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
Is it exercise that makes you healthy? Or the acknowledgement that you have exercised?
We all know about the benefits of exercise - physically moving our bodies causes us to lose weight and stay healthy. It also keeps our brain healthy and allows us to learn better.
Here's the thing. Besides actually exercising, must your brain also be convinced that you were exercising? Wait what does this mean?
When we think of exercise, we tend to think of a certain image: going to the gym, going for a run or a swim, or engaging in some type of sports. But there are many activities we do which are the equivalent of exercise, just that we don't classify it as such. For example, anyone who had done chores of mopping the floor, cleaning the toilet, chasing after the kids, or changing the sheets of multiple beds would realise that it takes as much, if not more effort than jogging, swimming, golf, bowling, table tennis and the likes.
In other words, there are some professions that are, just because of the nature of their work, exercising daily. So shouldn't they reap the benefits of exercise?
Crum and Langer from Stanford University aimed to find out (full paper here).
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84 female room attendants working in seven different hotels were invited to take part in a study.
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The attendants had certain physiological health measures taken, such as body fat and blood pressure, which are affected by exercise.
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They were then divided into 2 groups:
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Group 1 was a control group - measurements were taken, and continued their work as per normal.
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Group 2 was the "informed group" - housekeepers here were given a 15 minute briefing and an information sheet (below) that cleaning of hotel rooms is actually very good exercise, and more than satisfies recommendations for an active lifestyle. Examples were given of the number of calories burnt for different housekeeping activities.
Image from Dr. Alia Crum | TEDxTraverseCity
That was the only difference. Both groups were doing the same work. One group was given information that the work they were doing was actually exercise, and one group wasn't. That's it.
4 weeks later, the same physiological measurement were retaken. And the results were shocking.
Image from Dr. Alia Crum | TEDxTraverseCity
In the picture above, we can see that for major indicators like weight, body fat percentage, and blood pressure, there was a appreciable difference in readings, even though there was no change in behaviour!
The black line indicates the readings of the control group (who were not told that their work was exercise) - as expected, there was no significant difference between the before and after readings.
But take a look at the blue line - the informed group. After receiving the briefing that they were, in fact, getting plenty of exercise just from work, the informed group showed improvements in all major physiological readings. Beyond physiological improvements, participants in the informed group even felt greater job satisfaction.
It's worth going through this point again. Both groups did not report any change in behaviour between the 2 measurements - there was no increase in workload, and the subjects reported no major change in exercise outside of work, food intake, or the intake of alcohol and caffeine. They simply followed their normal lifestyle habits, they did what they have always done.
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The improvements measured in the participants were not caused by behavioural changes, but mindset changes. At first glance, this seems impossible. Losing weight or body fat, for example, is a biological process - if they were doing the exact same thing as before, how can they possibly be losing weight or body fat?
We broadly categorise this as a placebo effect. The placebo effects sounds like some a convenient theory of heretics and charlatans, a wonky and flawed pseudoscience. Yet the evidence for placebos is overwhelming; a placebo test is standard procedure for all pharmaceuticals - 90% of all medication do no better than a placebo pill (even when you know it is a placebo).
While there are no physical changes in behaviour, the change in mindset subsequently triggers changes in the chemical output within the body, accelerating or slowing down certain processes. Or in other words, believing in certain things cause these things to actually manifest (within certain limits).
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