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Fear can be a predominant motivating factor behind much of our lives. Instead of having a clear idea of what we want and making decisions that move us in that direction, which will most likely involve some risk and discomfort, all too often we make fear-based decisions that limit us and our happiness. While these choices allow us to avoid that uncomfortable, anxious feeling, they don’t usually end up providing any real opportunity for growth or forward movement toward our goals. So, we stay safe. Comfortable. Stagnant.
Fear is produced when your amygdala, a primitive part of the brain’s limbic system involved in the processing and expression of emotion, kicks in doing its job to ensure survival. Your brain is constantly scanning the environment for signs of danger, ready to activate reflexes to keep you safe. Your body responds to anything your brain sees as a threat with an almost instantaneous sequence of hormonal and physiological changes preparing you to fight or flee. These days, our bodies react to common occurrences, such as a traffic jam, a work deadline, or an argument with a partner, as life-threatening events.
Robert M. Sapolsky, a Stanford University biologist, explains in a TED talk, The Psychology of Stress:
What stress is like for 99% of the beasts on this planet is 3 minutes of screaming terror on the savannah after which either it’s over with or you’re over with. We turn on the identical stress response for a thirty-year mortgage.
So, stress is a normal bodily response which isn’t necessarily bad by itself. The problem arises when your brain sounds the alarm for every little thing that happens, and stress becomes an almost constant state. As a chronic condition, stress has serious negative, lasting consequences for your mind and body.
In his book, Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, Sapolsky writes:
Stress can wreak havoc on your metabolism, raise your blood pressure, burst your white blood cells, make you flatulent, ruin your sex life, and if that’s not enough, possibly damage your brain.
A 2005 study conducted by the psychologist, Ming Hsu, showed that even a small amount of uncertainty caused increased activity in the amygdala. As the level of ambiguity and amygdala activity escalated, the part of the brain involved in response to rewards, the ventral striatum, decreased functioning.
Your brain doesn’t merely prefer certainty over ambiguity. It craves it and will pursue the feeling of being right, known as “certainty bias,” every time. When you feel right, your brain is happy – even if it’s just an illusion. In the book, Nerve: Poise Under Pressure, Serenity Under Stress, and the Brave New Science of Fear and Cool, Taylor Clark writes:
The more certainty and control we think we have about a potentially threatening situation, the less stress we will feel. Interestingly enough, perception is all that counts with this. You don’t actually need to have perfect certainty or total control over how things will pan out; you just need to believe that you have them.
