Anxiety disorders can be incredibly distressing and can interfere in a person’s life, limiting what they can do and where they can go. The number one most effective tool to overcome anxiety is exposure and exposure therapy. Anxiety is often maintained by avoidance of the feared trigger and this makes sense, because, by avoiding the feared trigger, a person does not experience anxiety. However, this avoidance is what makes a person’s life so small and limited by anxiety. Avoidance works to reduce anxiety in the shortterm, but keeps anxiety going in the long term. Exposure, however, works in the opposite way. By engaging in exposure to the feared trigger, this will cause a person’s anxiety to increase in the shortterm, but with perseverance and persistence, the anxiety will come down and go away in time. Exposure is difficult in the shortterm, but works to eliminate anxiety in the long term.

The first step in exposure therapy is to build a fear hierarchy, or fear ladder. This is a list of various levels of exposure to the feared trigger and ordering them from least anxietyprovoking to most anxiety provoking. Then, exposure therapy involves repeated exposure to the loweranxiety steps until a person’s anxiety goes away on its own. Then the person moves on to the next item in the exposure hierarchy until they work their way all the way through the fear ladder and overcome their anxiety. Exposure therapy takes work and effort, but it is the most effective (and quickest) way to overcome anxiety.

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