Sometimes when sleep deprivation and the stress of life have gotten to the point where you feel like you’re losing your mind, it feels a lot like going crazy. From a panic attack to suffering a serious mental illness like post traumatic stress disorder, losing control when suffering anxiety symptoms can feel overwhelming. If you’ve ever suffered a fear of going crazy, otherwise known as phrenophobia, we’ll explore some ways to help you overcome your fear, manage physical symptoms, and help minimize panic attacks.
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What is the Fear of Going Crazy?
The fear of going crazy, also known as phrenophobia, is a psychological condition that causes persistent anxiety or panic attacks. It’s a form of hypochondria in which you worry about your mental health and believe you are suffering from an illness or disease. However, people who are at risk of developing mental illness or have been diagnosed by it previously experienced mental illness may experience a fear of going crazy.
This type of paranoia is common among people who suffer from mental health problems, but it can also affect those without a diagnosis.
Phrenophobia can affect anyone, but it is more likely to affect people experiencing stress or anxiety when they experience their symptoms. Phrenophobia can also be caused by an underlying mental illness such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression.
Why Do People Experience This Fear?
Phrenophobia is a fear of the mind. It can be caused by a traumatic event, such as a near-death experience, or by an intensely emotional situation that threatens one’s life, such as being in physical danger. In some cases, phrenophobia might be brought on by watching someone else experience trauma and not knowing how to help them.
People can also develop phrenophobia after experiencing physical trauma affecting their brain or being around people who have experienced brain damage or stroke. This might sometimes mean avoiding certain activities or situations because they don’t want to risk feeling anxious or scared again.
How To Help Yourself Overcome The Fear Of Going Crazy
1. Exercise
Exercise is essential for keeping your mind and body in tip-top shape. It promotes a healthy heart, helps you sleep better at night, and relieves stress. If you’re not already exercising regularly, try to fit something into your schedule-even if it’s only 15 minutes a day!
There are many ways to exercise accessible to everyone, such as yoga (at home or in class), jogging on the treadmill at the gym, and playing sports with friends. Anything that gets your heart rate up can count as exercise.
The key here is consistency-make sure you do some form of physical activity every day so that it becomes part of your daily routine. Don’t forget to take care of yourself by eating well and getting adequate sleep.
You can combat a fear of going crazy and significant distress by exercising every day for an hour or so. So, if you feel anxious, go for a quick run and shake off the negative energy or dance off the physical sensations.
You can listen to a quick 10 minute meditation before or after your workout to help relax your mind.
2. Eat a balanced diet
A balanced diet contains a variety of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and low-fat or fat-free dairy products. It also includes carbohydrates (like bread and vegetables), fats (like butter or avocado), and proteins (like lean meat). In addition, a balanced diet provides your body with enough vitamins, minerals, and water to keep you healthy.
A balanced diet is essential for people who have depression and anxiety because it can help improve mood and energy levels. Eating a high fat diet can also be helpful for those who are experiencing symptoms such as delusions or hallucinations because it helps to prevent nutrient deficiencies that could cause these types of mental health issues.
If you feel like you’re losing your own mind, a keto diet might be helpful for reducing psychosis. Often, people with illnesses, such as schizophrenia do better mentally on keto diets than traditional high carbohydrate diets. A healthy person can typically consume more carbohydrates than a person who struggles with mental illness.
3. Incorporate more gratitude into your life
Gratitude is not just a nice thing to do, it’s good for you. An attitude of gratitude has been shown to improve your physical health and mental fitness. When you think of all the things you have that could go wrong or be taken away from you at any time (for example, if something terrible were to happen), it’s easy to get caught up in fear and anxiety about how things might turn out.
But when you start being grateful for what’s already good in your life, such as having friends who care about you or having enough food on the table every night, suddenly those fears don’t seem so scary anymore. Incorporating more gratitude into your life will help reduce some of that self-doubt that comes with overthinking about everything going wrong.
And while this exercise won’t make it go away entirely, after all, no one can stop problems from occurring-thankfulness can make them easier to bear when they happen by helping us focus on what matters most: our happiness.
Such feelings of gratitude can help bring peace into our lives. It’s one of the best self help tactics there is. The more kindness we put out into the world, the more we get back, the easier it is to experience gratitude. So, if you tend to worry, challenge yourself to do one good deed a day. You’ll find that those acts of kindness work just as well as therapy.
4. Have an anxiety journal
It would help if you also tried to keep a journal of your thoughts and feelings. It’s a great place to record your mood and note any patterns you notice in your behavior. For example, you might want to write down how you feel every day and what caused those feelings.
After some time, you’ll be able to see how certain situations or events affect your anxiety levels, which can help you manage them better. This is just one small step to helping yourself overcome the fear of going crazy.
Most people who suffered from post traumatic stress or illnesses like it know what crazy feels like. It’s possible that seasonal trends like changes in temperature, moon cycles, or other triggers cause anxiety to rise, intrusive thoughts to take over, and feeling overwhelmed that the chaos you once experienced will happen again.
Learning how to recognize your triggers in therapy will allow you to be proactive about preventing panic from occuring again. So writing down a list of thoughts that pop into your mind during this period will be key for your future treatment and recovery plan.
5. Spend time with your loved ones
The most important thing to do if you struggle with an anxiety disorder or have a fear of going crazy is to spend time with your loved ones. When you’re feeling vulnerable and alone, they’re there to help you through it. They won’t judge; they will listen and encourage you to get help when necessary.
These people are your support system to prevent you from losing control. So make sure to seek them out if something is bothering you or if there are signs that something may be wrong in your life. The last thing anyone should want is for someone they care about not to get the proper care because they were afraid of being “over-diagnosed” or having the stigma associated with mental illness attached to them by others at work or school.
Mental health symptoms can be improved by having a positive and loving support system. If you surrround yourself with people who make you feel safe, you’ll spend less time worrying about checking door locks, especially if you have obsessive compulsive disorder. The people you surround yourself with truly do have an impact on your anxiety disorder but also on your anxiety symptoms too. So, if you feel like you’re losing control, check out support groups if your friends and family aren’t as supportive as you need them to be.
6. Talk about what’s bothering you
When feeling down, talking about what’s bothering you is essential. Talk to someone else who will listen and be supportive. Don’t blame yourself for having these intrusive thoughts or feelings.
Express your emotions without being afraid of what others may think. This will help keep your mind from focusing too much on the negativity in your life that makes you feel upset, which can make the fear even worse!
If none of this works, some therapists specialize in helping people overcome their fears by facing them head-on through therapy sessions or medication that can balance out chemicals in the brain that contribute to anxiety disorders like panic attacks or nervous breakdowns.
7. Get a complete sleep
Getting enough sleep is crucial for your mental health, and being more aware of how you feel physically will help you know when something isn’t right. When we’re tired, our bodies release stress hormones that can make us more vulnerable to anxiety. Sleep deprivation also prevents the brain from processing information correctly – which may mean that you can’t learn or remember things as easily.
Interestingly enough, sleep is an opportunity for your mind to recover from all those daily stresses. Without proper recovery periods between days filled with activities or stressful situations, our brains can’t heal themselves properly – leading many people down a path toward depression or other mental illnesses over time because they’ve built up too many negative thoughts about themselves during their waking hours.
So, if you have a fear of going crazy, try your best to get a good night’s sleep to prevent a panic disorder from developing. You can take melatonin to help you sleep if you’ve been having difficulty with it lately. Also, there’s evidence to show that people who eat fewer carbs and cut out alcohol can get a deeper sleep.
If a fear of a real danger if preventing you from getting a good night’s sleep, consider sleeping at a friend’s house, setting up a security system, or adding a few extra locks on your door to help you reduce your fear. This will be particularly helpful if you have severe PTSD or worry you could lose control due to panic attacks.
8. Have a routine
One way to help yourself overcome the fear of going crazy is by creating a routine. A routine can help you feel more in control and make you feel safer and more secure. You need to know what’s coming next, so you don’t have time to worry about your feelings or thoughts.
Routines also help us feel positive because we’re used to them. They give us something concrete to hold onto when we’re feeling anxious or stressed out, which is helpful when trying not to be afraid of going crazy because they are familiar things that provide comfort and security in times of distress.
9. See a counselor or therapist
Seek professional help if you need it. The sooner you do so, the greater your chances of overcoming your fears.
You may not want to talk about these fears with family or friends as they might not understand why this trouble scares you so much. Seeing a counselor or therapist can be a good alternative in such cases as they will listen carefully and support you with words and actions while helping push away the fear of going crazy forever.
People who experience trauma should consider seeing someone as soon as possible to prevent anxiety attacks or PTSD from becoming overblown.
10. Manage unwanted thoughts
Intrusive thoughts are very common for people who experience stress, fear, and losing touch with reality.
A therapist can teach you how to challenge thoughts by looking for factual evidence for it. The more you challenge unwanted thoughts, the easier it becomes to do it in your head instead of writing it out. Over time, you’ll start to have more positive thoughts, it just takes some practice.
Conclusion
If you worry about having a mental illness, you aren’t alone. It’s estimated that one in every four people will experience some mental health issue in their lifetime. The fear of going crazy can be highly debilitating, but there are many things you can do to help yourself overcome this fear, such as the tips mentioned above. The best solution for overcoming the fear of going crazy is to understand and accept your negative feelings and use them to overcome your anxiety. You can’t overcome and manage your symptoms if you constantly run away from this fear. So the faster you face it, the better your mental health.
