What makes you frightened

Your opportunity to be heard:. What is it? How to act on it locally Tell us your experience. Safety Tips When Home. Safety Tips When Outside. Managing Your Fear. Feeling frightened inside your home? Lock all doors and windows double-check them to reassure yourself. Go through your home, especially after visitors, to make sure everything is as it should be.

If you have had threats or there is a history of something being put through your letterbox, you could try to seal it during the night so it cannot be opened. Make sure your home is well lit and light switches are easy to find. The right lighting can make a big difference to comfort and emotional wellbeing. Identify sounds so that you can quickly recognise them, for example a car door shutting, a dripping tap, the lift in a block of flats etc. This will help you be less nervous when you hear a noise if you know what it is.

Close your curtains, blinds and interior doors at night, as this will add to your feeling of security. Make sure you have a telephone near you. Use an answer machine to screen unwanted calls and only talk to the people you want to. Act calmly if you hear banging on your windows or knocking on your door. Only answer the door if you are expecting someone.

Consider having a chain and peephole fitted. With a peephole you can see who is there, but they cannot see you. Take your mind off your fear by doing something else, such as reading or calling a friend. Breathe deeply and try to relax. Feeling frightened outside your home? Get to know your neighbours the non-antisocial ones! This will give you potential support if they are suffering from the same ASB.

You can find strength sharing your story and are more likely to get fast results if there are a few of you complaining. It also gives you someone to turn to at difficult times. Take a mobile telephone with you when you go out. Maintain healthy behaviors. Keeping up healthy habits is really important. And if you do happen to get sick, these habits will help your immune system be ready to fight off those germs.

Stick to a routine. You can help reduce the impacts of this by adding some structure to your days. Make a schedule for yourself—try to eat your meals, do your schoolwork, move your body, and go to bed and wake up at the same times each day. If you still feel overwhelmed, unable to cope and as though your fear is affecting how you function every day, you may be experiencing the first signs of a mental health condition, like depression or anxiety.

Take the youth screen at MHAScreening. Once you get the results, MHA will provide you with more information and help you to figure out next steps. Breadcrumb Home. What is Fear? If that sounds familiar, here are some things you can do to help yourself: Talk to a trusted adult. While anxiety is a common experience for many people, it can be considered a disorder when it is recurrent, persistent, intense, and interferes with basic life tasks such as work and sleep.

For more information about anxiety and phobias, read here. The facial expression of fear is often confused with surprise. While both expressions show distinctly raised eyebrows, a fear expression's eyebrows are straighter and more horizontal whereas in surprise they are raised and curved.

The upper eyelid is also lifted higher in fear than in surprise, exposing more sclera white of the eye. Finally, the lips are tensed and stretched in fear but more open and slack in surprise. One may also scream. Common sensations include feeling cold and shortness of breath. It also may include sweating and trembling or tightening of muscles in the arms and legs. The posture of fear can either be one of mobilizing or immobilizing- freezing or moving away.

The universal function of fear is to avoid or reduce harm. The immediate threat of harm focuses our attention, mobilizing us to cope with the danger. In this way, fear can actually save our lives by forcing us to react without having to think about it e. The evolutionary preset actions of fear include fight, flight and freezing. Whereas some people find fear nearly intolerable and avoid the emotion at all costs, others experience pleasure from feeling fear and seek it out i.

It takes a well-developed capacity for compassion to respect, feel sympathetic toward, and patiently reassure someone who is afraid of something we are not afraid of most of us dismiss such fears.

We do not need to feel another person's fear to accept it and help them cope. Learn to recognize and respond to the emotional expressions of others with our online micro expressions training tools to increase your ability to detect deception and catch subtle emotional cues.

Expand your knowledge of emotional skills and competencies with in-person workshops offered through Paul Ekman International.