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.
​
Summary:
- Fear and anxiety (and anger + aggression) are always
Throwing in the towel :
Take a look at the 4 messaes below
1. HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT
You can show your respect for nature and help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay.
4. JOIN YOUR FELLOW GUESTS IN HELPING TO SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT
Almost 75% of guests who are asked to participate in our new resource savings program do help by using their towels more than once. You can join your fellow guests to help save the environment by reusing your towels during your stay.
2. PARTNER WITH US TO HELP SAVE THE ENVIRONMENT
In exchange for your participation in this program, we at the hotel will donate a percentage of the energy savings to a nonprofit environmental protection organization. The environment deserves our combined efforts. You can join us by reusing your towels during your stay.
​
3. WE’RE DOING OUR PART FOR THE ENVIRONMENT. CAN WE COUNT ON YOU?
Because we are committed to preserving the environment, we have made a financial contribution to a nonprofit environmental protection organization on behalf of the hotel and its guests. If you would like to help us in recovering the expense, while conserving natural resources, please reuse your towels during your stay.
Washing and drying towels require a lot of electricity and water, which is harmful to the planet and costly for the hotel. Besides, most of us do not wash our towels after a single-use.
So how can guests be convinced to re-use their towels? Robert Cialdini and Noah Goldstein tested 4 different messages to find out. Before you scroll down further for the answer, do make a guess.
​
Ok here comes the answers
​
​
The results should come as no surprise. Even for something as important and major as saving the planet, context matters more than content:​
-
Signs 1 and 2, premised on the content (i.e. saving the planet is very important) fare less well
-
Signs 3 and 4, premised on the context (i.e. others are already doing so, wouldn't you want to do so as well?) fare better.
-
Put another way, from this experiment, 36% of hotel guests care significantly about the environment. They would have re-used their towels with no or a simple reminder.
-
However, to convince the next level of guests to do the same, the content is insufficient. It requires the message to carry something that appeals to a more instinctive reaction of our brain - social conformity. What others are doing act as a simple but convincing heuristic for us to follow. We do not want to look out of place.
-
Most interesting is the difference between signs 2 and 3 - both involve a contribution to non-profit organisations, so why did 3 do better than 2? The reason lies with another instinctive inclination - reciprocity. In message 3, the contribution to the non-profit has already been done, and the invite if for the guest to do the same. The order is reversed in message 2 - the guest has to first take action before a contribution will be made.
-
The order of the message really matters. If someone offers you cooperation provided you perform a favour first, the sense of acceptability and social obligation is much less. However, when someone has done something already for you, and then asks for a favour in return, there is a greater sense of social obligation.
We often assume (or want to believe) that everything we do is for a conscious, rational reason. But all 4 messages are about saving the environment; this doesn't change regardless of the message. Yet the results are different simply from the words chosen and the order in which they are presented.
This shows us 2 things:
1) Behaviour is often subconscious and instinctive; the reason why we do certain things might only be formulated after we do something, to explain why we did it. This is as opposed to what is commonly believed, that before we act, we think through reasons why we should or should not do something.
2) Language taking into account social influences shapes behaviour.
Read more in our series on:
-
What has lottery got to do with medicine?
-
Ulysses Contracts - how to keep sailing through the song of sirens
​
​