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
Our brains prefer efficiency over absolute accuracy.We are prone to jumping to conclusions.
Try This!
1. Picture in your mind a 30cm length
2. Picture in your mind an opera singer
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3. Recall the last time you ate out. Can you remember where you were seated, how many chairs were there at your table, and what you ate?
Good. Now can you remember how many total tables and chairs you saw?
1. When you pictured the 30cm length, did you automatically think of a ruler?
2. What about the opera singer? Did the image of a bearded male come into your mind, aka Pavarotti?
Well, Google Image "Opera Singer". Do you see much more diversity?
3. Why is it that you can remember what was at the table, but not the entire restaurant? You had with your own eyes, seen everything. Some of you might immediately point out, "it's not about what you see, but what you pay attention to and what you can remember". Excellent. But did you notice that your brain automatically filtered out what was important and what wasn't? Did you tell your brain, hey, don't worry about these parts, just forget about it? Oh but remember this part and this other part, please.
Take another example. Can you remember a time when you were in a crowded room, having a conversation with someone? There's a lot of people talking, of course, you can't hear every conversation around you. But suddenly, somewhere across the room, someone mentions your name. And you hear it! You didn't hear everything else, but when it came to your name, your brain was able to pick it up. Why, and how?
Imagine if we had to think through every single decision in life. Every decision.
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Should I brush my teeth this morning?
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But if brushing is meant to clean my teeth, why am I brushing my teeth before breakfast and not after?
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Are you really brushing your teeth correctly? How do you know you are brushing your teeth correctly?
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Should you change your toothpaste? What's the difference between all the kinds of toothpaste anyway. It was found that Colgate toothpaste contained Triclosan - Triclosan kills bacteria, but in animal studies, caused gut inflammation and hormonal disruptions. I have used Colgate my whole life, how much have I been affected by Triclosan? Are there other chemicals in toothpaste I should be worried about?
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What about your toothbrush?
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Are you wasting too much water when you brush your teeth?
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Is brushing your teeth really sufficient?
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And this is for a relatively simple affair of brushing of teeth. What about when all the assessments of all the people we meet in so many different contexts?
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Our brains prefer efficiency over accuracy
We are not wired to analyse everything properly
We are wired to use limited information available to us
to quickly make a decision that is roughly correct most of the time
while avoiding absolute disasters
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Thinking hard about something is extremely tiring. Our brain already takes up 20% of all our energy, and there's a limit to how much it can work every day. This study on judges' decision show the impact of brain fatigue. There are just simply too many "somethings" for us to realistically consider every single day - so the brain had to find a better way to cope.
In any case, we are used to not having all the information we need to make decisions anyway. Think about the many thousands of years where we lacked the technology to know what is happening in the next valley, or even to explain the weather before we pick our next action. Even today, when so much information is readily accessible to us, we still have trouble determining what information is correct.
And taking a long time to make an assessment could be costly for us. In the past, it could mean getting killed by the enemy while you're trying to determine if he's friendly. Today, it could mean being passed up for another person, whether it is for a business deal or to share an opinion.
So our brains evolved on the basis of efficiency while avoiding absolute disasters. And there are a few major ways we do so:
