On average, a person thinks about 60,000 thoughts a day (it’s hard to measure thoughts in terms of numbers, but this is a rough estimate). Take a second and think about that. That’s an insane number — around 2,500 thoughts per hour. Some of these are good thoughts, others are neutral, and some are “fear thoughts.”
We’ve all had fear thoughts. “What if my spouse is cheating on me? Is my boss upset with my job performance? What if I check my bank account, and I have way less money than I thought?”
The amount of fear thoughts we have each day is insane, and a lot of these fear thoughts are “false,” meaning that they are irrational. They trigger a stress response, and our body begins to change as a result.
When we are experiencing fear thoughts, whether they are true fears or false fears, what is the best way to deal with them while not letting the fear control us? This is especially relevant for us as we face COVID-19.
On this 5-Minute Friday episode, I wanted to share a clip from an interview with one of my good friends, Dr. Lissa Rankin, about how we can become friends with our fear.
