One good quip that came from John Mayer’s song “The Heart of Life” was “Fear is a friend who’s misunderstood.”
Often, we want to avoid what scares us — like when we hide from someone we know in a grocery store, but often we would be better off if we just said hello.
Now, I am a very nervous person. I can’t go through a day without my heart racing somewhat from everyday interactions. As Lesley Kinzel of xoJane elegantly said, I go through life “feeling awkward and inept at things but doing them anyway.”
But since I know this about myself, I purposely sit with my fear, feel it and do what scares me anyway. If I didn’t, I would constantly stay in my room immersed in a book, a TV show or Tumblr.
Doing what scares you gives time depth. All of the moments I have spent living within my comfort zone have blurred together. It is the times when part of me wanted to run away that I remember the most distinctly and fondly.
Fearing fear can be unproductive because it can mean avoiding change. Change can be a stressful stimulus, which causes a chain reaction in the brain that results in the release of chemicals that cause the racing heart, fast breathing and energized muscles you experience.
Change is also essential to keep life moving. Whether it means beginning or ending a relationship, starting or quitting a job or relocating to a new state, your brain can’t discern between positive and negative stress, so your body is still going to react to the fear even if the change will benefit your life.
In fact, even good things like marriage and vacations are listed on the Holmes and Rahe Stress Scale, a common test for measuring stress.
Sometimes we fear change because it involves letting go of something else. And as humans, we hate loss — just watch the Jimmy Kimmel prank where parents joke about taking away their children’s Halloween candy.
In your case, you may have already put many hours into a major you now realize you hate, but you may feel as if finishing is the best option. If you change majors now, it would feel as if you’ve lost time and effort. This can also apply to relationships: You may try to keep mending a doomed relationship because you fear moving on. But in reality, you haven’t wasted any time.
You spent that time living and learning, and now it is time for change.
As living organisms, we can’t completely avoid change and fear; they are inevitable. The best thing we can do is accept them.
Allow yourself to feel the effects of fear. Do all the crying, kicking and screaming you need to, and don’t judge yourself for not being optimistic initially. But after you’ve let it all out, don’t stay in the past reminiscing on what was. Focus on the future — and what can be.
How many things have you missed out on because the idea of them made you too scared or uncomfortable? Challenging your fear is not going to kill you — unless your fear is bungee jumping off of a bridge and the cord breaks.
But overall, challenging fear can be rewarding.
Maybe the cord won’t break as you feared. Now you have an awesome story to tell.
[Lauren Adamson is a UF journalism junior. Her columns appear on Tuesdays. A version of this column ran on page 7 on 2/11/2014 under the headline "Confronting fear is good for your health"]
