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
The murders and murdering of the Murder Hornet
So the Murder Hornet has shot into prominence of late, largely because it has found its way to the United States for the first time. Oh, and obviously because it has such an attention-catching name. This is an example of how our minds rely on heuristics to filter out information - "Murder" just makes us take notice. If the Murder Hornet went about by its Latin Name - Vespa Mandarinia, I would wager that it would receive at least 10 times less attention
The most obvious concern about the Murder Hornet is unfounded - it's very unlikely you meet one; in the rare chance you do encounter one, it's very unlikely to attack you; in the event it does attack you, the sting is extremely painful but the chance of you dying or suffering a serious injury is minuscule, unless you are innately allergic to the hornet's venom.
So that's out of the way, we can go on to the interesting bits:
-
The Murder Hornet is native to Asia, especially Northern East Asia - Japan in particular, but also China, Taiwan, Korea, and Russia, where it's more commonly known as the giant hornet, giant tiger head bee, or the giant sparrow bee, much less controversial names.
-
The Murder Hornet is truly quite the murderer. For food, it would kill and munch up some of the biggest insects around, including other hornets (it is a cannibal and would attack the colonies of other murder hornets) and praying mantises (themselves a very formidable predator). But mostly, its favourite prey are bees and bee larvae.
-
The picture above shows the Murder Hornet decapitating several honey bees. Bees are much smaller, and their stings have no effect. In contrast, the Murder Hornet is able to kill 40 bees per minute, often in the most violent ways. In just a few hours, a few Murder Hornets can decimate an entire colony of thousands of bees.
-
The European version of the honey bee is particularly helpless. Because the Murder Hornet lives in Asia, and the European honey bee in Western continents, the 2 species have not crossed paths. The European honey has not developed any means to defend itself against the Murder Hornet.
-
Bees are incredibly important in the natural cycle. Pollination of vegetation is dependent on bees. Without bees, there would be a significant decrease in vegetation growth, which screws up the entire ecosystem.
-
This is why the sight of Murder Hornets in the United States has raised such alarm among biologists. Just a small number of Murder Hornets carried over can destroy large numbers of bees.
-
We talked about the European version of the honey bee. The Asian honey bee, having co-existed with the Murder Hornet, is much more resilient.
-
Murder Hornets often send scouts to find beehives. These scouts are usually on solo missions, and their job is to find a hive, and release pheromones so that other hornets can subsequently find the hive.
-
While no attacks can work on the hornet, the Asian honey bee has devised a most remarkable defence mechanism.
-
They would surround the Hornet in large numbers - up to hundreds. And then they would start flapping their wings as vigorously as they can. And in the most remarkable manifestation of the conservation of energy - the kinetic energy from the flapping wings is converted into heat energy. The temperature around the hornet can rise up beyond 46 degrees celsius, effecting cooking the hornet and killing it. This prevents the pheromones from ever being released, and the location of the beehive dies with the murdered Murder Hornet. This incredible defence is captured in the National Geographic clip below. Nature is amazing!