The coronavirus panic has often been an invitation—sometimes with the best intentions—to declare that fear is the enemy of a well-functioning immune system. Living in fear can certainly have serious health consequences. But I doubt that telling a fearful person they should be afraid of fear ever helps them reduce it. It’s more likely to intensify it—sometimes exponentially.

At first, you’re simply scared. Then you’re scared and ashamed for being scared. And then you’re even more scared because you believe your threat level must be even higher—since you’re scared.

So how do we escape the grip of fear?

Start by lightening it. Take slow, deep breaths. They calm your nervous system and slow your heartbeat. Acknowledge your fear and name it. Research suggests that labeling an emotion reduces its hold on you. Try something like: “I’m scared because this pandemic—and the way it’s being handled—feels chaotic, threatening, and worst of all, unpredictable.” It’s fear-worthy. Admit it.

Reducing the intensity of emotion is an important beginning, but it’s only step one. Calming the initial emotional “first-responder” team makes it easier to use your thinking and feeling more effectively. Once you’ve steadied the emotion, you can look more realistically at the options you have to keep yourself—and others—well.

Next, find resources and strategies for dealing with fear. There are many. Read a few, choose one or two that fit you, and try them out.

Some of us learned as children to cope with fear by denying it. Others tried to prevent every possible problem by fixing everything, pre-emptively. Some of us pulled the covers over our heads until it passed. There are many blueprints for how to be human in the middle of life.

And it can be an act of love to let someone else be themselves as they try to survive, too.