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
Monkeys prefer porn and pictures of celebrities to their favourite drink
Certainly, something to ponder about.
Though, not too much pontification, I hope.
Professors Deaner, Platt, and Khera from Duke University conducted a "Monkey Pay Per View" experiment in 2005.
-
A group of rhesus monkeys were denied access to water for several hours, and hence were thirsty.
-
The monkeys were then given a choice between some photos and their favourite drink, cherry juice.
-
There were several sets of photos:
-
the first was of female monkey's hindquarters and genitalia​, or more crudely, monkey porn
-
the second was a set of photos of high-status monkeys, the equivalent of "celebrities" in the monkeyverse.
-
the third was a set of photos of low-status monkeys, those lower in the hierarchy
-
the fourth was a simple control, a set of grey squares.
-
And the results*?​​
The monkeys were willing to give up their favourite drink, even when they were very thirsty, to look at pictures of female behinds.
They were also willing to give up their favourite drink while thirsty, to look at pictures of high-status "celebrity" monkeys.
But they had to be bribed with extra juice to want to take a look at low-status monkeys.
​
Ok, so I presume a lot of males reading this might be quoting this study.
But there are 2 broader implications:
-
is the workings of dopamine, and how it relates to pleasure. Dopamine is often wrongly simplified, as directly related and proportional to pleasure. However, is looking at pictures by themselves pleasurable, or is there also pleasure from the anticipation or hypothesizing of what could happen next?
Dopamine plays an incredibly important function in our lives, over a wide range of actions and behaviour. Find out more about how it works here.
-
is the comparisons between us our animal cousins. In recent times we have found ways in which we are incredibly similar - the neuron in our brains are not much different from the neurons in the brain of a fly; like us, chimpanzees engage in genocide and cuckoldry; and bonobos exhibit the preference for the same morality we pride ourselves on - fairness and intent (rather than consequence) of action.
These examples provide hints of what we are biologically inclined towards - behaviours we are likely to adopt unless we actively intervene. But it also shows us in which areas humans and animals bifurcate, why we can develop technology to get us to Mars, and why a rising number of us choose to kill ourselves because of stress. read more about humans vs animals here
*It should be noted that monkeys are very social animals In fact, a very common theme which we observe is that mammals in complex social structures tend to have greater brain development. In these complex social webs, social information is very important. And at least to some extent, the monkeys could be looking at these pictures to help them gain information, especially the ones of the celebrity females.