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
Why do Germans eat potatoes?
Wait, what? What sort of question is this? You mean they didn't always eat potatoes? Don't they just eat it because it is there and it is tasty??
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No.
The potato was introduced to Germany only about 250 years ago. Even though it was a popular choice in many other countries, Germans had always vehemently rejected potatoes - they thought it tasted terrible!
Ah ok but this is still a "potatic" story. Why should I care? Well, because something so obvious and widely accepted as the potato was only introduced with an understanding of human nature and how to overcome our innate resistance to change.
To start off, we introduce Frederick the Great, the longest-reigning King of Prussia (former Germany) - 46 years he wore the crown. And he was broadly accepted to be a very accomplished King - modernising Prussia, improve state bureaucracy and upward mobility, and winning many wars.
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But as the tributes at his grave (even till today) show, the introduction of these delicious spuds rank high on his list of accomplishments.
Frederick saw 2 major benefits for Prussia to consume potatoes:
First, it would be an alternate carbohydrate source to wheat (used to make bread). An insurance policy - even in times of bad harvest of wheat, there would be a secondary food source that would prevent famine. This was particularly important as Prussia had been at war during the 1700s, and the risk of a bad harvest of wheat could be catastrophic.
A second benefit - economics: with potatoes as an alternative source, wheat farmers and distributors will no longer hold a monopoly of carbohydrates, and cannot jack up prices indiscriminately as there is an alternative. Food prices are likely to be more stable, beneficial for the common man.
So Frederick started a propaganda campaign to encourage Prussians to grow and eat potatoes. One of his most famous campaign slogans was in fact "Potatoes instead of truffles!"
(Ah... if he only lived 250 years later, he would have realised that "Potatoes with truffles" would have worked better)
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But the Prussians were not sold. They thought that the potato, a dull root vegetable, looked unappetising (french fries hadn't been invented yet). And the Prussians were not people who readily embraced change, not least with their diet. There was the saying that developed: "was der Bauer nicht kennt, frisst er nicht" or "what the peasant is not sure of, he will not eat." The town of Kolberg went so far as to issue an official reply to the King. “The things [potatoes] have neither smell nor taste, not even the dogs will eat them, so what use are they to us?“
But Frederick was not a man that was easily defeated. Before the age of marketing, he was already a most talented marketer. He realised that persuasion need not come from words, but shifting the perceived value of the potato in the eyes of the consumer.
He ordered potato fields to be cultivated near his palace in Berlin. Then he ordered some of his best palace guards to guard these fields. Now the Prussian might not know what the potato was and hence would not try it. But they certainly knew that if something was so heavily guarded, it must be valuable and worth stealing.
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As it turned out that was exactly Frederick's plan. In fact, he had instructed his officers to appear like they were guarding the potatoes, but to be deliberately distracted or unobservant so that the people could get away with stealing them.
You can guess what happened next. People stole the potatoes and grew them and grew to love them.
This example of Frederick's and the potatoes show us a few things:
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persuasion is often better than compulsion. As King, he could have forcibly introduced the potato. Instead, Frederick found a way to make the people want it for themselves, reducing discontent and resistance.
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all value is perceived value. And there is a whole list of examples on this site that illustrate this. Most of us will be familiar with the Chilean Sea Bass, a common dish in many restaurants. But have you ever seen a picture of the "bass" itself? It's not even a bass, and it is somewhat grotesque.
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to persuade people, facts, evidence and reasons rarely work. Once we have made up our minds on something, it becomes very difficult to change. Instead of actively disagreeing and offering reasons and evidence why, a much more effective way is to change how a person views a decision. We have an entire chapter dedicated to this.
*There is also an unverified story of Ataturk, the father of modern Turkey. The legend goes that in a bid to modernise the country, he wanted people to stop wearing veils. However, he was worried about resistance if he had given a direct order. So What did Ataturk do? Apparently, he made it compulsory for all prostitutes to wear veils when they were working.