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
Beach = parrotfish shit
This is the dream, isn't it? White, sandy beach. Clear waters. Beautiful skies. It's almost picture perfect.
(Ok, to be honest, I'm not a big fan of beaches... but let's all live in the cliches for a little bit)
Here's the thing though. This beach is in Hawaii. And Hawaii has very little terrestrial sand. It's a naturally sandy place. So where did all this beautiful sand come from?
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No one explains this any better than Ling Ong, a marine biologist with Hawaii's SWCA Environmental Consultants: "Almost all of our sand is of biological origin; I like to tell people that the sand you're standing on in Hawaii has probably gone through the gut of something. It'll have gone through the gut of a parrotfish, a sea urchin, some kind of worm.”
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Doesn't that give you a warm feeling to match the warm weather in the photo?
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Photo credit: Hawaii Tourism Authority (HTA) / Tor Johnson
This fella in the picture - the giant bumphead parrotfish is the main contributor to many of the white sandy beaches we love and roll around in. The parrotfish is really a remarkable creature with several seemingly unbelievable characteristics.
How does it produce sand? Well.... parrotfishes have a diet of, get this... coral. It eats not only the hard skeleton of coral, rich in calcium carbonate but the soft-bodied organisms (called polyps) that cover the skeleton, as well as the algae (called zooxanthellae) and bacteria living inside the coral skeleton.
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It does so using its distinctive forehead to bump off loose coral to munch on.
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See the white bit sticking out from its mouth? That's the parrotfish's teeth. And what a formidable set of teeth it is. Each parrotfish has roughly 1,000 teeth, lined up in 15 rows so close together that it forms a beak-like structure, which they use for biting into the coral. Parrotfish teeth are made of a material called fluorapatite - the second-hardest biomineral in the world. It is harder than silver or gold!
So strong bumping forehead. Strongest teeth. Something has to give. The parrotfish has no stomach! They simply gnaw off the coral and grind it up with teeth at the back of their throat. The nutritious algae is absorbed by their digestive system while it fires out (i.e. shits out) calcium carbonate as sand.
In a year, one large parrotfish can produce up to 800 - 1,000 pounds of sand. Talk about productivity.
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Parrotfishes play a vital role in marine eco biology. Algae is a major threat to corals, covering them and cannibalising on precious light. While parrotfishes do pry away some coral, they play an important role in keeping algae in check. Not only do they remove surface algae which takes up the most light, but some species have also evolved to gnaw below the surface, to reach algae that had penetrated the coral. Corals are the centre of the ecosystem in the oceans, and parrotfishes play a vital role as the coral reef's trusty and indispensable gardener.
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However, parrotfishes face a heavy threat from hunting, due to its large size and... well peculiar sleeping habits. As with its head, its teeth, its diet, and its produce, parrotfishes tend towards extremes. The parrotfish is an incredibly heavy sleeper. They don't wake up easily, making them very easy to hunt. It's also a major problem that it tends to be the larger parrotfishes (more meat) that are the most heavily hunted.
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The parrotfish has one more unique characteristic. They are sex-changers. Parrotfishes are all born female. The fishes form into schools. When they mature, the largest female in each school will change into male and assume command over the school. So you know, what were previously her sisters and relatives now become... his harem. You can tell the difference between males and females by colour - females (like the one in the photo above) are dull-coloured, while males are brightly-coloured. Since the largest fishes are the sole male or the most productive females, the hunting of these fishes causes a serious dent into the population of parrotfish.
Let us all work together to save this incredible fish - a sex-changing, hard-headed, coral-saving, sand-producing fish with a real bite. Our marine ecosystems have been heavily damaged by climate change (caused by humans), and further worsened by over-fishing and the dumping of wastes into our seas and oceans. There are such wondrous life in the seas - let us not be the ones to ruin it all.
Photo credit: National Ocean Service, NOAA, USA.