How To Conquer Your Fear of Crowds

Unless you live in absolutely the middle of nowhere, crowds are a fact of life.

Which makes it a problem if you're afraid of crowds.

Trouble is, a crowd can appear in the blink of an eye. One minute you're almost on your own in a street or mall, then you turn around and there are people everywhere. It's like you've stepped into a movie.

Most times, crowds are harmless. But if you've got a fear of them, it's a completely different story when you try to tell your mind that fact. There's a good likelihood that your mind will be working overtime, deciding on exactly how this current crowd can be harmful to you. Regardless of the fact that they're just a group of strangers intent on minding their own business, not a lynch mob.

So what are your options to make yourself calmer if you suddenly find you are stuck in the middle of what seems like a giant mob?

Listening to your rational mind saying "no worries" probably won't do the trick.

Taking a few deep breaths may work. Or at least stop you panicking totally.

Then let your survival instinct take over and head for the closest exit. Steadily. Without running.

Longer term, you need to do something more.

If it's possible, work out when your fear of crowded spaces first started. It probably goes back to your childhood and maybe you got parted from your parents and started to panic and maybe cry. Quite often, phobias such as this one go a long way back in our life to our time as a child and we weren't as rational and straight thinking as we are as an adult.

If it's possible to trace your fear of crowds back to one particular time, one of the best ways to cure yourself is to "un-learn" the reaction that you learned so fast, so long ago. There are some tricks you can do to achieve this but they're best left to professionals.

Mind you, before you go down that route, check out a hypnosis download on crowd phobia - this works most of the time for most people and is definitely the first place to start.