It is well established in anxiety research circles that people who suffered a trauma or are under adverse stress for any extended period of time are more likely to suffer from anxiety and mood disorders as well. It is also fairly well established that negative stress reduces the replacement and regrowth of cells in the areas of the brain connected to the regulation of anxiety (emotional regulation) and reduces the normal functioning of those areas (hippocampus and amygdala). In other words long term negative stress physically changes our brain and the way it functions making anxiety more prevalent and harder to control.

It has long been thought by neuro-scientists that the key to this appears to be a hormone called glucocorticoids also known as the stress hormone. Glucocorticoids or GC’s bind to glucocorticoids receptor which are present in just about every cell in the human (and indeed every vertebrate animals) body. GC’s are a major part of our immune system. When we are under stress the body produces more GC’s. Over production of GC’s have been linked to problems like Heart disease, depression, diabetes, obesity, immune dysfunction, learning disorders, headaches, irritable bowel syndrome to name but a few.

A new study published last month* looked at whether sexual activity

1. reduced GC levels in rats,
2. changed the functioning of the areas of the brain associated with anxiety regulation, and
3. reduced anxiety driven behaviour in anyway .

The researchers from The Neuroscience Institute, Princeton University found that having sexual activity once a day for 14 consecutive days did not reduce the GC levels significantly. However it did significantly increase the neuronal functioning of the hippocampus and amygdala and considerably reduced anxiety driven behaviour in the subjects. So whilst it doesn’t reduce the CG level sexual activity does appear to stop many of the negative effects of increased GC’s in the system. In short sex reduces anxiety and minimises the effects of stress on us. But why if the GC levels aren’t reduced?

Exercise often has a positive effect on anxiety and stress as well, but only if the individual gets satisfaction from the exercise. In other words if we think something is enjoyable it will help, if not it won’t. GC’s work in a very complex way in some instances make things worse and in others make them better. It would appear that engaging in what an individual considers to be hedonistic or enjoyable may change the effect stress hormones has on us. It may be that we can reduce many of the effects of stress has on by engaging in things we find enjoyable, like sex.

Stressed? Anxious? Take sex once a day for 14 days. Come back and see me if the symptoms persist, we might have to increase the dose.

*Leuner B, Glasper ER, & Gould E (2010) Sexual Experience Promotes Adult Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus Despite an Initial Elevation in Stress Hormones. PLoS ONE 5(7): e11597. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0011597

About 90% of people come away from an interview kicking themselves because they know they should have performed better had it not been for their nerves and anxiety, and it is so easy to deal with, given a little know-how.

Calm and composed people outperform everyone else and usually get the job. 80% of the decision to hire someone is based on what the interviewers see and hear on the day and only about 20% is based on what is in your CV. When you think about it, the company has already made a decision based on your CV and application: who to interview. Now it is is down to how you come across.

In short success in a job interview comes down to three things:

1. Do they see you as a COMPETENT individual
2. Do they LIKE you, and
3. Do they THINK you will FIT in?

Just think about (y)our perception of what a competent person looks and behaves like for a moment. I am willing to bet that perception does not include a nervous or anxious person. Competent includes being confident and composed with your subject area. Able to answer questions easily and showing you have easy mastery of your area

But how?

The Fear Course is proud to announce the publication of it’s first handbook:

The Fear Course Handbook: How to do a job interview without the nerves and anxiety.

The professionally produced 55 page handbook is clear, concise and very practical and will show you how to overcome your fear quickly and easily.
The content include:

• What confident people do that nervous people don’t but could, easily.
• The 5 things people eat and drink that actually makes them more nervous
• The ONE big mistake nervous people make that is an instant fail
• What to do when your mind goes blank during the interview
• A plan for the days before the interview, and
• A fear busting plan for the actual interview

Be the best you can be. Be calm, confident and composed at your job interview.

You can get the book in three versions:

The Fear Course Handbook: How to do a job interview without the nerves and anxiety: Download as an ebook from the site

The Fear Course Handbook: How to do a job interview without the nerves and anxiety. Download the book from Lulu

The Fear Course Handbook: How to do a job interview without the nerves and anxiety. Buy the published book Direct

In every case the procrastination was caused by fear. Let me explain.

For any behaviour to be considered to be Procrastination usually has to be counterproductive, needless, and delaying.*1

Many psychologists consider that procrastination is brought about as a as a mechanism for coping with the anxiety associated with starting or completing any task or decision. *2 I think I can now be a little more specific about that anxiety…

About 95% of our fears are anticipatory, by which I mean they are fears of a future event but are not based on a real event that has occurred to us in the past (episodic fear). When I tested all 12 students I discovered that every one of them had played a mental movie of them failing their doctorate.

The most frequent movie of failure they had played in their own head was the moment after the Viva Voce when they are called back in. They usually saw and heard the examiner saying “Sorry but…”

Even those students who stated they had not played such a projection in their head, all stated that when they did the movie was strangely familiar, suggesting that the projection had been made a an unconscious level.

Not only was the procrastination brought about by anxiety, there is strong evidence to suggest procrastination is as a direct result of a fear of failure induced by internal mental projections / representations of the moment of failure. In other words we play a mental movie of the thing we don’t want to happen - failing. When we play a movie of failing this activates a fear response in the brain which results in our not wanting to do the thing we are putting off.

*1 Schraw, G., Wadkins, T., & Olafson, L. (2007). Doing the things we do: A grounded theory of academic procrastination [Electronic version]. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol 99(1), 12-25.

*2  Fiore, N. A. (2006). The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt- Free Play. New York: Penguin Group.

In short the researchers from the Department of Psychology, and University Research Institute on Health Sciences, in Mallorca, Spain, found that in a large sample (1441) of 12 - 17 year olds there was a relationship between the amount of negative thinking a person engages in and how much anxiety they feel on a daily basis as well as their perceived ability to regulate their emotions.

Now the study is not saying that people who do think negatively can not regulate their emotions or learn to be more emotionally resilient as one reviewer asserted. It is just showing that people who think negatively, for example see the downside of things more than the average person or tend to catastrophise more - make things appear worse than they really are, tend to report both that they feel or experience more anxiety than the average person. Additionally these people find it harder to regulate their feelings, so for example make negative feelings like anxiety go away. They can do this of course, it’s just they report that it is harder to do for them to do this when compared to the average person in the sample.

This link between negative views on life, the experience of anxiety and the ability to be emotionally resilient at will is very important, and one that we explore and tackle on The Fear Course.  I find that once people learn the tools that make them more emotionally resilient they obviously feel less anxiety, but their view of life and thinking change in a positive way. Not only that but many people who have been on the course report that they generally feel happier and more confident.

* Tortella-Feliu, M, Et al (2010) Relationships between negative affectivity, emotion regulation, anxiety, and depressive symptoms in adolescents as examined through structural equation modeling. Journal of Anxiety Disorders. April 2010

*Azizi, A. Et al (2010). The Effectiveness of Emotion Regulation Training and Cognitive Therapy on the Emotional and Addictional Problems of Substance Abusers. IJoP. 2010;2(5) : 60-65

1. Monitor your own and others emotions on a continual basis,
2. Differentiate between emotions,
3. Identify emotions accurately,
4. Have agency - the belief that you can change feelings or emotional states,
5. Use strategies to change emotions, both in yourself and others,
6. Assess the effectiveness of the strategies employed,
7. Change strategies (if necessary) to effect the desired outcome.

The Fear Course equips people to be able to do all of these particularly in high anxiety / fear situations.

Understanding emotions require a 6 core attributes:

1. Emotional Literacy - having the ability to be able to decode, think and talk about our emotions,
2. Understand how emotions can combine to form other internal outcomes,
3. Know how our emotions can progress from one emotion to another,
4. Understand how both yourself and others are behaving due to emotional reactions,
5. Predict how people are likely to feel and act in different situations,
6. The ability to be able analyse emotions and their causes both in ourselves and others.

As you can see these are quite a complex series of abilities. Emotional resilience and the ability to overcome fear often relies on these skills, particularly the ability to be able to predict and decode our emotions.

It is an important skill to be able to change (use) both your thinking and emotions to regain control to develop emotional resilience.

Put simply emotion perception is the ability to recognise or identify emotions as they occur in both yourself and others. As you can probably well imagine an inability to be able to recognise emotions or confusing them is often a recipe for all sorts of problems. Being oblivious to something like fear can be somewhat dangerous especially in potentially hazardous situations. On the other hand mis-diagnosing emotions can be equally troublesome. On the live Fear Course we often explore the differences between fear, panic, worry, anxiety and nervousness. There is a fair percentage of the population who struggle with this and cannot distinguish between emotions for themselves or are unable to recognise them in others. Not being able to recognise fear, panic or anxiety in others, particularly in work and management situations frequently leads to a lack of empathy and a whole series of relationship issues.