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
What makes a good life?
What is a life well-led? What question could be more important?
But what question could be more difficult to answer? For most of us, we are still very much in the middle of life's journey, some parts of life still being figured out. In addition, asking people once to answer such a complicated question leads to simplified and generic answers, which wouldn't be much use anyway.
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Enter the longest study of happiness - the Harvard study of Adult Development. It tracked - through interviews (with participants and family members), questionnaires, medical records, brain scans - the lives of 724 men since 1938.
The men came from 2 distinct groups - the first: Harvard students from their second year of study onward; and 2) boys from some of the troubled and poorest families in the Boston area. And they were tracked every year for 75 years. So the answers were cumulative as their lives unfolded. The rigour in which the tests are conducted is important here, because I really wouldn't value simply asking people once at the end of their lives what made good.
So what has this incredibly long-running study produced?
The good life is built with good relationships. Good relationships make us happier and healthier:
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People who have forged strong relationships suffer from less medical conditions and do so later in life. The people who were the most satisfied with their relationships at 50 were the healthiest at age 80. Good relationships kept participants healthier and slowed down the rate of brain decline The converse is also true; people who felt lonely were less happy, saw their health decline earlier, and slowing brain functions.
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It's not about the number of relationships, but the quality of the relationships. Good quality relationships didn't need to be smooth and happy all the time. But these are the relationships where there is confidence from both sides that they are able to depend on each other in times of need. Those who reflected that they felt they were in a safe relationship with people they can count on in times of need have memories that stay sharper, longer.
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Those that remained happiest even in retirement were those who tended to their relationships and even sought new ones through life. There's a Mark Twain quote thrown in for good measure: "There isn't time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that."
This talk really struck me very hard. I kind of really hit all 3 strikes, and it sucks. But it's also the main driving force for me to change my life, and I hope that whatever situation you're in, you'd find and/or build better relationships.