HEAL YOUR BODY: FEAR

• Fear is "an unpleasant and often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger.“ Fear is completely natural and helps people to recognize and respond to dangerous situations and threats.

WHAT IS FEAR?

• different stages of fear. The first is real fear, or fear based on a real situation. If someone or something hurts you, you have a reason to fear it in the future.

• Second is realistic, or possible fear. This is fear based in reality that causes a person to avoid a threat in the first place (i.e. waiting to cross a busy road for safety reasons).

• Next, exaggerated or emotional fear deals with an individual "recalling past fears or occurrences and injecting them into a current situation. This type of fear is particularly relevant to conflict. Emotional fear affects the way people handle conflicted situations.

TYPES OF FEAR

Whereas Little Albert learned to fear white rats in the 1920s, rats learned to fear a simple noise more than 80 years later. Scientist Mark Barad of UCLA performed an experiment in which he and his team combined a noise with an electric shock. They would play the tone and then immediately apply a shock to the metal floor of the rats' cage. It was classical conditioning, and it didn't take long for the rats to brace themselves

• for the shock as soon as they heard the sound. At that point, their amygdalas paired the sound with the shock, and the sound created a fear response. The researchers then began the process of fear-extinction training, in which they made the sound but did not apply the shock. After hearing the sound very often without the shock, the rats stopped fearing the noise.

FEAR WITHOUT THREAT IS A LEARNED RESPONSE

In the aura fear is usually represented At the rear

The spine area is nearly always involved

Back upper arms

Hamstring, back of knees and calves

Ankle and heel

Hippocampus: cements Response to threat in long term memory

Saliva decreases as digestive system slows

Thyroid raises resting metabolic rate

Lung bronchioles dilate Taking in more oxygen

Spleen contract pumps out white blood cells

Heart blood pressure & Heart rate spike

Stomach and gastrointestinal vessels contract

Amygdala triggers All system alarm Through nervous System,

Hypothalamus triggersPituitary and nervous System causing bodiesMajor organs to prepareFor action

Pituitary calls thyroidAnd adrenal system to Action

Skin vessels constrictCausing chills and sweat

Adrenal medulla floods bloodStream with adrenaline and Noradrenaline

Liver breaks down glycogen

• This involves creating a new conditioned response that counters the conditioned fear response. While studies situate the amygdala as the location of fear memories formed by conditioning, scientists theorize that fear-extinction memories form in the amygdala but then are transferred to the medial prefrontal cortex for storage. The new memory created by fear extinction resides in the MPFC and attempts to override the fear memory triggered in the amygdala.

FEAR EXTINCTION

• According to the National institute of health, 19 million people in the United States alone suffer from mental illnesses that involve irrational fear responses. These disorders include generalized anxiety disorder, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

FEAR DISORDERS

• When faced with a situation that we fear we can train ourselves to have a relaxation response instead of a stress response

• This needs to be a deliberate and repeated practice that will ultimately override the original tendency

• Methods to practice include meditation, conscious distraction,

• Facing the fear by deed or action

• Determine the areas that cause you the most problematic for you

• De stress after work

• Phobias

• General anxiety disorder

• Performance anxiety

• Insecurity

• Past experience

RELAXATION RESPONSE

• The anxiety level is directly related to perception

• The bigger you make the problem the less power you have

• Look at the worst case scenario to introduce proportion

• Communicate your fears to gain clarity and a fresh perspective

• If someone communicates a fear to you try not to dismiss it out of hand

• Vulnerability is not weakness

FEAR AND VISUALIZATION