How to Stop Being Nervous as a Student… | Training to Reduce Anxiety
How to Overcome Fear in 11 Mins - YouTube
DISCLAIMER: This is something that I’m personally still working on, as anxiety’s been a big part of my life for a long time. Regardless, the idea that I’m about to share with you has scientific evidence to back it up and ONLY requires that you understand what I’m saying and that you follow the 3-step process that I outline a couple paragraphs below.
We’re doing this together.
Facing our fears, one sentence at a time…
Basically, we’re gonna explore something I call “Adrenaline Hacking™”, which should help you biologically alter your brain by making things you’re fearful of or nervous for, EXCITING.
The idea is based on the fact that if you start feeling scared or nervous as a particular event like an exam’s coming up or you’re meeting new people, it means that your brain’s identified these things as a threat, except that if that threat comes directly TO you, your brain will adapt.
In other words, while fear and caution will FIRSTLY help a hunter-gatherer avoid a snake as they walk through tall grass, if they look down and see a snake ready to bite, they’ll either need to run or kill it.
This will either lead to them running away and then calming down, but without any food to eat and without challenging themselves.
If they always run, they’ll always be fearful.
OR, they’ll go into fight mode and not necessarily feel fear anymore.
Problem solved!
So if you’re nervous for an exam or anything else, understand that by following the “No-Fear Framework” that I’ll outline in just a second, you can rely on your brain to ADAPT to that stimulus so that you can embrace it, rather than stay fearful of it.
Because as it turns out, that fear you have before doing something like jumping off a platform into water, walking into a school/uni exam, or talking to new people, is the MOST fearful that you’re gonna be.
Once you get into the exam and start writing, or finally introduce yourself to that person or jump off the platform, or start that workout you’ve been dreading, your brain has no benefit in being as nervous as it was.
It was trying to get you to avoid the perceived threat, but now that you’re engaged in it, it’s gotta adapt somehow.
Just as dopamine is released to motivate you to go and get something pleasurable, but isn’t released when you actually get the pleasurable thing.
So the “No-Fear Framework” acts as something VERY similar to what I discussed in my post last week, and essentially consists of you saying that you LOVE doing whatever you’re nervous about and why you can’t believe that other people don’t love doing it too.
Are you ready to hear it?
How to make scary things seem positive
The framework is… exactly the same as last week:
“[I’m so glad that] whenever I’m walking up to meet or talk to a new person, I feel excited at the potential to learn from their experiences, gain new insight into how people behave and even feel some connection that releases oxytocin in my brain. [I’ve known people] who always AVOID putting themselves out into the world to meet and talk to people that could actually teach them new things or help them grow their worldview, because they’re scared of not being liked or of pushing out of their comfort zone. [If only they] knew that the more new people you meet and learn from, the more you want to seek knowledge from other people you haven’t met and push even MORE out of your comfort zone. What a shame”.
You can probably shorten all of that and not include “if only they knew”, but that’s the framework that I use whenever I may get nervous to talk to new people.
Basically, we’re reconditioning our brain with a new, more positive perspective of the stimulus, which incentivises the brain to release dopamine instead, which will motivate you to go and embrace your fears.
And it’ll only get easier with a little time and repetition.
Now for when you’re dreading an upcoming workout.
“[I’m so glad that] I love the feeling of challenging my body and strengthening it, movement by movement. Everyday, I feel an urge to push my mind to become better able to deal with pain, emotion and adversity. [I’ve known people] who’d just rather feel weak, look weak and have no capacity to deal with stress or pain, as opposed to just working out a few times a week. [If only they] weren’t idiots. Now, time to work out”.
What happens to the brain when you “think positive” and reframe fear?
Fear is regulated by the amygdala, a small almond-shaped structure in the brain that is responsible for processing emotional and sensory information.
When the amygdala senses a potential threat, it sends a signal to other parts of the brain, including the hypothalamus, which releases stress hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline.
These two hormones will be responsible for the fight or flight response.
The amygdala on both sides or hemispheres of the brain and its neurological pathways are known as the “fear system” of the brain.
This system directly communicates with the dopamine system, including the Ventral Tegumental Area and the Nucleus Accumbens.
By reframing a fear-inducing stimulus as a positive experience, the release of dopamine can actually send dopamine projections to the Amygala and literally counteract the fear response.
So by reframing the experience of working out from a negative or fearful experience to a positive one could potentially cause a release in dopamine and reducing feelings of anxiety, so that you SIMPLY need to remember that your brain will adapt to fearful situations and that you should lift that first rep if you want to completely alleviate the fear.
Once you start to lift that weight, you realise that you’re not in danger and you’re fine.
You go up to that person to speak, and they respond to you and all of a sudden you’re just having a conversation (even if it’s awkward) like you would with a friend or family member.
REDUCED nervousness!
In most circumstances, you’ve got two options to consider:
1) Force your brain to adapt by first reframing the situation and then embracing the fear.
2) Just run away so that you can calm down, but feel guilty about not pushing yourself and having given up the opportunity to strengthen your mind.
What are the detrimental impacts of ongoing fear?
THIS is the idea that you must instil into your head.
“Adrenaline Hacking™” is turning fear into motivation, while “Dopamine Hacking™” is understanding that the anticipation of pleasure will be the most joy that you’ll feel as opposed to actually being rewarded.
Today’s main idea of essentially refusing fear or specific threat reflexes is called “Top-down processing”.
You reconditioning yourself with words or actions or both.
If you don’t embrace the fear and let your mind adapt, those fears will be strengthened via something called “Long Term Potentiation”.
Which means that the nervousness that you feel in different situations will become more frequent and intense.
This will become increasingly hard to reverse, although possible.
That’s what I’ll be talking about next week, so subscribe to the Peaky Pines Email Community for a notification when it does come out.
I didn’t feel the need to get super sciency’ on this blog post, but I will be a little more when I post a more actionable topic to this series next week.
That’s it!
Understand these two things:
1) Your mind adapts to most fear upon embracing it and bringing the stimulus TO you, like lifting that first rep at a workout or breaking into that jog. (create “Associative Habits” to make this easier. If you don’t know what those are, subscribe to the Peaky Pines Email Community and you’ll quickly find out, because I talk about them often).
2) Use the “No-Fear Framework” to recondition your mind to see things that once scared you, in a more positive light, which neurologically motivates you.
If you’d like access to my Weekly [ACTION STEPS] for this post and literally every other post on this blog, plus access to a community of people interested in this sort of stuff that will help them, check out the Peaky Pines Community Memberships here.
Regards,
Riley.
