o n Gi R i S o fA F E R

I’m sure you know the feeling. Cold sweat trickling down your back. You’re frozen in place, unable to turn around. You feel like you’re going to throw up. You feel the colour drain from your face. You feel a scream gurgling up through your throat. You’re terrified!

But all you’re doing is looking at the first question on an exam paper.

This type of reaction is designed to help you get away from serious threats like lions and tigers and bears (oh my!), but now that these threats are no longer an issue, and we have the time and headspace to ponder the meaning of life: have you ever wondered where fear comes from? With Halloween just around the corner, there is no better time to find an answer to that question: so you can watch all the horror movies you want, and be in the know about exactly how you feel.

Scientists tell us that there are two types of fear: learned and innate. An innate fear is something you’re born with, usually for serious threats to your life like fire or a big snarling dog with sharp teeth. A learned fear is something you pick up through life following negative experiences, like being bullied at school leading you to be afraid of school. Fear is processed in an area of the brain, indeed one of the oldest areas, called the amygdala, generally known to process emotions but more specifically processes memories associated with the fear emotion. The amygdala is the source of the chemicals that create the ‘Fight or Flight’ reaction. This is when the brain prepares your body to deal with a threat in the most appropriate way. As they say in Horrible Histories, “here’s the sciencey bit”:

1. The brain detects a threatening stimulus and quickly analyses the situation to decide whether it is within its capabilities to deal with the threat or not.

2. The amygdala is engaged, releasing the stress hormones known as cortisol, norepinephrine and, of course, adrenaline (giving you super-human strength for the short term)

3. Once the body is prepared, you either fight the threat or flee from it.

4.When the danger is gone, the brain is prompted to begin the rest and digest response, to calm your body down following the stress reaction.

Fear is primarily a survival instinct, most animals have it. Of course, this reason is a benefit in itself. I don’t know about you, but anything that helps me avoid being eaten by a lion is alright with me. However, as human culture and daily life has progressed and evolved, fear becomes more of a stumbling block than anything else. Due to the incredible speed of the cultural evolution since the first homo-sapiens walked the earth, the actual physical evolution of the brain hasn’t been able to keep up. As I said before, we no longer have to worry about stray wolves wandering into our villages, and we no longer have to be prepared to fight for our food and family at any given moment, but the ancient amygdala doesn’t know that; it still does exactly what it’s designed to do. This can create issues for us.

There are the obvious issues like our brain overreacting to an exam: preparing us to run away as fast as possible doesn’t really help when trying to remember Pythagoras theorem. But it could be that many of the social issues facing us today actually have their roots in fear. The people of the past learned to be afraid of anyone who wasn’t part of their direct community for fear of danger, it could be that this has carried on well into the present and now takes the form of racism. It is very important to recognise this origin, and realise that we’re no longer separate groups individually sticking together against the ‘others’, but instead all one human race connected.

Institutions like religion used fear as a control, to keep the public at bay for fear that God would punish them. This even lead to the deaths of tens of thousands of people who were burned at the stake for being witches. This is why it’s imperative that you don’t let fear take over in your mind, and you don’t allow those around you to control you through fear either. The best way to stop this from happening is to fully understand your reactions to things, practice critical thinking and always keep in mind the consequences and origins of fear.

by Molly Burton.

by Omar Atwan.