When you are afraid, you start going into fight or flight mode. Your body starts prioritising what is needed for immediate survival - screw routine body functions, if you don't make it past the next few moments there won't be a routine to return to. You stop digesting food. Cell repair slows or stops. You stop producing saliva, which is why your mouth goes dry when you're nervous just before making a speech or going into a difficult conversation. Your heart rate and breathing increase to ensure better blood flow. A cocktail of hormones like epinephrine and oxytocin are cued up and produced, which amplifies your body's ability to act (and remarkably, in the case of oxytocin, reminds you to seek help).
Don't be mistaken about what happens when you feel fear. Your body is readying itself to help you face what you fear in the way it knows how.
What causes us to feel fear?
1) Fear occurs to us unconsciously. Do you pause to think, hey, very angry looking snake! Maybe I should be scared. Of course not, it would be too late! Fear becomes much clearer when we examine what happens inside your brain. When you are afraid, the fear/anger/aggression/anxiety centre of your brain - the amygdalas (get used to this name, it's gonna keep popping up) lights up. And we've covered all the changes that happen in your body: your blood pressure, your hormones, your heart-rate. But remember how amygdala is like a train interchange with direct routes to different parts of your brain? There is a direct neural link between our amygdala and your pre-frontal cortex, the rational thinking part of your brain. And if we look closely enough or we think things through, sometimes we realise, argh! it's not an angry snake, it's just a prank toy that your annoying friend had thrown at you. Or if you've handled angry snakes enough times, your amygdala does not light as much. Your blood pressure and your heart rate do not increase as much, you realise what you need to do is to stay calm and slowly back away.
Finally, notice how fear, anger, aggression, and anxiety are processed by the same part of the brain, the amygdala. This is no coincidence. These 4 emotions are closely tied to one another; aggression maybe triggered because one is nervous, angry, or fearful. Being fearful may cause one to react angrily, as a self-defense mechanism. Fear, like all our emotions, happens to us. Mostly, we can't control how it originates. But we can control how it develops by understanding what exactly is causing fear and by choosing the response that dispels it
2) We fear what we are unconfident or uncertain about. Think back on your ancestors doing something they weren't confident or certain off - hunting a massive animal without a weapon, or eating a berry they've never seen before. Doing so would mean a very high chance of seriously harming themselves. Today, after many cycles of evolution, we have been wired based on these experiences.
Think about it. Are you ever fearful of something you've done before, and are good? Brushing your teeth, putting on your clothes, indulging in your favourite hobby (whatever it is)? Of course not. You know you can perform these functions easily. You are confident.
But many of us would have felt fearful and anxious the first time we ventured into something new: using a pair of chopsticks, riding a bicycle, swimming, going on a first date. We were uncertain about these functions, and we were not confident about performing them. However, once we have demonstrated to ourselves that we are able to perform these tasks, we are no longer afraid. The same applies to more challenging tasks. Some of us struggle with: public speaking, starting a business, having a very difficult conversation with the CEO... You are uncertain and unconfident if you can succeed. But once you have proven to yourself you are able to do it, even for the more challenging tasks, you are no longer afraid. People might start off feeling scared about public speaking, but after speech 3797, you're pro The catch, of course, is that sometimes, we are too scared to start.
Even if we were certain of something OR confident about something, many of us will still feel some amount of fear. We might be theoretically certain how we should use a pair of chopsticks, but if we have never succeeded in using them properly, we remain unconfident and will still feel nervous if we had to use them, especially when others are observing. You might also be confident about
3) we fear what is painful. Boxer. climbing 100 flights of stairs or doing 100 burpees. But pain is not just physical but mental. Failure is painful. Being judged is painful.
This is why you procrastinate. You either fear what you have to do bevause you don't know how to do it (you don't fear brushing your teeth for example), or you fear doing something becaue you know it will be effortful
4) we fear what we cannot control
Learn more about your amygdala, the amygdala hijack, the thalamus, the pre-frontal cortex, and how your brain works here.
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Summary:
- Fear and anxiety (and anger + aggression) are always
Spare the rod and spoil the child? Why was physical punishment ok in the past but not so today?
In recent years, spanking or beating our kids have become largely unacceptable. From a psychological and biological standpoint, ample research have emerged that beating kids could lead to trauma and epigenetic changes - leading to the kid growing up to be violent or distant. Or it might strain the relationship between parent and child - where the child grows fearful or resentful of the parent. Finally, there seem to be much better ways, e.g. patient explanation or reward conditioning to discipline children - physcial punishment seems to reflect ineptitude in parenting.
But there are two persistent rebuttals.
First, there is a perception that kids are less resilient and more entitled these days. A retiring teacher recently shared with me that most kids are well aware of the climate they are in - that they hold power over adults because one group of adults can be turned on another (e.g. parents on teachers, the public on parents) Any form of negativity, be it physical punishment, a scolding, or even criticism - is generally frowned upon and can be blown up. Most kids own a mobile phone and are very comfortable videoing and sharing about their lives. Additionally, adult behaviour has also been shaped. With more emphasis on the importance of being encouraging and greater affluence and comfort in life, parents have veered towards being too protective. The combination of more entitled kids and more protective parents leads to less resilience - kids find it harder to accept and learn from failures and setbacks.
Second, most of us grew up with our parents giving us the odd spank or two (or three or four). And we turned out ok. We didn't suffer from trauma or hate our parents, and only a small number eventually developed anti-social or violent behaviour. Some in the older generation hold on to the belief that a certain amount of punishment seems somewhat beneficial, building more resilient and more
So which view is right? Obviously, physical punishment is a small part of Is parenting an improvement from the past - where we replace punishment with encouragement? Or does a complete shift away from punishment contribute to kids who struggle to accept their shortcomings and failures?
We probably all have an opinion on this (obviously this is not a strict dichotomy but we have leanings one way or another).
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But before debating our conclusions, how about we take a deeper look at what really is at play.
(Obviously, there's a lot more to bringing up a child, discipline vs respect, resilience vs entitlement than physical punishment. To keep this article at a reasonable length, we're just going to examine one aspect of physical punishment)t.
Our understanding takes us (unsurprisingly) to look at our brains - the most amazing mechanism we know. It regulates almost everything we experience in life and performs a mind-boggling range of functions.
There are 2 particular features of our brain that are critical here:
The first is the main cognitive function our brain performs: it is constantly creating our own subjective reality, by reconciling our perception of the external environment and our internal state and experience.
Some examples:
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Your flight got delayed. In one instance, someone from the airline company comes up to apologise profusely and informs you about the reason for the delay and the expected waiting time; in another, there is no word from the airline company at all. Same scenario, same you. But one change in the external environment changes how you react.
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The same person asks for the same favour with the same tone at the start of the day. If you're tired, stressed, or just had a major quarrel, you are less likely to say yes. If you had just had a great night out or just received some terrific news (i.e. your favourite rugby team won), you're far more likely to say yes.
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Or something I saw just the other day at a meeting. Two people suggest the exact same idea about 2 minutes apart after a presentation. The first was a junior member who had the reputation of being critical. In contrast, the second person was a rising star in the company, in the good books of the big boss who had just praised his suggestions after the previous presentation. Naturally, the first person was ignored, while everyone jumped on the bandwagon after the second person had shared.
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But what does this mean for parents disciplining kids?
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Let's consider the external environment for kids 20-40 years ago.
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Parents then had just lived through either or both World War 2 and the Cold War, when times felt harder. Education rates were lower. Manufacturing and agriculture were still the dominant industries then, and a larger proportion of people held jobs with some physical element. And there was far less prevalence and proliferation of technology to occupy kids.
What this meant was that parents continued to adopt practices passed down by their parents, including disciplining kids through physical punishment.
Parents then had just lived through either or both World War 2 and the Cold War, when times felt harder. Education rates were lower. Manufacturing and agriculture were still the dominant industries then, and a larger proportion of people held jobs with some physical element. And there was far less prevalence and proliferation of technology to occupy kids.
What this meant was that parents continued to adopt practices passed down by their parents, including disciplining kids through physical punishment. With less technological distractions, kids fo
