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
Phineas Gage - the man who had his brain blown out
In 1848, Phineas Gage (then 25), was the foreman of a crew cutting a new railroad in Vermont USA. He was using a tamping iron (you can see him holding that very tamping iron above) to pack explosives to blow up a hole in the ground. Unfortunately, the explosives detonated. The tamping iron was blasted up with such force that it penetrated Gage's left cheek, blasting through his brain, exited the top of his skull, and landed almost 30 metres away. When they found the tamping iron, the crew also found the remains of what used to be Gage's Pre-Frontal Cortex.
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Quite amazingly, Gage was still conscious despite such a horrific accident. A few minutes later, he was writing in his workbook after being loaded onto an ox-cart to be transported to a medical facility. And Gage recognised the company doctor, Dr John Martyn Harlow, who came to attend to him. In fact, he still possessed enough humour to quip: “Here is business enough for you.”
Gage survived the accident, although he spent most of the next 5 weeks in a coma because of an infection of the wound. He looked to be in really bad shape, but Dr Harlow's skill ensured he survived, although blinded in his left eye.
By itself, this is already a most remarkable story. But it doesn't end there. Gage was now a person living without part of his Pre-Frontal Cortex. How would life be without such a major portion of his brain? Can he really live a normal life?
Observation 1: Gage did change for the worse...
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Before the accident, Gage was even-keeled and respected. And he showed with his post-accident humour showed why he was well-liked by people around him.
Things changed after the accident, captured but Dr Harlow, who knew him before the accident and who treated him throughout. In various accounts, Harlow wrote that: "Gage remembers passing and past events correctly, as well before as since the injury."
However, he wrote that "Gage's intellectual manifestations were feeble, being exceedingly capricious and childish, but with a will as indomitable as ever; is particularly obstinate; will not yield to restraint when it conflicts with his desires. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows, impatient of restraint or advice when it conflicts with his desires.... A child in his intellectual capacity and manifestations, he has the animal passions of a strong man...." Finally, Harlow wrote that accounts from Gage's friends and acquaintances said he was ‘no longer Gage'.
If you have read the page on the Pre-Frontal Cortex, these descriptions of Gage are very fitting. The PFC is responsible for:
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analysis and rational decision making
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but beyond that, the PFC is dedicated to socially appropriate behaviour. In life, we will be placed in many different situations with a variety of people, and how we choose to act based on the context we're in is a major challenge which the PFC helps us to navigate. When it is appropriate to joke, and when is it not? Why is it appropriate to pay a restaurant for food but not your spouse? Why should you tell the complete ruth and when should tell a partial truth?
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the PFC plays an additional role of inhibiting animalistic thoughts, originating in more primitive parts of our brains, that we are prone to having. It is your PFC that tells you, you don't need to punch someone just because they have a different view.
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patients like Gage, who lose particular parts of their brains
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his memory and learning was not affected, which is only to be expected. It is not the PFC that deals with memory, it's the hippocampus. You might also be interested in the extraordinary account of another patient, SM, who lost his hippocampus.
Without a fully functioning, Gage fell on hard times. He was removed from his job at the rail company. Also, ever wondered why he would still pose with that tamping iron that ruined his life? Well, that was his new "job", his means of survival - he posed with the tamping iron as an exhibit in a travelling circus.
Observation 2: But he improved over time...
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A little bit of good news. Gage eventually did improve. After a few years recovering and in the circus, he was stable enough to get himself a job as a stagecoach driver. He was also described as being generally socially acceptable.
How does this happen? One of the most discoveries of our brain is how plastic it is - what we term neuroplasticity. That is, that your brain can change, even at the most fundamental levels. Gage lost part of his PFC, which meant that the neural networks that existed before, connecting to other parts of the brain was lost. But his brain transformed and adapted. The remaining parts of the PFC literally grew new neural networks to fill in for the missing part, allowing him to re-establish some control.
We have observed many instances of neuroplasticity. Post-traumatic stress disorder causes our amygdala, the part of our brain regulating fear, anger, anxiety, and aggression, to physically grow bigger and more influential. People who have lost their sight were able to rekindle the use of some of their visual neurons for other tasks, like hearing. And as you are reading this, and hopefully other pages, your brain is also transforming - some neurons might be forming new synapses, or existing synapses strengthened, so that you become more sensitive to neuroscience.
Crucially, there are limits to neuroplasticity (which I note that some irresponsible motivational speakers and influencers have claimed otherwise. You cannot be whomever you wish to be. You can't "neuroplasticity" to have the creative talents of Mozart or to recover fully from a serious injury. Phineas Gage was able to improve, but he was never himself again
Read more about neuroplasticity here.
What happened to Phineas Gage in the end? Unfortunately, life was really hard for him. After working as a stagecoach driver for a few more years, he returned to his family in San Francisco in 1860, whereupon he developed epilepsy. In May 1861, 12 years after the injury, he died due to status epilepticus, a seizure in his brain.
The brain is the most important and complex part of your body. If you lose a finger, or an arm, or a leg, or even a kidney, you might be physically different. But any damage to your brain causes you to be a completely different person. Gage and many others who suffered brain injuries often became a shell of their former selves and would face many challenges in life. But even though their lives often had elements of tragedy, they also played a massive role in helping us understand our brains in ways we simply couldn't before.