Fear. We Are Hardwired For It!
Mar 10, 2021Fear is a very powerful, primitive emotion that contains a biochemical reaction and an emotional response. What happens when we are afraid? And how does that help us with survival?
You've heard of 'fight or flight'. Fear is all about survival. If you're way back in the day, if something's coming after you, you're either going to stand and fight, or you're going to run - and your body is hardwired to make this happen.
So when we get that fear response, it alerts our nervous system. Our nervous system takes over. Now this is the sympathetic nervous system, the sympathetic side of our nervous system. So what really happens?
Any activity that's happening in the body that is not directly related with survival, like in the immediate is shut down. So there's no reproduction going on. There's no digestion going on. Nothing like that.
Our pupils dilate to allow more light in. Our lungs dilate to allow more air in. Our heart starts beating faster so we have a lot of blood flow. The blood vessels, especially in our legs and arms - dilate so we have more blood flowing. Our liver puts more stored glucose into our system. So we have plenty of fuel.
What are we getting ready to do? We're either going to fight or we're going to run like crazy!
Now, whenever we get a fear response, our body goes into that same process! Here's the thing about fear.
We respond in the same way. Whether we are in real danger, like real, actual, physical danger, or we just think we are. So our body can't really tell the difference between imagining a fearful situation and actually being in one.
So, there are really sort of two types of fear experiences. One is a positive experience. This is the type of fear where people go to see scary movies and they want to be scared, or they go on a rollercoaster ride, or extreme sports. And they're looking for that adrenaline rush. And this is a positive experience, right? People choose to do this.
Then there's the other side, the negative side. This is where we have been in some kind of an experience that's been extremely scary, very traumatizing on some level, whether it's a small thing or a big thing. It goes into our system, and that is a very negative experience.
So fear can be innate, which is maybe some sort of an evolutionary survival process, which is what's happened to me. I've been genetically programmed to be fearful.
Or, it could be a learned experience. Some trauma that we've experienced at some point in our lives. There are a lot of triggers for fears. It could be snakes or spiders. It could be fear of heights or fear of being in a plane. It could be an experience of a future event that we don't know exactly what's going to happen.
Our mind starts to create stories, that most of the time, they end up scaring us.
So all of these things have a longterm impact of how do we view the world. How do we see life around us? Is it okay? Is everything going to be okay? Or is it a really scary place? And that can really affect the quality of our life.
So fear is an emotional response that sets off a whole biological process in our bodies, which can be really great if you're running for your life. Not so great if you're NOT running for your life!
Now, there's hope for sure. There are lots of ways of working with fear, and I'm going to talk about more of those as we go through this month.
Please join me on March 31st, Wednesday, at 4:00 PM. I'm giving a free webinar on "Fear: Friend, Enemy, or Frenemy? How to make peace with your fear and find emotional balance." Use this link - click and sign up! I hope you'll join me.
Thank you for listening.
Dr. Elaine
This information is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace the medical advice of your doctor or healthcare provider. Please consult your healthcare provider for advice about a specific medical condition.
