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.
​
Summary:
- Fear and anxiety (and anger + aggression) are always
Can a warm drink make you a warmer person?
This sounds completely ridiculous. Is this some crazy woo-woo nonsense? Yet, it is true, and merely one example in a ridiculously list of seemingly irrelevant stimulus which affects our behaviour significantly. And it affects our behaviour without us being aware of it.
​
Let's take a look at these experiments by Lawrence Williams and John Bargh from Yale Univesity.
Experiment 1:
​
-
41 people took part in the experiment.
-
Each participant (one by one) was accompanied by the experimenter into a lift to go up to the research lab. The experimenter would be holding a coffee cup.
-
During the lift ride, the experimenter would explain that he wanted to take down the participant's details, and asked the participant to hold on to the cup.
-
For half the participants the coffee was warm; for the other half, it was iced.
-
The lift ride took between 10 - 25 seconds
-
Once at the lab, the participants are given a profile of Person A.
-
They are then asked to assess the personality of Person A based on 10 personality questions: 5 of these were related to warmth (e.g. do you think that Person A is sociable or anti-social) while 5 of these were not related to warmth (e.g. do you think Person A is honest or dishonest)?
And the results?
-
The warm coffee holders rated the person as much warmer on the 5 warmth-related questions. The iced-coffee holders rated the person as much colder.
-
How do we know that this was not a fluke? Because there was no significant difference between how the 2 groups of participants (warm or iced coffee) rated the participant on non-warmth related questions.
-
In other words, how we judge someone's personality can be influenced by something as innocuous and simple as the temperature of the cup we are holding.
Experiment 2:
​
-
53 participants involved
-
As part of the experiment, half of them were exposed to a heat pack, while the other half were exposed to a cool pack.
-
They were then asked some questions on the effectiveness of the packs.
-
Finally, to thank them for their participation, participants were then offered a gift certificate. They could choose either a gift for themselves or a gift certificate for a friend. Those who held the hot pack were more likely to ask for the gift certificate for their friends, while those who held the frozen pack tended to keep the gift.
Why does this happen?
As Dr Bargh, one of the experimenters explain:
“When we ask whether someone is a warm person or cold person, these terms implicitly tap into the primitive experience of what it means to be warm and cold. Saying that someone is warm or that you feel distant from a friend are more than simple metaphors. They are literal descriptions of emotions such as trust, first experienced during the intimate bond formed between mother and child during infancy."
When we scan the brain, we realise that the same part of your brain activates when you are asked if the cup of coffee is warm or if the personality of this other party is warm. It's the same part of the brain that deals with both of these concepts, even though one is physical and the other is cognitive.
In the same way, this is also how your brain deals with disgust. Recall a time when you ate something disgusting. What happens? You instinctively try to vomit it out, it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, it churns your stomach. Now, think about something morally disgusting, child rape or cannibalism. Imagine that for a moment. What happens? Do you feel a little like vomiting? Does it leave a bad taste in your mouth? Does your stomach churn a little? Notice that whether it is moral or gustatory disgust, the language is exactly the same. Your reaction is exactly the same. The part of your brain - the insular cortex -processing both disgusts is exactly the same. (Find out more about the insular cortex and disgust here.)
​
This gives us an indication of how our brains evolve. Personality is a relatively new concept. No one did personality tests 50,000 years ago. Moral disgust is a relatively new concept - we didn't meet that many people 50,000 years ago, and those around us tend to be very similar to us, so we rarely encountered moral disgust. But as these concepts - personality, moral disgust - came into our lives, we didn't develop a new part of the brain to understand or regulate them. We simply evolved where existing brain parts dealt with similar-sounding notions.
​
Implications
​
At a broad level, as something which so many pages on this website explain - there are many factors that cause us to think and behave the way we do. And many of these are factors we don't even realise. By definition, we are only conscious of what we are conscious of. Who would ever guess that their assessment of someone or their generosity to friends can be determined by holding something warm? We think we make all our choices ourselves, but we don't, at least not consciously.
​
At a more specific level, as parents or family members or even friends, the warmth you emit as a person is related to the touch and contact. Hugging or giving friendly pats (as long as they are not inappropriately placed!) are more likely to make the other party feel your warmth, everything else kept the same. Especially for new parents, skin-to-skin contact with your child (who is yet to be able to properly understand what you say) is a good way to let them feel your warmth and love.
​
Read more about:
-
Williams and Bargh paper (below)