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
There never seems to be enough time in life
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There are so many things we have to, and we often find that even after prioritising our tasks, we sill don't have enough time. In fact, we could all probably do with more leisure or sleep time. So how can we possibly find enough time to pursue what we want to?
2 possible solutions below:
Are you hunting antelopes or chipmunks?
Is there something you can do first, which will reduce or remove what you have to do later?
Source: AZ Quotes
Newt Gingrich's metaphor of the chipmunks and the antelopes provide an insightful take into time management. Hunting antelopes and mice both take considerable effort, but they have massively different returns on investment.
We all know we have to prioritise, to decide between what is urgent vs what is important... yada yada. But there are additional questions we should ask ourselves when we prioritise:
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Is there something I can do which will make other things easier or redundant? For example, is there someone I can speak to who will then subsequently reduce the number of people I have to go through for something to be done?
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Is there something I can automate or delegate?
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Am I spending too much time hunting mice/chipmunks? What if I just didn't do these things? Would it really be that costly to me?
Don't just find time for our priorites.
Make Time
Sunday Night/Monday morning. You mentally think through all the tasks that you need to complete in the week ahead. It's going to be one hard slog, a super-busy week. There will barely be any breathing room. Sounds familiar?
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But if something unexpected was to happen, even during this busy week? Say:
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A pipe broke and part of your house was flooded? Would you be able to find the time to oversee the repairs and clean up the house?
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What if your spouse or family member had an emergency trip abroad, and you had to cover certain duties?
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What if your laptop was to crash before your work was fully saved, and you had to re-do an important piece of work with less time than you originally had?
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Ok, or something a little more exciting: there is a new episode of your favourite show that was uploaded unexpectedly, which needs watching. Or some close friends from abroad whom you have not seen for a long time makes a spontaneous stopover and asks you out for dinner.
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Would we be able to find time for all of these unexpected commitments?
Somehow, we always believe we have no time. And yet, as long as something is important and urgent enough, we are mostly able to find the time we need to do it. You probably have an example that comes to your mind right now as you're reading. And we might also realise that sometimes, some of the things we thought we had to do - well nothing really that negative happened because we didn't complete them (in the way we intended to).
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These examples show that even when we thought we didn't have time, we found a way to make time as long as we saw something to be a priority. Note the language - "MAKE" time. Trying to "find" time is a losing strategy - if something is important to you, prioritise and make time for it.
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"If we focus on what matters, we can build the lives we want, in the time we got."
Laura Van Der Kam