw or involuntary sensations such as a racing heart, sweating and shaking, she says.

Hazlett-Stevens suggests asking these questions to figure out your feelings and sensations:

• What physical sensations do you experience when you worry?
• Do you experience the same sensations or feelings every time?
• Does it depend on the situation?
• The more you worry, do your feelings or sensations escalate or change?
• When do you experience more intense sensations, such as a racing heart?

Your Behaviors

According to Hazlett-Stevens, your behavior refers to any action you do or don’t take. When you’re anxious or worried about something, it’s common to avoid or withdraw from it.

For instance, you might avoid social situations, driving down a specific street or speaking your mind, she says. Or your avoidance actions might be more subtle, such as seeking reassurance from others.

All of these behaviors, Hazlett-Stevens says, have one thing in common: You perform them to get instant (but temporary) relief. The problem is that avoidance backfires and actually reinforces and heightens your anxiety.

“Any hidden beliefs that those situations really are threatening and you won’t be able to handle them are strengthened,” she writes.

Here are some questions to ask about your actions:

• “What situations have you avoided because of your worry?”
• If you didn’t avoid a situation, did you avoid certain behaviors? Hazlett-Stevens gives the example of a woman attending a party but not starting any conversations because she’s worried of embarrassing herself.
• Do you avoid speaking up in your close relationships?
• Do you engage in subtle avoidance actions, such as seeking reassurance from others or calling your loved ones repeatedly to make sure they’re OK?

Pinpointing Your Personal Patterns

When you’re excessively anxious, it can be tough to separate out each component, Hazlett-Stevens says. That’s why it helps to figure out your personal patterns and reactions. For instance, consider how your worry thoughts lead to your feelings and how certain sensations lead to your worry thoughts.

What also helps, according to Hazlett-Stevens, is to pay attention when you’re worrying in the future. Be curious about how you arrived at that anxious place, she says.

She suggests asking these questions to figure out the sequence of your anxiety and worry:

• “When did you last feel calm or not anxious?
• Then what happened?
• Did your sequence begin with a worried thought this time?
• Was it in response to something that just happened?
• Did you hear or see something that reminded you of your worry or did the worry just appear in your mind for no clear reason?
• Once you began to worry, what feelings and sensations followed?
• What did you say to yourself in response to them?
• Did you change your behavior in any way during this sequence, such as checking something, seeking reassurance, or avoiding doing something? If so, what thoughts, feelings and sensations followed?”

Learning how anxiety and worry manifest in your life can help you in working through them. To learn more about reducing worry and anxiety, check out this piece from our mental health library.

Germs are indeed potentially harmful to our health. But so is being driven around in a car to soccer or dance practice. And while most germs won’t kill you, many automobile accidents will.

Because germs are everywhere, in virtually every environment you live or work in, it’s silly to believe you can somehow “escape” them (short of living in a clean room). The key is to take reasonable measures to help protect yourself from germs — but not to give into some irrational fear of them.

That’s why touchless soap dispensers are just plain silly and have far more to do with marketing to our irrational fear of germs than doing much of anything to actually help us wash our hands better.

Here’s what KidsHealth has to say about one of the most common ways to prevent germs:

Hand washing! Remember the two words germs fear — soap and water. Washing your hands well and often is the best way to beat these tiny warriors. Wash your hands every time you cough or sneeze, before you eat or prepare foods, after you use the bathroom, after you touch animals and pets, after you play outside, and after you visit a sick relative or friend.

There is a right way to wash your hands. Use warm water and soap and rub your hands together for at least 15 seconds, which is about how long it takes to sing “Happy Birthday.”

Everyone knows washing your hands is an important way to combat germs. But not everyone understands how some things — like touchless soap — do absolutely nothing to help you wash your hands in a cleaner environment.

Enter, the marketers.

I’ve seen TV commercials now for some time promoting touchless soap as the next best thing. On its website, Lysol notes, “With the Lysol® No–TouchTM Hand Soap System, you and your family will never have to touch a germy soap pump again.” Well, that much is true. But so what?

As our graphic nicely illustrates, you don’t touch a soap dispenser after you wash your hands — you only touch it before you wash your hands. The “touchless” component of the soap makes absolutely no difference in your exposure to germs while washing your hands.

Instead what you need to be more concerned about are things that the good folks at Lysol don’t market — how you dry your hands, and how you turn off the water of your faucet. Faucets and dish towels are two of the places in your house where you’ll find the most germs. But since Lysol doesn’t make air hand dryers or faucets, they don’t mention this.

This is why you’ll see in many public bathrooms touchless faucets and touchless paper towel dispensers (or air hand dryers), in addition to the newer touchless soap dispensers. The touchless soap dispensers are simply part of a larger system, however. On their own, they are practically useless since once your hands are clean, you’re not touching any soap dispenser.

If you want to combat germs in your house, you can safely pass on the touchless soap dispenser. Instead, opt in for paper towels by your sink, and consider a touchless faucet (although they remain a pricey item, especially if you’re considering replacing all the faucets in your house).

None of which will still do you much good, since many of are not washing our hands correctly anyway. How many of us vigorously scrub both the front and back of our hands every time we wash?

But here’s the thing. For more than a hundred years, we’ve been getting by pretty well with keeping germs largely in check with plain old soap and water. Just wash your hands regularly throughout the day (especially after going to the bathroom, playing outside, and handling any kind of raw meat), and you’ll be good.

When not addressed, these components feed off of one another, and can make our flight experience cognitively, physically, and emotionally quite uncomfortable. In essence, this is the fear of flying.

Fear of Flying?… Not Anymore! is a program I designed to directly address these areas of cognitive, emotional, and physiological dysregulation during flying. In addition to my work as a therapist, I have a background in and an ongoing study of aviation, including flying airline and general airplane simulators on a regular basis. This knowledge of aviation enables the combination of tools from both the therapeutic and aviation worlds to resolve people’s fear of flying.

The program utilizes a variety of therapy techniques integrated with passenger flying education. Its goal is to build situational control and mastery over the complete passenger flying experience. Some people have even found the program makes flying enjoyable, even after decades of not getting on a plane.

Understanding Flying

One of the components that sets this program apart from a strictly therapy-based approach is the inclusion of passenger flying education. In order to conquer the perceived threats (arguably the most potent contributor to fear of flying), it is necessary that part of the process is to understand our flying environment. Though there are therapy techniques that can work to soothe dysregulated thoughts and emotions if we don’t understand our environment, it makes little sense to be defaulted into fear and anxiety and coping with it, when it’s possible to prevent the distress in the first place with some information. If you think you’re locked in a room with a tiger, wouldn’t it be nicer to simply know that you’re only in a room with a cat, rather than having to cope with unnecessary fear? So in order to soothe our perceived threats and help prevent unnecessary fear, we need to align our perceptions of our environment with reality. Here’s one example of this:

Environmental Myth: Shortly after takeoff, I feel the plane sinking.

People often ask about the “sinking” sensation that happens shortly after takeoff. The truth is that airplanes require more power to take off than they do to climb. So after the plane is in the air for about 30 seconds, the amount of thrust (speed) is reduced. This reduction of thrust is physiologically experienced as a sinking feeling; however, the plane is actually still climbing.

This is an example of how having knowledge becomes a form of emotional control. It’s more helpful to know what is actually happening here, rather than needing to cope with the resulting emotions of a distorted reality. If we know what’s happening in our environment, then we are soothing our perceived threats with real knowledge — and we’ll still have the other techniques in our back pockets to cope with any residual emotions.

Relaxation Myth: Breathing exercises won’t help me when I’m scared on a plane.

Understandably, it can be hard for people to believe how much something as simple as breathing can help to settle our nerves. Breathing regulation is very important to cognitive, physical, and emotional relaxation. As part of our “fight or flight” response, anxiety and fear causes our breathing to become shallow and rapid (physiologically preparing ourselves to engage in battle, or run). If we regulate our breathing, we create the physiological atmosphere for overall relaxation. Meditation is based on the principle that it’s not possible to feel two conflicting states of emotion simultaneously — we can’t feel fear if we feel relaxed. So breathing exercises (there are many different kinds) are a helpful technique to help soothe ourselves during a flight.

Emotional Myth: My anxiety and fear will never go away as long as I’m on a plane.

Believe it or not, this also isn’t true. Cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) have proven, through various techniques, that we can overcome our fears with motivation and dedication to the process. There are exposure therapies, desensitization techniques, cognitive restructuring techniques, etc., that are specifically geared to soothe our emotional dysregulation in specific situations. Several of the therapy-based techniques in Fear of Flying?…Not Anymore! draw from the bank of CBT approaches.

Normalization Myth: I’m lucky to be alive when I walk off a plane.

This is not true either; however, people who fear flying often feel that their air travel survival was by chance. This highlights another element of overcoming fear of flying that also implements aviation education: “normalization.” One of the reasons that people fear flying is because they do it so rarely (if at all). Generally, when people aren’t flying, they’re completely removed from the atmosphere of flying, which creates the psychological delusion that flying only happens “once in a while.” However, flying is as normal and routine as getting up and going to work every day. Part of the process in conquering a fear of flying is internalizing the routine nature of flying. Therefore, as part of the educational component of reducing perceived threats, a portion of Fear of Flying?…Not Anymore! is devoted to exercises in normalization.

As seen from the discussion above, it is necessary to use a combination of methods, rather than a singular approach, to resolve the components that cause fear of flying. With this approach, we are able to take control of our cognitions, emotions, and physiology to create comfort and relaxation, and maybe even enjoyment in our flying experience.

But what is it about the thought of airplanes that gets us so riddled with fear? Though accidents do happen, they are exceedingly rare, and when in-flight problems occur, the planes usually end up landing safely with no injuries. Flying is actually known to be the safest mode of transportation, yet it’s feared as if surviving a flight is pure luck.

How do you know if you have a fear of flying?

Is a Fear of Flying Impacting Your Life?

There are several ways to figure out if this fear is affecting your life. The most obvious one is a simple refusal to step foot on a plane. As previously mentioned, others with a fear of flying may still do it, but tolerate a significant amount of emotional discomfort in order to do so. People who fear flying will often miss meaningful events — weddings, funerals, graduations, reunions, vacations, visits to friends and family, job interviews, as well as others types of formal or informal gatherings — if air travel is necessary.

Some people structure their lives around the notion that flying will not be a part of it. This means they may avoid significant relocation over the course of their lives — if the opportunity would otherwise be enticing — because moving may require flying as part of the process, whether for job purposes, housing search, or the move itself.

Coming up with excuses to avoid traveling could be masking a fear of flying. If a trip sounds desirable but the flight is holding you back from going, this is an issue to look into.

Psychologically speaking, a fear of flying usually is not a fear of crashing, even if it manifests as one. In fact, many people openly acknowledge that if the plane was flying 50 feet above the ground (without obstructions, of course) instead of 36,000 feet above the ground, they’d feel a lot more comfortable on a plane. Thus, the crash factor seems to be less concerning when we feel more grounded, and therefore, more in control.

So the first component of this phobia is to understand that there are many possible roots to the fear of flying — lack of control, fear of heights or falling, feeling ungrounded, fear of enclosed spaces, trust issues, fear of being trapped, and fear of public panic or illness, among others. And it’s often a combination of issues, rather than just one. The concept of crashing is usually our symbolic catastrophizing of the actual issue. For example: Some people feel if they’re not in control of something that it will go wrong. So if we’re not flying the plane (or don’t understand how the plane or flying works), our feeling is that we will crash. (And chances are, our underlying causes of fear of flying manifest in other areas of our lives as well, but are magnified with flying).

This brings us to understanding phobias. Phobias generally are not based in logic. We may logically know something isn’t threatening, but still emotionally feel that it is threatening. We call these types of threats “perceived threats.” With an actual threat, we are actively in danger, and our “fight or flight” response kicks in so we can attack or find safety. For example: being trapped in a cage with lions and tigers would be an actual threat. With flying, it’s true that it is mathematically and humanly possible (even if only slightly) that a plane could crash; however, the likelihood is very remote.

The level of emotional flooding that some people feel when flying on a plane would make it seem as if they are lucky to be alive when the plane lands safely — as if they were locked in the cage with the lions and tigers (and bears, if you want to go there), and lived to tell. With a perceived threat, our “fight or flight” response kicks in even when we’re not actively in danger, leading to various physiological symptoms.

Another layer to uncover in the nervous flyer is the overactive imagination. Many people who fear flying suffer from the effects of an overactive imagination. People begin to fantasize based on images they saw on TV or in movies, or make up their own creative images. It’s amazing the kinds of thoughts that go through people’s minds when feeling out of control of a situation. Learning how to tame an overactive imagination is one of the keys to conquering a fear of flying.

In addition, the media also can exacerbate fears that already exist, and create fears that didn’t previously exist. Airplanes are a golden topic for the media. Journalists know — the more we fear, the more we pay attention to the stories, and then the more we fear because we paid attention. The result is that we end up exposed to far more dramatic (and often un-newsworthy) airplane stories, as opposed to soothing stories that reinforce safety. The more we hear these stories, as well as the perceived threats that accompany them, the more our fear of flying is reinforced.

In summary, fear of flying is a common phobia, and there are many psychological factors that help create and strengthen this environment of fear. Part 2 will discuss some myths about flying, as well as some strategies to help us manage our emotions before and during flight.

I mean, even those who claim they are normal may, in fact, be the most neurotic among us, swimming with a nice pair of scuba fins down the river of Denial. Having my psychiatric file published online and in print for public viewing, I get to hear my share of dirty secrets—weird obsessions, family dysfunction, or disguised addiction—that are kept concealed from everyone but a self-professed neurotic and maybe a shrink.

“Why are there so many disorders today?” Those seven words, or a variation of them, surface a few times a week. And my take on this query is so complex that, to avoid sounding like my grad school professors making an erudite case that fails to communicate anything to average folks like me, I often shrug my shoulders and move on to a conversation about dessert. Now that I can talk about all day.

Here’s the abridged edition of my guess as to why we mark up more pages of the DSM-IV today than, say, a century ago (even though the DSM-IV had yet to be born).

Most experts would agree with me that there is more stress today than in previous generations. Stress triggers depression and mood disorders, so that those who are predisposed to it by their creative wiring or genes are pretty much guaranteed some symptoms of depression at confusing and difficult times of their lives.

I think modern lifestyles — lack of community and family support, less exercise, no casual and unstructured technology-free play, less sunshine and more computer — factor into the equation. So does our diet. Hey, I know how I feel after a lunch of processed food, and I don’t need to the help of a nutritionist to spot the effect in my 8-year-old son.

Finally, let’s also throw in the toxins of our environment. Our fish are dying… a clue that our limbic systems (brain’s emotional center) are not so far behind.

Maybe the same amount of people have genes that predispose them to depression as in the Great Depression. But the lifestyle, toxins, and other challenges of today’s world tilts the stress scale in the favor of major depression, acute anxiety, and their many relatives.

Of course we can’t forget today’s technology and cutting-edge research of psychologists, neuroscientists, and psychiatrists. Because of medical devices that can scan our brains with impressive precision and the arduous work of scientific studies done in medical labs throughout the country, we know so much more about the brain, and its relationship with other biological systems within the human body: digestive, respiratory and circulatory, musculoskeletal, and nervous. All of that is a very good thing, as is knowledge and awareness.

A few years ago, psychiatrist and bestselling author Peter Kramer penned an interesting article for Psychology Today rebutting the claims of popular authors — spawning a new genre of psychological literature — that doctors are abusing their diagnostic powers, labeling boyishness as “ADHD,” normal sadness and grief as “major depression,” and shyness as “social phobia.” Because of their rushed schedules and some laziness, doctors are narrowing the spectrum of normal human emotion, slapping a diagnosis on all conditions and medicating people who would be better served with a little coaching, direction, and psychotherapy.

As I explained in my piece, “Are We Overmedicating? Or Is Our Health Care System Inadequate?,” I believe the problem is far more complicated than overmedication. I’d be more comfortable labeling it “really bad health care.” And if I had to pick a culprit, I’d point my finger at our health care insurance policies, not the doctors themselves. But I don’t even want to get into that, because it causes my blood pressure to rise and I’m trying really hard lately to live like a Buddhist monk.

What I liked about Kramer’s article is that he doesn’t deny that there are more diagnoses today, and yes, some people may feel the damaging effect of stigma. However, more often than not, diagnosis brings relief and treatment to a behavior, condition, or neurosis that would otherwise decay certain parts of a person’s life, especially his marriage and relationships with children, bosses, co-worker, and dare I say in-laws? Kramer writes:

Diagnosis, however loose, can bring relief, along with a plan for addressing the problem at hand. Parents who might have once thought of a child as slow or eccentric now see him as having dyslexia or Asperger’s syndrome—and then notice similar tendencies in themselves. But there’s no evidence that the proliferation of diagnoses has done harm to our identity. Is dyslexia worse than what it replaced: the accusation, say, that a child is stupid and lazy?

People afflicted by disabling panic or depression may fully embrace the disease model. A diagnosis can restore a sense of wholeness by naming, and confining, an ailment. That mood disorders are common and largely treatable makes them more acceptable; to suffer them is painful but not strange.

Then Kramer asks this question: What would it feel like to live in a world where practically no one was normal? Where few people are free from “psychological defect?” What if normalcy was a mere myth? He ends the article with this poignant paragraph:

We are used to the concept of medical shortcomings; we face disappointing realizations—that our triglyceride levels and our stress tolerance are not what we would wish. Normality may be a myth we have allowed ourselves to enjoy for decades, sacrificed now to the increasing recognition of differences. The awareness that we all bear flaw is humbling. But it could lead us to a new sense of inclusiveness and tolerance, recognition that imperfection is the condition of every life.

Amen to that.

According to a 2001 poll, more than 40 percent of Americans confess to a dread of appearing before spectators. (In some surveys, fear of public speaking even outranks fear of death, a fact that inspired Jerry Seinfeld’s famous observation that at a funeral, this means the average person would rather be in the casket than giving the eulogy.)

To get to the solution of this phobia — which can help us with all our other phobias — Clark tells the story of cellist Zoe Keating. Today her music is featured everywhere from National Public Radio to film scores to European ballets. Clark attended one of her performances and comments, “Keating seemed entirely oblivious to the hundreds of eyes watching her. She played as though she were in the midst of a dream, eyes closed, swaying languidly with her cello, utterly immersed in her performance.”

But it was a long way getting there.

Her process is intriguing and insightful for anyone trying to get over a severe case of jitters, or any phobia for that matter. Clark explains Keating’s starting point:

Stage nerves first hit Keating when she was fifteen years old—right when music becomes a brutally competitive dogfight for serious young orchestra musicians—and from that point on, each public performance felt like a battle for psychological survival.

Keating received nothing but bad advice, which is often the case when you are dealing with something psychological. Friends and mentors told her to practice more. If she was comfortable enough with her piece, then she wouldn’t feel nervous. Practicing, however, did little to alleviate her anxiety.

Here’s where Keating’s story takes a fascinating turn.

She detoured from the professional classical performance track. It was just too much torture. Despite scholarships to impressive programs, she chose to pursue her undergraduate degree at a small, liberal-arts college studying experimental electronic music composition and improvisation. Not exactly classical cello. She attempted to pay her bills with a slew of dead-end frustrating jobs.

Broke and desperate in the San Francisco Bay Area, she headed to the Embarcadero and Powell Street Bay Area Rapid Transit (or BART) stations and began to play her cello for change at rush hour.

Playing in front of this uncaring audience was a perfect way for her to confront her fear. And then once they became a caring audience — actually thanking her for playing — she became even more empowered. Her playing became a kind of ministry, where the focus was taken off of her and projected unto the folks she played for.

According to Keating:

Even if I’d gotten the technique wrong, people would hand me a five-dollar bill and say, “That was fantastic!” That was the first sense I ever got that musicians might have a role in enriching the world….In other words, I allowed myself to play the music without worrying about all the little things—“Is your shoulder too high? Is your vibrato correct” And it was fun.

Clark goes on to explain why this exercise was invaluable from a psychological/neuroscientific standpoint:

Based on what we’ve already learned, we know that by exposing herself to her fear without running away, Keating was letting her brain slowly habituate to the idea of performing for an audience. Over the hours, as the realization dawned in her unconscious mind that these commuters weren’t going to descend on her like starving jackals, her prefrontal cortex taught itself to soothe the amygdala’s reaction to the crowd. …

But neuroscience aside, Keating was also coming to an important conscious insight: her listeners couldn’t see through her like she’d thought they could….No one really saw her nervousness. If people stopped to listen, that meant they were enjoying the music, not judging her. Keating had finally broken through one of the most pervasive misconceptions underlying performance anxiety, the “illusions of transparency” bias. Put simply, we tend to believe that our internal emotional states are more obvious to others than they truly are.

The final step in helping Keating transform her stage fright into passionate shows was changing her interpretation of the fear. In her practice at the public transit stations, she learned that anxiety can actually facilitate a performance. It can augment your performances if you learn to interpret the fear that way. Says Clark:

The move from a debilitative view of performance anxiety to a facilitative one is more than a mere sleight of hand. Several studies have shown that a major difference between novice and accomplished performers isn’t how much fear they have but how they frame that fear.

So, in summary, here’s how Keating demonstrates for us a way to overcome performance anxiety:

• Keep the focus off yourself, and on the people you are playing for. Attempt to have some fun!
• Know that the folks in the audience don’t know how nervous you are. In fact, they are blind to the psychological mess that is happening in you.
• Interpret fear as your ally … it’s normal, and can help you perform even better!
• Attach your performance to a higher cause. You are offering a gift, and it’s the gift—and not the perfection—that’s important.

For a great piece on overcoming public speaking, click here.

Photo courtesy of www.musicartsschool.org.

You probably have heard on the news about the problem with bedbugs in hotels. Nasty little things. They come out at night and suck your blood while you sleep.

I like vampire stories as much as the next guy, but when it comes to my blood I am very possessive. I don’t want to share it with a bug. I assume you feel the same.

You can learn more than you’d ever want to know about these creatures at the government’s CDC website here, but suffice to say that it is worth an ounce of prevention to cope with them beforehand, particularly this holiday travel season. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency have issued a joint statement on bedbugs, including emotional reactions to them: “Bedbugs may also affect the mental health of people living in infested homes. Reported effects include anxiety, insomnia and systemic reactions.”

Bedbugs are small, winged, reddish-brown insects that belong to the family Cimicidae and are about 5-7mm in size. Despite having wings, they can’t fly. They can live for months without feeding, but when they do chow down they typically have what’s been called a ‘breakfast-lunch-dinner’ pattern of multiple feedings. They draw blood and leave raised bumps on the skin when they’re done. You don’t have to treat them, but if there are enough bites it can lead to itching and widespread skin eruptions. In that case you’d want to have a dermatologist look at it.

Bedbugs literally are bloodsuckers: Within five minutes they can suck in as much blood as their own body weight, and that can last them as long as six months.

That’s the bad news. If there is good news it seems that they do not transmit diseases.

There are two main reasons bedbug infestations are on the rise in the U.S. First, restrictions on the use of the pesticide DDT has caused a resurgence. DDT was keeping them at bay, but also was found to disrupt the human endocrine system (responsible for releasing various hormones into the bloodstream).

American biologist Rachel Carson wrote Silent Spring in 1962. Her emphasis was on the rampant use of DDT and pointed out that we didn’t know its potential impact on the environment or our health. DDT thereafter was identified as harmful to fish and birds and possibly causing cancer in humans. Many see Silent Spring as the impetus for the environmental movement.

While exterminators have weapons other than DDT available, it has been increasingly difficult to stay ahead of bedbugs’ proliferation. This also may be because of the increase in immigration and travel to other parts of the world where DDT is not used.

These mini-vampires are drawn to you by the carbon dioxide you emit as you breathe while sleeping. That’s why they congregate in mattresses, box springs, and bed frames. But they can hang out near the bed as well — in curtains, dresser drawer corners and wallpaper crevices. Like some people, they also may have a fondness for wicker furniture.

The carbon dioxide that creates a bedbug problem may actually be part of the solution. A Rutgers professor, Dr. Changlu Wang, has created a very interesting low-cost home remedy that uses dry ice and its emission of carbon dioxide as a dinner bell trap for the unwanted guests.

This won’t help us when we are on the road, unfortunately. For information on that I drew on the advice of an expert, Anthony Del Priore, owner of Statewide Exterminating LLC, here in New Jersey. He said the problem with bedbugs accelerated in 2003, when pest control companies started a new program called IPM — Integrated Pest Management. “This meant less chemicals in less areas. Use granular bait for ants compared to spraying, or if you did spray just spray that one area that had the problem not the whole house. By changing to this system there was less indirect kills of other insects, like fleas, bedbugs, spiders, etc., which led us to this position today.”

7 Tips to Keep The Bedbugs at Bay

Until we figure it all out here is his advice when traveling:

• Prepare before you leave and don’t overpack. You will need to wash everything when you return from your trip. Nothing goes back into your closet unwashed.
• Before you accept your room remove the sheets and pillowcases and check the mattress and box spring for black stains along the piping of each. Blood dries black. If you see stains request a new room and repeat your inspection there.
• If the bed is movable, move it away from the wall and check behind the headboard and baseboard for stains or insects.
• If the bed is attached to the wall check the corners of the frame and headboard. Remember these insects are drawn by carbon dioxide, so check thoroughly near the headboard.
• If you are traveling for fewer than three nights keep your clothes in your suitcase and as far away from the bed as possible, preferably near the door to your hotel room. Do not put the bag on chairs or couches. Also, do not lay out or keep clothes on the bed or other furniture in the room.
• Bring an extra plastic bag with a drawstring for all dirty laundry (or if you’ve forgotten one most hotels have a plastic dry cleaning bag you can buy.) Place your dirty laundry in the bag and keep it closed and away from the furniture.
• When you return, remember that bedbugs can get into your luggage — so use travel bags that can be washed after each trip. If your suitcase can’t be washed, empty and wash the clothes and store the suitcase in the attic (or as far away from the bedrooms as possible.) Never store suitcases in bedrooms. Remember bedbugs can live a long time between meals so be sure to leave the bags fallow for a while.

So when you travel, sleep tight, and, well, you know the rest.