• What is fear?
• fear in biology
• fear according to psychology
• What is fear for?
• What happens in the brain when we feel fear?
• bodily expression of fear
• Strategies to face fear

We explain what fear is for biology and for psychology. Also, what happens in our body and brain when we feel fear.

Fear is an unpleasant emotion, closely linked to anxiety.

What is fear?

Fear is one of emotions primaries of human being and the animals (that is, one of its fundamental and primitive reactions), and is produced by the presence (real or imaginary) of a danger, a risk or a threatening situation. It is an unpleasant emotion, closely linked to anxiety, and whose maximum degree is represented by terror.

The word "fear" comes from the Latin metus, with the same meaning, and is more or less equivalent to dread, fright, fright or fear. Since ancient times, fear has been present in cultural considerations of the kind ethical Y moral, or in the codes of conduct and the values traditionally promoted.

Thus, for example, in certain Eskimo communities, fear is perceived as a positive emotion, a sign of caution and compliance with the law of the group; while in many other cultures it is seen as a shameful emotion, a sign of weakness or handicap.

Fear, moreover, has occupied a prominent place in the art and mythology. The ancient Greeks, for example, associated him with the god Phobos, son of Ares (god of war) and Aphrodite (goddess of passion), and twin brother of Deimos (god of terror).

The Romans baptized this same god Timor and, like his predecessors, linked him to the fear prior to combat in wars, or to that inspired by the most ferocious creatures.While other peoples, such as the Vikings and the Norse tribes of Europe, warded off the fear inherent in their bellicose existences with religious tales of an afterlife exclusively for those who fell in combat.

On the other hand, fear is present in the stories that accompany us throughout life. He is inspired by the monsters and creatures of childhood stories, with which he originally sought to teach or warn children about the risks of life, or to incorporate a moral code from the earliest age: the big bad wolf, witches or the monsters under the bed are just some of the early incarnations of fear.

Literary stories of terror also investigate this, such as those cultivated abundantly at the end of the 19th century by authors romantics like Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849), Howard Phillips Lovecraft (1890-1937) or Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870).

fear in biology

Fear allows animal species to prepare for danger and survive.

Fear has been studied, throughout the history of humanity, from numerous perspectives and across different disciplines, each in its own way. For example, the biology He considers it an adaptive scheme that allows animals to anticipate and respond to threatening stimuli, which translates into greater margins of survival.

The fearful individual reacts in advance to the coming danger, and sets his body up for quick, instinctive fight-or-flight reactions. Many animals, feeling threatened, react by preemptive aggression, desperate flight, or the release of defensive body fluids.

fear according to psychology

The approach of psychology distinguishes between two approaches to fear:

• Depending on the approach behaviorist, fear is an acquired emotion, that is, learned through experience direct or indirect, so that it is a defensive reaction to prevent an unpleasant or dangerous event from happening again or from happening for the first time after they have noticed it.
• According to the depth psychology approach, a fear is the reflection of a basic and unconscious conflict that, not being resolved in the depth psyche, manifests itself in a primitive and bodily way, often without person can understand why she feels it.

Fear is also interpreted evolutionarily as a complement to the function of pain, that is, as a mental and emotional alert regarding the reappearance of painful stimuli, both for the body and for the mind. Thus, for example, fear of the unknown or fear of rejection are linked to a previous trauma and react with anguish and fear at the opportunity to experience something similar again.

What is fear for?

Fundamentally, fear is a feeling of alertness, comparable to pain. We feel pain when a stimulus is harmful to our well-being, for example, when we inadvertently cut ourselves with the edge of an object. The physical damage received is reported to the brain in the form of pain, and the brain attempts to shield itself from the damaging stimulus.

The same thing happens with fear: a threatening or risky situation triggers fear to prepare the body and deal effectively with a context in which we must fight or flee. It is, therefore, a fundamental emotion for self-preservation and the processing of traumatic experiences, to the point that the memory of a painful situation is sometimes enough to unconsciously trigger fear.

But this "function" of fear is not entirely conscious, and we can react with different levels of fear or anxiety to situations that do not pose a real or immediate danger, but are unconsciously interpreted as if they were.Thus, for example, a person who suffers from stage fright will experience great amounts of anguish and fear when he has to address a packed auditorium; a situation that for other people could be a source, rather, of happiness Y enthusiasm.

What happens in the brain when we feel fear?

Fear prepares the body and mind to flee and attack.

In both humans and animals, the part of the brain responsible for feeling and processing fear is the so-called "reptilian brain", that is, the most primitive, responsible for basic functions for survival, such as eating and breathing, in conjunction with the cerebral limbic system, that is, the one in charge of regulating emotions, avoiding pain and controlling fight or flight reactions.

These brain structures continuously monitor (even during sleep) what the bodily senses register and evaluate the appropriate response in a structure called the cerebral amygdala or amygdaloid body, responsible for triggering basic emotions, such as affection or, precisely, fear. . The activation of the amygdala produces immediate reactions of aggression, paralysis or escape, and for this it secretes an antidiuretic hormone (vasopressin).

This brain reaction triggers certain physiological changes in the body:

• It increases the metabolic rate and the amount of glucose in the blood (to have more energy).
• Increases blood pressure and heart rate (for more intense physical reactions).
• Adrenaline shoots up.
• Non-essential bodily functions are disrupted.
• Increases blood coagulation (in the event of an injury).
• It also increases brain activity, although in a very specific way, totally focused on what produces fear.In effect, the frontal lobes of the brain (which allow conscious attention to shift from one object to another continuously) are temporarily deactivated, and the entire mind is engaged in assessing risk or threat.

The latter explains why people who suffer a panic or anxiety attack have so much difficulty distracting themselves or changing their thoughts, which paradoxically would deactivate the vicious circle of anguish and fear.

bodily expression of fear

Fear is externalized in the human body in very characteristic and distinctive ways:

• The eyes are enlarged and the pupils dilated, to increase vision and threat perception.
• The features of the face are modified: the lips are stretched horizontally, the mouth is slightly opened, the eyebrows are raised and the forehead is wrinkled.
• The body tenses (for physical reactions) or shrinks (to go unnoticed), and it is common for the arms to be crossed over the body, as an unconscious protection of the trunk (and vital organs).
• Uncontrollable physical reactions such as tremors, sweating, vasoconstriction, increased body odor and even loss of sphincter control (in the face of very intense or very sudden stimuli) may occur.
• Paralysis can occur: the body remains tense and immobile, and attention remains fixed on the threat.
• Body movements are short, jerky, and erratic.

Strategies to face fear

Emotional reactions like fear can be trained to stick to a protocol.

Not all fears are the same and, therefore, they are not all faced in the same way. There are reasonable, natural fears that any person would feel in a situation of vital danger, of risk of death or severe damage, and in these cases the body reacts in the best way it can to protect itself.

Those reactions, however, can be trained, as rescuers and the military do, to try to stick to a protocol specific action during moments of intense emotions. However, what will happen to us when we face such a situation, deep down, cannot be known in advance.

On the other hand, the problem manifests itself when the symptoms of fear appear in situations that do not really represent a vital danger, and thus hinder us from the happy development in daily or pleasant situations. In this case, it is a pathological fear, that is, a fear that is not normal and that deserves to be combated, through strategies such as the following:

• Go to psychotherapy. The best ally available when dealing with situations of irrational fear is a specialist's office. The latter may accompany us in the process of facing and overcoming our fear, and may even help us understand if it is really an irrational fear or if we should analyze it in some other way.
• Know yourself. There is no point in facing fear if we do not know what we are afraid of, how we usually react or what kind of solutions are more within our reach. A self-knowledge is vital to find the ideal path towards overcoming phobic fears.
• Face the fear. It is said that the best way to overcome an irrational fear is to face it, but this must be done in a gradual, controlled manner and, in the best of cases, accompanied by a specialist. Otherwise, reiterating the trauma and brutally exposing yourself to a situation that generates fear in us could amplify the symptoms and deepen our fear even more. Instead, a gradual and gradual exposure can gradually lead us to minimize and finally overcome fear and distress.
• Practice meditation or mindfulness.Certain breathing and mindfulness techniques from yoga, mindfulness or guided meditation can be useful when facing a situation that generates fear, since they teach us through controlled breathing to induce a state of relative normality in the body and, from the body, also in the mind.
• Reconnect with faith. In the event that we are religious people, it is possible to use faith as an instrument to combat fear, to the extent that we can place our need for protection in an omnipresent and omnipotent deity.
• Avoid alcohol and psychotropics. Substances that restrict our control over the mind and body, such as alcohol, drugs or certain drugs, should be avoided in cases of irrational fears, since it is impossible to predict how they will influence the appearance of the latter, or the management that let's make them.