I find the concept that fears can be assessed as rational or irrational hilarious. Does this mean some fears are valid and other are not? How do we know which fears are legitimate, rational, right? Say, your mother has cancer and you are afraid of her dying. Is that considered a rational anxiety, because she actually might die? Everybody is going to die. Fear of one’s mom dying is actually a fear of being afraid when mom is dying, or most accurately fear of not be able to handle the anxiety when mom dies. Is that rational?

Graduated exposure therapy, also known as systematic desensitization, is a process of slowly exposing someone to what they are afraid of so it become familiar and un-intimidating. First, a person is taught skills in calming themselves that they can use while they expose themselves to the feared stimuli.  With the dawn of the Internet (especially YouTube) people can use graduated exposure therapy in the comfort of their own homes (or in the therapy office).

When you are out in public, does social anxiety (aka social phobia) have you worried and stressed? Inside this video is a tip to help turn around the social anxiety. It's a skill you readily know and can do, no matter what your comfort zone might be. Observe people.

I love when reader's ask questions about anxiety.  I want to write about what you want to know. Anxiety symptoms and treatment can be very specific to the sufferer, but I will try to answer so that most readers who experience anxiety can take away something. I had two questions last week. Here is the first one:

Have you ever felt anxiety in a restaurant? Or avoided going out because you were afraid of having anxiety in a restaurant? You need to do it anyway (Exposure Therapy for Anxiety Disorders, Panic Attacks). This is the only way to get over it! Restaurants, then, become familiar and eventually can feel quite safe.

Many things seem to trigger people into panic attacks: a sound, sight, smell, or sensation that reminds someone of a past trauma, anticipation of a perceived fear (such as, knowing you have to sleep alone when your partner is out of town next week), a physical sensation (nausea) or a certain emotion (feeling overwhelmed, guilty, embarrassed).  However, when I talk to people about the details in the moment before the panic attack, what invariably happens between this trigger stimuli and the panic is a fleeting thought -- one that people hardly realize as it crosses their mind. This is the anxiety trigger.

One of the biggest myths (tricks) of the Anxiety is that it makes you think you are out of control. Anxiety loves to make people feel that they are out of control. Believing this is one of the biggest problems for anxious people.  If they knew they had control, they would not be anxious.  For family members, friends, and mental health professionals, it is important that we deconstruct the belief that the anxious person is "out of control" and help him or her see what control they have, thus helping the anxiety decrease.

Fear is a biological response. The fearful stimuli tells our amygdala to release adrenaline (our “fight or flight” hormone). The sole purpose of this is to give us energy to fight or flee. In other words, its purpose is to get us to act, once we act, the fear is pointless. And, usually goes away, since acting has us feeling empowered, not so out of control. Our focus becomes on our tasks at hand, and the worry get relegated to the background.

Easing anxiety with pets is animal therapy at its most natural--there's no need to be a professional to benefit from pets. Animals give us mental peace. Watch.

Yes, control issues can cause anxiety, but it is much more complicated than that. Anxiety has us feel like we are “out of control.” This is one of its biggest tricks it has to stay in power over us. It is important for us to see how it makes us feel “out of control,” because once it is visible we can do something about it.