What Is Fear?
Your heart starts to beat faster. It gets a little harder to breathe. You feel threatened, and your thinking begins to revolve entirely around that threat. The rest of your imagination grinds to a halt as you focus completely and totally on the object of your fear. Your body unleashes an array of defensive behaviors. The rational decision maker who normally resides in your brain’s prefrontal cortex has put up a “do not disturb” sign as your limbic system takes over and the cortisol starts pumping. Welcome to fear.

Words We May Use When We’re Really Feeling Afraid
cautious, curious, uneasy, jumpy, unsettled, unnerved, off, stressed, upset, anxious, awkward, concerned, confused, bewildered, agitated, tense, bad, weak, foolish, embarrassed, helpless, insecure, rejected, discouraged, on edge, on high alert

What Are Some Healthy and Unhealthy Ways People Show Fear?
Like the other negatively-charged feelings we’ve addressed, fear sometimes get a bad rap, but it has its advantages. At its best, fear drives us toward self-preservation and may even lead us to protect others. After all, you don’t need courage unless there’s something to be afraid of. Being “fearless” is not in itself a virtue, but being aware of fear and working through it? That’s the stuff heroes are made of. As for the downside of fear, well…

Our brains and bodies have a number of autopilot responses to fear. While we briefly alluded to “fight or flight” in the discussion of anger a few weeks back, there are actually a number of options when our brains register a threat: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. While we associate “fight” with anger, fear may lead us toward avoidance/retreat (flight), indecision (freeze), or even trying to endear ourselves to the perceived threat (fawn). All are perfectly normal responses to stressful situations, and they can keep us safe, but they can become toxic in excess. Continual flight, freeze, and fawn behaviors can have negative social and professional consequences. Freezers and flighters can seem unreliable, and fawners untrustworthy. Getting to know our fears and our fear responses can be a huge asset in all areas of our lives.

A Special Note on Anxiety
Fear and worry are responses to concrete and specific things, but when fear becomes chronic and/or more generalized, it becomes anxiety. Anxiety fascinates me because of just how contagious it is. We often speak of entire families, workplaces, and even countries being “anxious systems.” Author Peter Steinke has literally written the book on anxiety and suggests that anxiety’s motto is “Start worrying; details to follow.” Steinke adds reassuringly, “The only human beings who are free of anxiety we call sociopaths.” While fear and anxiety exist for self-preservation, they can become debilitating when drawn out.

While we’ll use “anxiety” and “fear” a little interchangeably for our purposes, please note that an anxiety disorder is something else still. Anxiety disorders present many ongoing symptoms: feeling nervous or tense, a prolonged sense of panic or doom, fast heart rate and breathing, sweating, trembling, feelings of weakness and exhaustion, difficulty concentrating, sleep disruption, digestive issues, and avoidance of stressors. An anxiety disorder is way more that just “worry”; we’re talking about serious physical symptoms and behavior changes. Panic attacks (one type of anxiety disorder) can even have symptoms that mimc heart attacks. Roughly one fifth of the U.S. population will experience an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives, making anxiety disorders the most common form of mental illness. Anxiety disorders often accompany other mental illnesses, including depression and addiction. While counseling can help, talking to your doctor is important too because of the many ways anxiety disorders can affect your health— digestive, cardiac, neurological, etc. The longterm effects of anxiety are rough on mind and body!

Everyone experiences fear and worry, but when that fear and worry don’t go away, when they intensify to the point they interfere with your day-to-day life, when they begin to feature chronic physical symptoms, you may be looking at an anxiety disorder. At that point, medical intervention is the way to go.

Next week, we’ll dive deeper into fear and look at its equal/opposite: peace.