The Neuroscience of Fears and How To Overcome Them

The Neuroscience of Fears and How To Overcome Them

Some memories, even if they evoke a sense of fear in us are protective. They protect us from making mistakes that could get us injured or killed. Other memories are dangerous because they create a sense of discomfort in us, and they limit our behavior in maladaptive ways.

First, to make this useful, identify the fear you care about. Is it talking to strangers, going to the doctor, spending money, getting older? What scares the hell out of you? Choose something.

Okay. here's what's going on. This 'fear' activates your threat reflex. Which is your body's response to danger. It makes you feel overwhelmed, elevates your heart rate, and activates a bunch of brain areas.

When something happens, your brain associates the event with the activation of neurons. So you're conditioned to activate the threat reflex when you experience the same thing again.

So fear is the threat reflex. It's you reacting to the thing even though it's not scary anymore. You just learned to couple the threat response because of thoughts and past experiences. And haven't worked on it since.

So to get over your fear, don't remove the stimuli. Instead, 'get used to the threat response until it becomes boring'. Sounds harsh. But with just a few minutes, you get over the thing that's holding you back.

Action for the day

Start to imagine the thing you're scared of. The sensation on your skin, the sounds you hear, the fear of judgment, what other people are thinking, the view below you, the danger, etc.

See all the bad things coming at you. The risks, the danger, the threats.

When you start to get sensitive or jittery... start to breathe to calm down your brain.

So take exhale-emphasized breaths while thinking of your fear. They teach your brain to not activate the threat reflex when the fear occurs. So you can get over your fear in no time.

Start thinking of your fear while doing exhale-emphasize breathing for 3-4 cycles.