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
Diana Nyad. World record for an open water swim. 5th attempt. Age 64.
At age 64, Diana Nyad made her 5th attempt at an unprecedented record - one which experts and scientists thought was impossible. Even for someone of a different gender. Even for someone much younger.
She had started training at age 60, to become the first person to swim the 110 miles (180km) from Cuba to Florida non-stop, in open waters, without a shark cage. She wanted to do so, "Because I'd like to prove to the other 60 year-olds that it is never too late to start your dreams."
Unpredictable currents, jellyfish stings, tropical storms, and asthma derailed her previous attempts. But she wasn't going to give up. 53 hours later, suffering from hallucinations, vomiting, hypothermia, a swollen throat from constant exposure to saltwater and a swollen face from a jellyfish mask, she set foot onto a beach on Florida.
When I first started training for this, it wasn't just about the ego and about achieving this. But more importantly, it is "how much life is there left? Let's face it. We're all on a one-way street, aren't we? What are we going to do as we go forward, to have no regrets looking back? (I recall the) Teddy Roosevelt quote: 'You go ahead and sit back in the comfortable chair, and you be the critic and the observer, while the brave one goes into the ring and engages and gets bloody and dirty and fails over and over and over again. But yet isn't afraid and lives life in a bold way.' What a tremendous build-up in character and spirit, as you reach for those horizons.
Find a way. You have a dream, and you have obstacles in front of you, as we all do. None of us ever get through life without heartache and turmoil. But if you believe, and you have the faith, and you can get knocked down and get back up again, and you believe in perseverance as a great human quality, you find a way. Never, ever give up. You can chase your dreams at any age, you're never too old.
Every day in our lives is epic. I'm 64, and I'm in the prime of my life.
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When you achieve your dreams, it's not so much what you get as whom you've become to achieve them. I stand proud because I am that bold, fearless person, and I will be, every day until it's time for these days to be done."
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She really says all the right things, doesn't she? But the power and with which she says these things. Wow.
If you're later into your life, don't give up. There's time. There are dreams still waiting for you, and effort to try will be most rewarding.