Understanding fear: Why we feel it and how to manage it

Fear… we all feel it. A sudden startle in response to a perceived threat, a shortness of breath and chest constriction as your heart quickens its pace. An unshakeable feeling of dread, then excessive worrying triggered by an unstoppable train of thought. Or occasionally, even a full-blown panic attack.

Fear is the biology of survival. It’s part of the brain and body's internal alarm system - alerting us to danger and triggering a ‘fight, flight, or freeze’ response. The amygdala is one of several areas of the brain involved in detecting and responding to potential threats, while stress hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline are released into the body. This causes changes to your metabolic rate – as your heart rate, breathing and blood sugar levels go up, priming you for action.

Some of you may fight back, or seek to avoid and flee from catastrophe. Others freeze and imagine the worst – playing out scenarios in their head, over and over again.

And it hurts. Fear is often painful and overwhelming. It initiates the build-up of acute tension in the neck, shoulders and back, as well as intolerable thoughts in your head. It impairs your ability to remain focused, confusing you with intense emotions and hyper-vigilance (feeling constantly on alert). Eventually, it stifles and disrupts your behaviour.

Most people hate feeling fear because of the way it takes control, compelling you to act in ways that seem alien and extreme, exposing you to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability, as it takes charge.

However, some people are very adept at putting a lid on things: dampening down fear and disconnecting from it. You may only be conscious of fear when it enters your thoughts, flashing up worst-case scenarios, excessive worrying, or anticipating events before they happen. You may find yourself in the middle of a screenplay inside your head… only this is the Director’s cut.

You may disconnect from or suppress feelings of fear, but they can sometimes resurface later, when you least expect them.

So what is fear? And why do we need it?

Fear is your brain and body responding to potential danger. If you didn’t feel fear, you couldn’t protect yourself, but sometimes, for reasons that can be complex, it can contribute to more generalised anxiety problems and a disproportionate reaction to normal situations – such as socialising, meeting new people, dealing with customers, meeting deadlines or discussing problems with your boss.

Anxiety can also affect close relationships, sometimes contributing to defensiveness, distrust, overthinking or fears of rejection. You may fear abandonment or rejection by your partner.

Fear of the unknown, fear of death or obsessive thoughts about health problems are common reactions to anxiety. There are also common phobias such as a fear of flying, as well as fears around commitment in relationships or failure, which can lead to intense emotions that are difficult to resolve.

How does fear work?

Fear can involve rapid, automatic responses that are difficult simply to switch off or rationalise away.

Fear involves a biochemical reaction. The amygdala plays an important role in responding to certain sensory and emotional stimuli, such as a loud bang or an angry facial expression, and this can contribute to the release of stress hormones into the body. These hormones make adjustments in your body and organs, priming you to respond. This may involve a fight, flight or freeze reaction.

The amygdala is an almond-shaped set of nuclei in the temporal lobes of the brain and is one of the areas involved in processing potential threats and emotional information.

For example, the amygdala can respond when you see a human face with an emotional expression such as anger or fear, or encounter something you perceive as threatening. This can contribute to the activation of motor functions in preparation for fight or flight, as well as the release of stress hormones and activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

This leads to an intense state of emotional arousal in the body, with organ changes and metabolic rates that prepare us for danger with the release of adrenaline and cortisol.

The brain becomes hyper-aroused, your pupils dilate, and breathing accelerates. Your heart rate and blood pressure rise. Blood flows quicker through your vessels and the stream of oxygen and glucose to the muscles increases.

You may start to sweat from your forehead and palms. You may also experience a great deal of tension building up in the muscles of your back, neck and shoulders. Some people get headaches and stomach churning, or they start to tremble in the hands and knees.

Other bodily processes, including digestion, can also be affected during a stress response, which is one reason some people experience stomach or bowel symptoms when they’re anxious.

Another part of the brain called the hippocampus, along with the prefrontal cortex, is involved in memory, context and interpreting what is happening around us.

These regions of your brain are involved in higher-level processing and can help assess the meaning and context of a perceived threat. You may also experience anxious thoughts and worrying long before the anticipated event actually happens (if at all). Later on, you can get caught up in a cycle of panicky thoughts and screen-playing events like conflict in your head.

All in all, it can be a terrifying experience.

How do I get rid of it?

You can’t eliminate fear. However, you can learn to regulate your feelings and how you respond to anxiety in counselling. A good counsellor cannot provide you with a cure, but they can help you respond to your anxieties with a more balanced, mindful approach.

First of all, you need to understand your fear and what may be contributing to it. Everyone is different. Some people become fearful after a traumatic event. For others, earlier experiences and relationships may play a part. This might include growing up with parents who were very anxious or overprotective, or experiencing a traumatic or unpredictable environment.

For some people, difficulties learning how to understand and regulate emotions during childhood may also influence how they respond to anxiety later in life. Others may have had excessive exposure to unpredictable, chaotic changes in their lives or learned how to survive without proper boundaries for an extended period.

Second, you gradually need to learn how to slow anxiety down and step back from your fear, to observe your anxiety as it happens, to notice the triggers, how they build up and how you respond to the signals closer to the moment they’re triggered. This literally gives you breathing space to make sense of what is going on, to regulate your emotions and reduce the anxious symptoms.

Third, you may learn to develop your own internal ‘safety mechanisms’ through grounding techniques, mindfulness of breathing and maintaining focused attention on your emotional responses. This also means building a deeper awareness of your bodily sensations and physiological states, because physical sensations can sometimes arise before we become consciously aware of anxious thoughts, which is one reason anxiety can seem to come out of nowhere.

Finally, you may learn sustainable ways of working with your anxiety and accepting its presence. Self-acceptance can be important. Anxiety can work for us, or against us. While it may always be there to some degree, you can learn to manage anxiety in ways that are more adaptive and flexible. You can use it as an incentive to solve problems, make decisions and meet deadlines, or it can overwhelm you with panic and a disproportionate need to avoid things.