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
You can get a kiss from any celebrity. When do you want it?
Imagine getting a kiss from any celebrity. Who would you pick?
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Now how much would you be willing to pay for this kiss if it comes:
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Immediately
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In 1 day
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In 3 days
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in 1 year
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in 10 years
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Image from: "The optimism bias" Ted Talk, Dr Tali Sharot, UCL
George Lowenstein asked 30 undergraduates to find out. The graph above shows the results:
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Unsurprisingly, the value of a celebrity kiss in 10 years' time is low. The wait is just too long, and unfortunately, society is not particularly encouraging to ageing celebrities.
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What's more interesting is that people didn't want the kiss too soon either. The value of an immediate kiss is low. In fact the value of a kiss by the desired celebrity is higher in 1 years' time than an immediate kiss, or a kiss in 3 hours or in a day! The sweet spot seems to lie somewhere in the middle - the peak value is after 3 days, when there's enough time for anticipation to kick in, but not having to wait too long.
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So why would people not want an immediate kiss? Why would a kiss after 3 days be more valuable than after 1 day?
The answer is because of dopamine and anticipation. Dopamine has crept into popular culture, with motivational speakers and influencers and entrepreneurs all referring constantly to its effects.
The most common misrepresentation is that dopamine is related to reward - you eat chocolate, you feel good, your brain releases dopamine, you want to eat chocolate again. Now reward is merely just 1 function of dopamine and not a strong one at that. Think about it: gamblers experience dopamine spikes when they are gambling. But gamblers lose most of the time, they don't get the reward, so why are they addicted to gambling? Or think about that piece of chocolate (or whatever food you really like) - are your feelings most intense as you re craving for that food, as you anticipate getting that food, or when you actually bite into the food itself?
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We know the answer for sure. With a brain scanner, the answer is obvious: dopamine spikes more in anticipation of a reward rather than during the reward itself. And this spike in dopamine is what makes us feel good when we know we are about to get something. Or when we start to anticipate the kiss. But as this experiment shows, we don't want our rewards to come immediately. Too soon and there isn't enough time for the build-up and pleasure of anticipation. Too long, and the value of the reward is discounted. So 3 days is the optimal time amount of time for participants o anticipate how good the kiss will be, and to feel really good during this anticipation.
Find out more about dopamine here
Read the full research paper below: