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
What makes a hotel stay memorable?
*This piece is part of a longer series on memory. Read more about what and how we remember things, here.
​
Check out the photos of a particular hotel below. What is your impression of it?
This is the Magic Castle Hotel, which has for many years now ranked in the top 5 hotels in Los Angeles on TripAdvisor. It trumped (no pun intended) over your usual suspects - the Intercontinental, the Ritz Carlton, the JW Marriott, and a host of other major top-tier hotel chains. Out of close to 3,500 reviews, more than 93% rated their experience as "Excellent" or "Very Good".
Now let me see if I can guess your assessment. What? This is top 5?? It doesn't look bad but... it sure doesn't look top 5. And it's not exactly cheap either - even in the off-peak, it's about US$250 per night. So why exactly do people like it?
That's until you understand some of the unusual perks the hotel provides
​
Magic Castle has a Popsicle hotline. Anyone can dial the hotline, upon which a staff answers, "Hello, Popsicle Hotline!" After you have placed an order, a staff delivers your popsicle to you by the poolside, on a silver tray, for free. There's also a free Snack Basket, Board Game, and DVD Menu, where you can pick your favourite nibbles and entertainment. There's more! Guests can leave an unlimited amount of laundry for free washing - your clothes would be washed and returned to you the next day, tied up in a neat nostalgic package with a sprig of lavender.
What Magic Castle demonstrates is that:
a) you don't need every area to be perfect
b) you don't need to compete in areas where everyone else is competing in. Think about it, how different can a standard hotel room be? No matter how much resources a hotel puts into making their standard room stand out, it still pretty much resembles every other hotel room - there's a bathroom, there's a bed, a table and chair set - it's extremely difficult to stand out in this area. A hotel can of course design an exquisite lobby or a stunning pool area - but these are incredibly costly.
Magic Castle rejected competing in the common areas of room decor and swimming pool. They figured out that it is possible to compete in a far more effective way. By offering something completely different from all other hotels, they create great experiences that come as surprise to the guests, that are deeply memorable. And just like the photos above, imagine how eager guests would be to share their experience on social media (and the subsequent affirmation in likes and comments thereafter).
​
You can imagine a guest raving to their friends, "You know I just stayed in this hotel, and it has Popsicle Hotline. Like literally, an old school phone line just for you to order popsicles." That's deeply memorable.
Compare this to: "You know I stayed in this great hotel and the bed was really great. It was really big."
In other words, Magic Castle realised that only the few magical moments stick in our memories. Everything else fades away. And these magical moments can be engineered. They need not be left to chance.
So what exactly creates these magical moments that stick into our memories? The psychologists Dan and Chip Heath identified 4 specific factors - the presence of one or more creates these special memories that stay with us.
-
ELEVATION
-
INSIGHT
-
PRIDE
-
CONNECTION
​
What do these areas mean?
Which of these 4 areas do Magic Castle fulfil?
Read more, here.
​