Actress demonstrating initial reactions of fear and panic. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Learn how a fear is experienced in our body and why you need to distinguish from the real and the imaginary.
Fear is an emotion that we all must deal with on a daily basis. The proper response to legitimate threats is critical for our physical well being. Unfortunately, a large percentage of our fear is based on situations that are not life or death, but only perceived as dangerous. This can cause limitations, bad experiences and trauma that hurt you emotionally and can produce physical symptoms as well.
Fear is one of the most powerful emotions that we have. A real or perceived fear causes our bodies to react exactly the same. This physical response is called “fight or flight” which is the bodies way of getting ready to confront a situation or run away from it.
The Body Reacts Exactly the Same To Every Fear Both Real and Imaginary
Physical reactions to fear include an elevated heart rate, increased adrenaline levels and sweating. This is a biochemical response that we experience every time we start to have a real threat to fear.
For most of us, we’re constantly experiencing this powerful emotion on a daily basis for things that simply are harmless, but we perceive as dangerous or harmful. This causes reactions of stress and anxiety in our bodies because of this fear.
Physical Symptoms Can Result From The Constant Effects Of Fear
The feeling of anxiety for most people can range from a mild uneasiness to extreme fear. For those that are constantly reacting to fear without a way to check it, can clearly suffer emotional, mental and physical symptoms.
Many physical effects of fear producing abnormal stress and anxious feelings include:
• Headaches
• Migraines
• Stomach pains
• Insomnia
• Panic attacks
• Depression
This is only a small list of symptoms that occur from ongoing stress and anxiety brought on by perceived fears in our daily lives.
The key to managing fear is to learn how to distinguish between real and perceived threats. Of course, you never want to ignore when you’re truly in a dangerous situation, because this powerful emotion can alert you to take the appropriate action that could save your life or the life of a loved one.
As you can see this is a very broad topic that is difficult to cover in one article. Therefore, we will expand on the topic of fear and discuss how our culture breeds fear as well as various strategies that you can implement to manage stress and anxiety on a daily basis.
Next up: How has our society contributed to creating a Culture of Fear?
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