Common fears include flying, public places, heights, spiders, dogs and blood. While many people face their fears and overcome them, others live life paralyzed by their fears.

Common fear that people experience include arachnophobia, the fear of spiders; acrophobia, the fear of heights; claustrophobia, the fear of close spaces; and mysophobia, the fear of germs, notes Everyday Health. People with such fears know they exist, but are often unable to cope or rid themselves o

Neuroscience has shown that courage is less about facing fears than it is about learning to cope with risk and uncertainty; it can therefore help to specifically acknowledge the things that you are afraid of, thereby removing some of the uncertainty. Implement stress management techniques and practi

The best way to overcome a fear of driving or any other phobia is to confront the fear. As Help Guide suggests, this can be done with a combination of both cognitive behavior therapy and exposure therapy. By definition, cognitive therapy examines how negative thoughts contribute to anxiety; behavior

Parents can access websites, such as KidsHealth, WebMD and Hand in Hand Parenting to find support and information to help their children overcome their fears. Fears in children are natural and change as they grow, as noted by KidsHealth.

Glossophobia, or the fear of public speaking, is most often caused by the perception of negative or judgmental scrutiny from others. This perception results in the cognitive or physiological anxiety reactions common in people with stage fright.

Some reasons for the fear of public speaking include a fear of being singled out and excessive adrenaline. Public speaking ranks as one of the most prominent social phobias, famously shown to be more widely feared than death itself.

There are many websites that provide lists of the most common fears among adults, such as Psychology.About.com, WebMD.com, Forbes.com and ABC.net.au. Each one varies slightly as to the exact rankings of different phobias, but agoraphobia, social phobias, arachnophobia and acrophobia are in all the l

In his book, "The Prince," Niccolo Machiavelli argues that it is ultimately better to be feared than loved as a leader, although he notes that being loved and feared at the same time would be ideal, albeit unlikely. His argument is based on a view of people as essentially self-serving. If they see a

The fear of small holes, specifically clusters of small holes, is called trypophobia, according to Scientific American. When exposed to the fear, sufferers typically experience elevated anxiety, irrational thought processes and a genuine feeling of fear.