Converting Fear Into Excitement — A Simple Hack

This scientifically proven trick will take care of your fears

When you feel fear, “… your breathing rhythm becomes faster,” lead author Christina Zelano, assistant professor of neurology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, says, “The result is you’ll spend more time inhaling than when in a calm state.”

Our natural response is to avoid confronting our fears. But the worries of modern life do not go away. We have to face them. But what is the best way to face our fears?

Here is one solid tip. Gay Henricks, in his book, The Big Leap, says, “The best advice I can give you is to take big, easy breaths when you feel fear. Feel the fear instead of pretending it’s not there. Celebrate it with a big breath, just the way you’d celebrate your birthday by taking a big breath and blowing out all the candles on your cake. Do that, and your fear turns into excitement.”

How can that be true? It is too simple. But we often ignore the most obvious solutions.

Fritz Perls, MD, was a psychiatrist and the founder of Gestalt therapy. He once said, “Fear is excitement without the breath.”

All you have to do is to add breathing to your fear. Or you can write this equation:

Fear + Breathing = Excitement

It’s not just a trick. Breathing is a powerful indicator of how we are feeling. Slow, deep breathing stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system— this system calms us down.

Breathing acts like a switch or a button. “The relaxation response is controlled by a distinct set of nerves — the main nerve being the Vagus nerve. Think of a car throttling down the highway at 120 miles an hour. That’s the fear response, and the Vagus nerve is the brake,” says Robert Sternberg of Cornell University. “When you are afraid, you have your foot on the gas — pedal to the floor. When you take slow, deep breaths, that is what is engaging the brake.”

With slow, deep breaths as you calm down, your perception also changes, you start seeing the object of fear as a challenge — something to get excited about.

When you are frightened of the results and you are trying to do a daunting task, you are more likely to procrastinate. Now think of this equation:

Fear + Work = Procrastination

Why are you are afraid of doing this tough job? It’s because it matters to you. You care about it — you’re emotionally invested in it. If you start breathing correctly — breathe in and out very slowly — your fear will transform into excitement of work. Now add ‘breathing’ to the above equation — it changes to:

Fear + Breathing + Work = Exciting action

Final Thoughts

Why we overlook the most obvious answer? Margaret Heffernan explores the question in her book, Willful Blindness. But the point is we do ignore the obvious sometimes.

Our conscious and subconscious fears make us anxious. One study found that by regulating our breath, we can control our anxiety. Once you are calm, you can become confident and excited about your work.

Learn to breathe in the right way. If you are breathing correctly, with each inhalation, your abdomen area will expand. During exhalation, it should contract.

To take advantage of what you have read, you must accept this simple trick to be your ultimate defense against the fears of life. Exciting work is always just a breath away. Take a breath and — as the cliche goes — just do it.

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