Negative emotions like fear can hijack our brains and cause us to make poor decisions or take actions that we wouldn't otherwise take. Fear can prevent us from taking risks or speaking up for ourselves. It can cause us to doubt ourselves and our abilities.
Fear is powerful enough to keep us from achieving our goals and living our best lives. It feeds stagnation and keeps us from taking advantage of opportunities. Many people are living in the self-made prisons of their own fears.
Fear can interrupt processes in our brains that allow us to regulate emotions, read non-verbal cues and other information presented to us, reflect before acting, and act ethically. This impacts our thinking and decision-making in negative ways, leaving us susceptible to intense emotions and impulsive reactions.
As some parts of your brain are revving up, others are shutting down. When the amygdala senses fear, the cerebral cortex (area of the brain that harnesses reasoning and judgment) becomes impaired — so now it's difficult to make good decisions or think clearly.
When we are in the grip of fear, we are not true to ourselves. We put up a wall of protection and we shut down our instincts, abilities and self-worth. We get caught up in perceptions, comparisons and appearances and really lose touch with the reality around us and the fearful situations we sometimes find ourselves in.
When we try to avoid the fear, turn away from, hide or run from it, it can feel much less tolerable each time it rears its head, and can lead us into a feeling of overwhelm – panic, anxiety, incessant worry, etc.
It is programmed into the nervous system and works like an instinct. From the time we're infants, we are equipped with the survival instincts necessary to respond with fear when we sense danger or feel unsafe. Fear helps protect us. It makes us alert to danger and prepares us to deal with it.
Your response to an event might be different than mine." Occasional rushes from adrenaline can be good for you, sometimes leading to increased cognitive function. But prolonged stress and an abundance of stress hormones over time can have negative effects, such as high blood pressure or anxiety.
The official name for this phenomenon is adrenal fatigue. Anxiety is like being on high alert. Your body is preparing you to fight or flee; and so it is flooded with energy so that you can respond to a threat. Then, when that adrenaline runs its course, your body goes through a crash that can leave you feeling drained.
The potential effects of chronic fear on physical health include headaches turning into migraines, muscle aches turning into fibromyalgia, body aches turning into chronic pain, and difficulty breathing turning into asthma, said Moller.
“Agoraphobia and social phobia are usually much more disabling than specific phobias, although occasionally someone with a specific phobia is severely affected by it,” says psychologist Professor Paul Salkovskis of King's College London.
A genuinely overwhelming and paralysing freeze response is thought to occur when neither fight or flight is available to you. That is, you have been so overpowered, overwhelmed or trapped, there is no option to either flee or fight.
What happens during 'freeze'? The freeze response involves a different physiological process than fight or flight. Research from 2015 describes it as “attentive immobility.” While the person who is “frozen” is extremely alert, they are also unable to move or take action against the danger.
When we feel paralyzed by fear, we find it hard to move, to think clearly, and to find ways of dealing with our fear. When we shut down in this way, it's because our fight-flight-freeze response has kicked in, our normal instincts designed to protect ourselves from danger.
Ironically, fear is the underlying phenomenon that heightens awareness and optimizes physical performance, and can drive ambition, courage, and success. Harnessing fear can heighten emotional intelligence and bring success to every aspect of your life.
Fear is among the most powerful of all emotions. And since emotions are far more powerful than thoughts, fear can overcome even the strongest parts of our intelligence.
Feeling fear is neither abnormal nor a sign of weakness: The capacity to be afraid is part of normal brain function. In fact, a lack of fear may be a sign of serious brain damage. 2. Fear comes in many shades.
"When you are scared for a short period of time, your body releases endorphins. Your body releases dopamine. Your heart rate speeds up. Oxygen and blood flow to your muscles and you get pumped up and you actually feel energized," Kumar said.
“An adrenaline rush can have detrimental effects on health. In people with heart disease, it can cause a weakening of the heart muscle, heart failure or a heart attack.
The anxiety problem most associated with scary or distressing thoughts is obsessive compulsive disorder, or OCD. Those with OCD suffer from what's known as "obsessions." Obsessions are thoughts that they simply cannot get out of their head.
Our stomachs and intestines store our feelings of fear. The adage, 'I am sick to my stomach' justifies this. Fear is another negative emotion that has far-reaching repercussions on our health. It can cause digestion problems, pain in the gut, bloating, constipation and even Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Fear starts in the part of the brain called the amygdala. According to Smithsonian Magazine, “A threat stimulus, such as the sight of a predator, triggers a fear response in the amygdala, which activates areas involved in preparation for motor functions involved in fight or flight.
Psychologists say that love is the strongest emotion. Humans experience a range of emotions from happiness to fear and anger with its strong dopamine response, but love is more profound, more intense, affecting behaviors, and life-changing.