Our hunter-gatherer ancestors of over 10,000 years ago had the exact same stress response system we have today.
Our stress response system lives in the lowest and most basic part of our brain, our reptilian brain. This controls our autonomic nervous system where everything is unconscious and automatic. These are our unconscious and automatic survival systems. When triggered, these systems give us the choice of two responses, fear or anger, and from the moment we choose, we have no control.
We trigger a stress response when we feel threatened on any level; physical, emotional, social or psychological. Our reasons for triggering these responses are subjective; different for all of us, however. What is common to all of us is we trigger these responses 100% of the time, while we only need them 10% of the time. Thus, 90% of the time they contribute to all our physical and psychological illnesses, which we ourselves are causing.
Why do I say this? Because when we trigger fear or anger, we release stress hormones that put our bodies and minds on full alert or in attack mode. These hormones also cause inflammation. Inflammation is at the root of most physical illnesses and stress hormones are the cause of all mental illnesses.
Our fear response warns us of danger, while our anger response gets us out of danger. In his book, The Confidence Gap (2011), Dr Russ Harris tells us: “Fear has many names; lack, panic, anxiety, self-doubt, fear of failure, insecurity, nerves, feeling nervous, cold feet, stressing out, tense, stressors, wired, a crisis of confidence and social withdrawal, are just a few.”
Like fear, dangers are subjective, individual to all of us. But what if we trigger a fear response that is itself the danger? Anxiety = fear. Our psychological state of mind plays a major role in maintaining, sustaining and increasing our fears and anxieties.
Fear is a very powerful motivator. When triggered, it forms the foundations of all our thoughts, feelings and actions and keeps us prisoners. If we cannot or will not eliminate the fear, the threat of physical or psychological injury will overwhelm our psychological state.
“If your only tool is a hammer, every problem is a nail”
Anxiety is brought on by chronic fear response. Anxiety disorders can be triggered by identifiable and unidentifiable stressful events. While the focus of anxiety is often specific experiences or objects, it can also be activated by unidentifiable objects or situations. Its overall premise is danger of physical harm and variations of the physical harm that we perceive will harm us in any way; physically or psychologically.
It’s all about fear; worrying, hopelessness, sadness, depression, unhappiness and gloom. It activates a variety of physiological stress responses such as rapid heartbeat, high blood pressure, nausea, breathing difficulties, sleep disturbances and the release of high levels of the chronic stress hormone, cortisol, which over long periods inflames our organs and suppresses our immune system. This is how our stress response is linked to physical illnesses.
Basically, anxiety is chronic fear response overload; the candle burns, pumping stress hormones until the anxiety is brought under control.
Fear can be rational or irrational; it’s irrational when it’s out of proportion, like fearing we’ll say the wrong thing, or being afraid to fly for fear the plane will crash. All our fears provoke intense terrifying thoughts and massive over-reactions that generally create more fear and anxiety.
With anxiety, we can be afraid of just about anything. It’s all about our thoughts and feelings that provoke and control the constant rational or irrational fears.
For instance, we’ve experienced a pandemic in which rational and irrational fears played a massive roll. The fear of getting sick or, worse, dying, from a brand-new virus humanity never experienced before is a rational fear, a survival instinct. However, three years later, the pandemic is over, but the same fear response prompts some of us to still wear masks, be on alert and continue to protect ourselves; is this rational fear?
The psychological consequences the pandemic still has on the fragile psychological state of a percentage of our society is staggering, to the point of fearing very real ‘monsters’ and creating very real monstrous fear-based scenarios.
It’s important to remember the only other choice we get is anger. Fear freezes us, anger releases us. Constructive anger, determination focused on breaking fear cycles, is always better than being stuck in fear. Anger motivates us, gives us the strength and courage to break out of our fear prisons.
Fear and anger are ancient tools given to us over 10,000 years ago, when we were programmed to survive all threats – two ancient tools that proved their worth and guaranteed our species’ survival through the ages. How we use these tools today is on us, not on the tools.
Rational or irrational fears, we choose, and in doing so, we decide to use or abuse these tools. When we abuse them, we create our own physical and psychological illnesses. With a little knowledge, we can learn to use these tools properly, by recognising the fears keeping us frozen and focusing on breaking all fear cycles.
The good news is, when we explore the ‘when’, ‘how’ and ‘where’ the anxiety begun and the intensity of the anxiety, we can pinpoint the fearful experience to a specific place at a precise time. Re-living the experience and being supported through the re-living can eliminate current anxiety and dramatically reduce future anxiety; and the stress response causing the fear.
Fear is an emotion and a state of mind. Like all other states of mind, it can be conquered. Fear triggers hormones that keep us locked in fear. When we understand this, we can unlock the fear by triggering different hormones that will create a more manageable mindset, where we can break the cycle by visualising our own safe world. This will trigger ‘safe hormones’ long enough to create enough mind space to organise thoughts and rationalise thinking.
By Joan Maycock
Joan Maycock MSc Health Psychologist specialised in stress and burnout education, designing, setting up and presenting Stress and Burnout Educational Retreats, Workshops and 1 on 1 sessions for private and corporate groups in Ireland and Portugal.
Tel: 00 351 915 793 592 | Email: eirinnretreats@gmail.com
