Hello and welcome to The Upgrade, the podcast from the team at LifeHacker, where we help you improve your life one week at a time.

I'm Melissa Kirsch, editor-in-chief of LifeHacker.

And I'm Alice Bradley, Lifehacker's deputy editor.

And today we're talking about how to conquer your fears.

We'll be exploring those things you're terrified of, the concrete stuff like fear of spiders

and heights, as well as that more conceptual existential anxiety about just being alive.

We interviewed Dean Slater, author of the new book, Fearless.

A lot of people feel that if they're not worried, they're being irresponsible.

And worry actually does not help.

Ben Brock Johnson, host of Reddit podcast Endless Thread, visits to share the scariest stories from Reddit.

And the guy who's in front hits something soft in the path.

But first, Alice and I confront our own fears.

So Alice is afraid of spiders.

I'm afraid of heights.

The evil mastermind's Levi Sharp, this show's producer,

and our studio manager, C.J. Dominguez, engineered a virtual reality experience

using the HTC Vive right here in our studio.

And we are never going to forgive them.

Definitely not.

Now I'm in darkness. Oh, my God. Okay, here we go.

Arachnophobia. Here we go. Loading your spiders. There we go. So your hands are on the table.

What do you see? It's weird because you see hands, but your hands don't move. I see three spiders

...