It'll make you scream, it'll make you cry, it'll leave you shaking in your boots. It's … fear! But don't panic. Our advice will help you vanquish this enemy within

Men's Fitness, Sept, 2004 by L.C. Smith

Remember that cost-cutting report you were supposed to deliver to your boss last week? How could you forget? You've thought of little else since the deadline came and went, and you're pretty sure he hasn't forgotten about it, either. You owe him an explanation, but you're way too terrified to go into his office and give him an excuse. Instead, you sit in your cubicle, sweating profusely, hyperventilating, imagining the worst. Now your boss is standing over you, grinding his molars--you can actually hear them. He waits for your explanation You want to tell him that a two-day deadline was perhaps a bit unrealistic. But you can't. Your ears are buzzing. Your face feels hot. A bead of sweat falls from your forehead to your desk. This, you realize, is how the wounded gazelle feels facing the hungry lion on the savanna plains. You stagger on, but it's useless. You can't get away.

Fear is the real king of the jungle. It rules our actions, consciously or not. It makes us wuss out of skiing down a black-diamond slope and spaz out while hitting on that hot Lindsay Lohan look-alike. But why? And how can we stop it?

In this era of terror threats and job threats, of orange alerts at home and monkeypox abroad, we can't avoid dread any more than we can control its cause. But we can control our fear. It starts with knowing the enemy. What often seems like an all-encompassing emotion is actually manufactured in a small knot of neurons called the amygdala, the brain's Fear Command Center. When it senses a threat, it unleashes adrenaline and pumps blood to muscles, sharpening our senses and prepping us for action. How well we initially respond to challenges may largely be a function of biology.

Yale University's Charles A. Morgan III, M.D., who's currently studying the physiological toughness of Green Berets and Navy Seals, has found that his subjects have higher-than-normal levels of a brain hormone called neuropeptide Y, which he believes counters the adverse affects of an adrenaline surge. "They're more relaxed and have clearer mental focus under severe stress," explains Morgan. "They're excited by risk, but they're also very conscientious about performing well."

Civilians like us can also benefit from high anxiety. Fear of failure, unemployment, and homelessness drives us out of bed and off to the office in the morning. And, when the pressure's on, it helps us concentrate harder and focus more. It's when panic gets in the way of work, say, or our sex lives that we should really be scared.

Psychologists, sex therapists, and others trained to treat these so-called "performance-based" fears will tell you there's no miracle cure for panic. But we can keep it from ruling our lives. Here's how.

At Work

A creative executive once worked for a brilliant guy who managed by reign of terror. When he wasn't reaming the staff during meetings, he was tearing apart their work, constantly dismissing it as the worst he had ever seen. And that was on a good day. The entire crew was working scared until someone got the nerve to confront him. Suddenly, the verbal tirades stopped. The lesson? Whether we're terrified of a bullying boss or an impossible deadline, the most effective way to wrangle fear at work is to face it down--the sooner the better.

"One of the chief causes of stress is avoiding stress," says Ben Dattner, Ph.D., an organizational psychologist and the president of Dattner Consulting, L.L.C., in New York. "If your boss sets unrealistic sales goals, you're going to have to confront that sooner or later." We need to learn how to stand up to the big man and, similarly, get over our dread of falling short. Some strategies:

* If that big assignment finds you hiding beneath your desk, it may be because you're still hung up on some past failure. Eileen Wolkstein, a career counselor and executive coach in New York, suggests focusing on a recent achievement--such as when you earned praise for your work on an earlier project or even when you broke through the 300-pound ceiling on the bench press. Think about the effort you poured into those tasks--the grit, the stamina. Now do the same with your new assignment. As Wolkstein notes, "A lot of skills you've developed elsewhere can transfer to your job."

* When you've got a beef with a workplace superior, write it out before confronting him, suggests Wolkstein. Then choose an ideal delivery time, such as when he's not overwhelmed. (FYI: In the men's room is not a good moment.) And don't be combative: Use "I" not "You." (Correct: "I feel this idea won't work." Incorrect: "Your idea is butt-headed.") "Your message will be better appreciated if you engage in a dialogue," says Wolkstein. "You're not there to be right. You're there to communicate."

In Society

When top football running back Ricky Williams was a rookie with the New Orleans Saints, he was a panicky head case. He'd conduct post-game interviews with his helmet strapped on, and he'd recoil from giddy fans, feeling sick to his stomach. So great was his terror of speaking to people, he couldn't even place an order at Burger King. "I thought everyone was staring at me all the Time," he later told Sports Illustrated. "The stress skewed my view of reality."