Photos of family, friends, and loved ones getting shots are filling social media feeds to celebrate getting vaccines, but these images can be fear-inducing for those with needle anxiety. Everyone wants the health benefits a vaccine can provide, but being scared of needles is real. In fact, 25% of adults have a fear of needles.
If you, or someone you know, is secretly scared of needles, The Meg Foundation’s Hack the Vax site features ways to reduce needle anxiety stress. Their Vax Plan Builder aims to reduce fear by empowering adults and children to develop and use a getting-over-needle-fears plan.
How to Conquer Needle Anxiety
Simple, proven strategies from The Meg Foundation’s Hack the Vax site can help you take care of yourself, your family, and all of us. Their proven strategies are designed to help you, or someone you love, reduce your stress when getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
Here’s how you can use The Meg Foundation’s resources and techniques to help yourself, or those you know, get through needle fears.
Reducing Stress-Related Needle Anxiety Is as Simple as Think, Plan, Go
Since every individual handles needle anxiety-induced stress differently, The Meg Foundation’s Hack the Vax site provides strategies to conquer needle anxiety-related stress.
The site highlights 9 different techniques. While each is simple and actionable, every individual is different. The site lets you discover strategies that will resonate most with you.
Clicking on the Learn More button provides additional information about each technique, including why it works and actionable steps you can take. Some strategies even include a helpful script of what you can say when you’re about to get your vaccine.
Save the strategies that resonate most with you by clicking on the green bookmark tool in the upper right corner. This provides easy access to the ones you like the best so you can come back and revisit them leading up to your appointment.
Use the Vax Plan Builder to Create a Personalized Plan to Conquer Needle Anxiety
Action is the enemy of anxiety. The Meg Foundation’s Vax Plan Builder encourages individuals to make a plan using the techniques to push through needle anxiety.
This interactive tool helps you make a plan to take care of yourself, your family, and all of us as we look forward to getting back to normal life quickly and safely. Here’s how the Vax Plan Builder works.
The Vax Plan Builder aims to build confidence immediately. I appreciate that it lets us know how common needle anxiety is without shame.
Entering your name provides a sense of comfort and also makes the interactive tool more relatable.
Then it walks you through stress-reducing strategies, many of which are the same as what can be found on the Hack the Vax site but I love the way they’re presented through the Vax Plan Builder.
Helpful information aims to empower through education. After reading them, the interactive tool helps you develop a game plan for tackling the challenge of needle anxiety.
Suggestions are personalized according to the strategies and techniques that will be most beneficial to you.
Having so many options to choose from as you create a plan makes you feel in control of the situation.
There’s a lot to remember, but don’t worry—the customized plan you create is sent directly to your inbox. This allows you to print it out in advance of your appointment and refer to it as needed to reduce needle anxiety.
Moving through our fears to get the vaccine is hard but resources from The Meg Foundation helps kids and think, plan, and go get their shot without fear. Please pass on these techniques because you never know when someone else is feeling nervous.
If you are reading this post on a site other than TechSavvyMama.com this means the website you are on is stealing my content and violating copyright laws.
