Agoraphobia, in its most serious form can be very debilitating and lead to poor emotional wellbeing.
If you fear leaving your house as you may have a panic attack then you may find yourself increasingly cut off from the outside world.
Read this article to find out how to deal with Agoraphobia and face your fears about leaving your house.
Step 1:Identify the situations you avoid Think about the types of places that make you feel anxious and as a result you avoid.
They may be crowded places such as supermarkets or cinemas or perhaps enclosed spaces such as cars or elevators.
You may consider these situations to be difficult to escape or get help if you were to have a panic attack.
It is important that you know the places you avoid.
Step 2: Confront the situations The next step is to gradually confront these situations.
Start with the least anxiety provoking situation and work your way up to the situations that cause the most anxiety.
It is important to remain in the situation for as long as you can, even if you are highly anxious, because if you leave whilst distressed then those situations will continue to be associated with fear.
Panic attacks, generally peak at about ten minutes as your body cannot remain in a highly fearful state for prolonged periods of time.
This takes a lot of energy.
So try and stick it out and eventually these situations will become less feared as you will be able to endure them for longer periods of time.
Step 3: Reward your successes It is essential that you focus on your successes and reward yourself.
It is difficult facing your fears and even if you have only lasted one minute in a situation before escaping, that is okay because it is one minute longer than you would have faced it had you avoided it.
Try not to focus on the failures.
Don't worry about the four minutes you didn't last, celebrate the one minute that you did.
You need to have small, realistic and achievable goals to work towards and then you must reward yourself for any progress that you make.
If you fear leaving your house as you may have a panic attack then you may find yourself increasingly cut off from the outside world.
Read this article to find out how to deal with Agoraphobia and face your fears about leaving your house.
Step 1:Identify the situations you avoid Think about the types of places that make you feel anxious and as a result you avoid.
They may be crowded places such as supermarkets or cinemas or perhaps enclosed spaces such as cars or elevators.
You may consider these situations to be difficult to escape or get help if you were to have a panic attack.
It is important that you know the places you avoid.
Step 2: Confront the situations The next step is to gradually confront these situations.
Start with the least anxiety provoking situation and work your way up to the situations that cause the most anxiety.
It is important to remain in the situation for as long as you can, even if you are highly anxious, because if you leave whilst distressed then those situations will continue to be associated with fear.
Panic attacks, generally peak at about ten minutes as your body cannot remain in a highly fearful state for prolonged periods of time.
This takes a lot of energy.
So try and stick it out and eventually these situations will become less feared as you will be able to endure them for longer periods of time.
Step 3: Reward your successes It is essential that you focus on your successes and reward yourself.
It is difficult facing your fears and even if you have only lasted one minute in a situation before escaping, that is okay because it is one minute longer than you would have faced it had you avoided it.
Try not to focus on the failures.
Don't worry about the four minutes you didn't last, celebrate the one minute that you did.
You need to have small, realistic and achievable goals to work towards and then you must reward yourself for any progress that you make.
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