Fear and the Brain
Hello and welcome to this week’s topic where we look at the Brain and the fear response that we create. As with everything we’ve covered so far, they are all connected and interlinked. It’s all in your mindset and fear can be caused AND overcome by a combination of your language and the stories you tell yourself. Your beliefs. Your mastery of the witness process and of course, fear itself can be seen as an obstacle that you need to overcome. Fear is what often keeps us in that fixed mindset and facing fear is what helps us maintain a growth mindset.
So let’s look at where fear comes from.
Generally speaking, there are three parts of the brain — let’s call them mini-brains — that have organically evolved. Each of these builds on top of the other to form the brain we have today.
These mini-brains developed along with our chronological timeline and have different roles.
Reptilian Brain
The Reptilian Brain. This is our oldest brain. It is almost identical to a reptile’s brain, hence the name.
The reptilian brain regulates necessary life functions like breathing, heart rate, and respiration (functions of the brainstem), balance, posture, and movement coordination (the cerebellum). It is also responsible for hardwiring behaviors from memories and storing deeply rooted training information. This is why people with dementia can still remember how to play the piano, because that behavior was practiced such that it literally became hard-wired into their reptilian brain.
The Limbic Brain
The Limbic Brain, also known as the mamalian brain or feeling brain. This evolved some 300 million years ago. It is similar to the most developed part of all mammals’ brains.
The prominent behaviors it regulates are the fight, flight, or freeze response and our need to feed and reproduce.
It is also responsible for emotional behavior and regulating chemical and hormonal activity. When you get depressed, you can blame the limbic brain. But you can then thank it for regulating your body temperature, blood sugar levels, digestion, hormonal balance, and other helpful things.
The limbic Brain houses the pituitary gland, which is the master hormone gland, and the pineal gland, which regulates sleep. It also includes the hippocampus, which is your memory sorting and storing tool, and the amygdala, which sifts and filters incoming information for threats and opportunities.
This sub-brain is mostly responsible for the bias toward negativity so prominent in the human condition. The fear wolf spends most of his time lurking here and sending fear signals to the third sub-brain. This is noteworthy as we work to starve the fear wolf in later lessons.
Finally we’ve got our Neocortex
The third brain is the neocortex also referred to as the Monkey Brain in a nod to the Buddhist’s concept of monkey mind. This most recent addition to our brain is the seat of decision and meaning-making, cognition, problem-solving, and creativity.
Our neocortex is the “command center,” where we reason, plan, intellectualize, analyze, verbalize, and learn. It allows us to interpret events and react to them accordingly.
When someone says you are operating out of “right-brain” or “left-brain” thinking, they are referring to the hemispheres of the neocortex. This part of our brain differentiates us from other mammals and is one of the reasons we have such enormous potential.
The frontal lobe of the neocortex is your “executive office” in which intent, focus, and willpower conspire to move you toward greatness or misery. In your teen years, this area is not yet fully developed. This helps account for some of the hard-to-explain decisions you made in adolescence, a period well-tended to by your emotional Limbic Brain.
And remember, none of these voices are you. You are the Witness to your thoughts!
The fear response starts in a region of the brain called the amygdala. It’s a set of nuclei in the temporal lobe of the brain dedicated to detecting the emotional salience of the stimuli — how much something stands out to us.
For example, the amygdala activates whenever we see a human face with an emotion. This reaction is more pronounced with anger and fear. 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. It also triggers release of stress hormones and sympathetic nervous system.
This leads to bodily changes that prepare us to be more efficient in a danger: The brain becomes hyperalert, pupils dilate, the bronchi dilate and breathing accelerates. Heart rate and blood pressure rise. Blood flow and stream of glucose to the skeletal muscles increase. Organs not vital in survival such as the gastrointestinal system slow down.
A part of the brain called the hippocampus is closely connected with the amygdala. The hippocampus and prefrontal cortex help the brain interpret the perceived threat. They are involved in a higher-level processing of context, which helps a person know whether a perceived threat is real.
For instance, seeing a lion in the wild can trigger a strong fear reaction, but the response to a view of the same lion at a zoo is more of curiosity and thinking that the lion is cute. This is because the hippocampus and the frontal cortex process contextual information, and inhibitory pathways dampen the amygdala fear response and its downstream results. Basically, our “thinking” circuitry of brain reassures our “emotional” areas that we are, in fact, OK.
a common theme that connects all of them is our sense of control. When we are able to recognize what is and isn’t a real threat, relabel an experience and enjoy the thrill of that moment, we are ultimately at a place where we feel in control. That perception of control is vital to how we experience and respond to fear. When we overcome the initial “fight or flight” rush, we are often left feeling satisfied, reassured of our safety and more confident in our ability to confront the things that initially scared us.
So as we’ve discussed over the last few weeks. Mindset is about being in control. Controling your mind by being a witness to your thoughts and emotions. All of the previous lessons we’ve looked at have one thing in common and that is fear.
Fear is like like a limiting beliefs on steroids. Fear is conflict language and a negations in the physical form. Fear is also the avoidance of that pain and discomfort and is what is defaulting you back to in-action and doing nothing. It’s that fear of failure. So rather than face the fear, you avoid it all together.
And overcoming fear is a combination of all of the previous weeks plus one very simple technique called the fear bubble.
The fear bubble is where you are when you’re scared, you’re stressed, you’re feeling anxiety. It’s quite draining on the body and staying there too long can lead to both physical and mental problems. The fear bubble is happening when you’re about to go out on stage to give that talk or presentation. It’s the moment before you jump, in the case of the picture, off a platform with a rope tied to your legs. It could also be the moment you jump of that high board into the sea or swimming pool. It’s the moment before you go sit and exam or the moment before you take a penalty. It’s the moment before you ask a girl out or ask your boss for a raise.
The issue for most of us, is that we spend far too much unnecessary time inside that fear bubble. And we’re putting this stress on our body for hours when it’s designed to only be there for seconds or minutes.
Remember what happens when we have a response to fear. The brain becomes hyperalert, pupils dilate and breathing accelerates. Heart rate and blood pressure rise. Blood flow increases and Organs not vital in survival slow down.
Imagine being in this state for hours at a time?
And in most cases it’s completely irrational.
I’m able to use a personal example here when looking at fear and how irrational it is.
As we’ve seen, mindset is about control, it’s about living in the current moment and doing what you can with what you’ve got. I’ve got a fear of roller coasters. Now, the reason roller coasters are so popular is that they are designed to imitate that exact fear, they put you right into that fear bubble. It’s a safer way to initiate that flight or flight response, although the option for either isn’t there since you’re strapped in for the ride. And the reason people like me have a fear of roller coasters is that we lack the control. It’s a similar fear to being in the passenger seat of someone driving like a maniac.
The irrational bit of my fear is timing. Feeling fear when on the roller coaster if quite normal and its the point. And this is the same for people who experience a lot of anxiety. The anxiety and fear are fine. It’s when they happen that’s the issue.
For me, with roller coasters, the fear starts in the queue. The fear is in the drive to the theme park. The fear starts minutes or even hours before it’s meant to. What’s funny is that the fear in the queue, is worse than the fear on the actual ride. It’s debilitating. And what’s irrational is that in the queue, I’m perfectly safe. There’s no danger, so no need to feel fear. I can turn around and leave at any moment.
The same is true for exams. If you are feeling anxious about an exam in a week, it’s actual irrational. You are not currently in danger. You’re at home, safe. You can go make a coffee. You can have a nap, you can do whatever. No danger, so no need for fear.
So it’s about reducing and controlling the time you spend inside that fear bubble, because we know that this kind of stress is real and can do real harm. So it’s not about getting rid of fear, it’s about shifting the timing.
The concept is bursting the fear bubble.
So let’s use public speaking as an example. Everyone gets the fear. But some people say, I’m a confident public speaker and others absolutely hate it. It’s because those who have the belief that they are good at public speaking, minimise that time inside the fear bubble.
So what happens when you actually overcome that fear is you burst the bubble. And all the stress just dissipates. It’ll be when you’re next to go out onto stage, you start getting nervous, your throat dries up, your heart rate increases. You hear you name, you manage to walk out onto the podium, take a quick look out onto the crowd. You’re in that fear bubble. Then you start talking, and after a few sentances, you pop that bubble. You’ve started talking and it’s not that bad. The bubble is popped, you’ve overcome fear and you finish your talk. Go off stage with such relief. That relief actually feels pretty amazing. A bit of a high.
So it’s about reducing your time inside that bubble. But visualising the bubble works well. For me, I can visualise the bubble to be just before getting on a roller coaster. Whenever i’m not inside that bubble, i’m safe. I can see the bubble. But I’m not inside.
Here is the process in more detail:
- Witness your mind in action. This step requires that you can identify, and center your awareness in, your witnessing mind. You will then be able to observe your thinking loops. If the thoughts are negative, unfocused, or not moving you toward your target, then: (exam tomorrow example)
- Interdict the thoughts with a Power Statement, such as “Stop!” Or “Not this!” Your rational mind will pay attention for a short while. Then:
- Redirect your mind to something positive and more aligned with your objective, mission or purpose. This redirection requires skillful self-talk and imagery that will move your mind toward producing a tangible result tied to getting you closer to where you need to go. Finally, you will:
- Maintain your new mental state with a personal Mantra. Don’t have your mantra? Take 5 minutes and write it now. Keep it handy.
So there’s a time and place for fear. But it needs to be in that bubble. You can picture it.
In the bungee jump example. You witness the fear and interdict it. If you’re not on the edge about to jump, then there’s no need to be in that fearful state. Redirect your mind towards that feeling of safety. Then you can mentally move the bubble to where it is appropriate to feel the fear. That would be at the edge of the platform. You can see the bubble. You can then maintain your state with any sort of self talk and breathing which we’ll look at in a sec. Then, when it’s your turn, step into the bubble. Experience that fear. Then pop that bubble and jump.
Think about some examples of where you can start implementing this process.
One way of dealing with the fear is breathing.
When you practice controlling your breath, you are able to calm your thoughts, slow your heart rate, and regulate your autonomous nervous system. This removes your internal response to stress as a source of further concentration-busting agitation. You can’t think clearly with a mind that’s going off like a slot machine.
There’s an easy method called box breathing
When practiced daily, this one skill will transform you.
First, it’s important to understand that proper breathing works on three levels in our bodies. It enhances our lung capacity and breathing musculature, strengthens our immune system and regulates our neuroendocrine system.
The process uses a ratio of equally timed breath inhalation, suspension, exhalation, and retention. The standard for new students is a five-count ratio, or 5:5:5:5.
Some final thoughts on fear.
We’ve covered the fears such as fear of rollercosters or fear of spiders or fear of heights. But there’s another fea that I want to explore with you before the end of this session and that a different kind of fear and one that’s equally destructive and equally irrational.
This fear is the enemy of your success and the enemy of finding your true self and true path.
The common ones are as follows:
Fear of failure
Fear of success
Fear of what others will think
and
Fear of discomfort.
Your homework for this week is to journal about your fears. If you are able to, practice facing them.
And I also want you to go out and do something to practice one of the following. Fear of what others will think or fear of discomfort.
For fear of discomfort, my favourite is to take a cold shower. You can also practice the fear bubble as this will provide ample opportunity.
And with fear of what others will think, well, that’ll be personal to you.
Go out, face fear. Overcome it and stretch yourself and grow. Practice your breathing techniques and do the homework.
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This article was written by Stuart Munnich. If you’d like to know more or receive notifications for future articles, please head over to the Agoge Project Website or subscribe to updates right here!
