Health and Lifestyle
FAMILY WELLNESS
The Physical Implications of Fear by DR TAINA TURCASSO, ND RM Many people find the idea of a little fear, in the form of a scary movie or a haunted house, enjoyable. It’s thrilling. These types of experiences create a spike in cortisol which can increase the heart rate and give you a burst of energy. This can seem harmless, because it’s usually only over a short period of time and once it’s over, you will typically go back to feeling however you did before the movie. If you don’t maybe horror/thriller movies aren’t for you. When you translate this response to fear to the real world and in a situation like the one we are currently in where there is a global pandemic causing a constant or even fluctuating level of worry and fear for many people, the resulting physiological changes can be detrimental to your health and feed into a cycle of more anxiety and fear. Anxiety about the unknown will activate the fear centre in the brain called the amygdala which acts like an alarm, interfacing with the stress system to keep our body and mind on high alert. After the amygdala sends a distress signal, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic nervous system by sending signals through the autonomic nerves to the adrenal glands, which release epinephrine (adrenaline) into the bloodstream causing your heart rate to go up, increases your breathing rate, and increases your alertness. Sugar is also released to provide fuel. This cascade leads to activation of the second component of the stress response system, the hyothalamicpituitary-axis (HPA axis). The HPA axis relies on hormonal signals to keep the sympathetic nervous system fired up and the hypothalamus releases a hormone that ultimately leads to the release of cortisol from your adrenal glands. After the threat
“All we can do is get through this one day at a time, continue to look out for one another and our families, and control what is in our power to control...”
V. Croome Photo has passed, the parasympathetic nervous system kicks into gear, calming everything down. Unfortunately, merely the suggestion of danger, even if it is never experienced, is enough to trigger the amygdala and activate the stress response. Many people
