“Fear is a Frankenstein monster!
It begins innocuously as a saviour and at the end, it can turn us into sugarcane bagasse!
Fear is one of the basic life-saving instincts provided. As I have written repeatedly that there is no function in the body which is superfluous. However, when the balance is lost, even protective mechanisms can kill us.
Fear is an essential built-in quality in us which helps us ‘fight, flight, fright, and freeze’. All these are necessary to save ourselves when our life is threatened. The fear stimulus is withdrawn immediately when we experience, ‘tend and befriend’.
There is a special structure in our brain which is the head of the department of ‘fear’. It is called amygdala (because it is like an almond). We have two amygdalae, the right and left. Negatives thoughts of fear are generated in the right amygdala while fear associated with positive excitement is handled by the left amygdala.
Daniel Goleman named the condition of the overreaction of the amygdala to any given emotion as ‘emotional hijack.
Amygdala is a checkpoint of our input!
Thalamus is like a sorter which distributes all our sensory input to all parts of the cortex. Before it does this, it makes these senses go through the security screening of the amygdala. If amygdala has any previous record of a particular input being harmful or threatening; it sounds the bugle and declares an emergency even before the rational prefrontal cortex steps in. The sensory input or inadvertent thought is never logically and rationally attended to by the brain and before any action is taken by the cortex, the amygdala or security guard takes preventive action and that action is fear. The amygdala generates fear so that we do not expose ourselves to the toxic effects of the dangerous signal.
Pavlov’s experiment of classical conditioning
Pavlov performed historical experiments on human conditioning. Take, for example, this simple experiment. He paired two stimuli. 1) An electric shock 2) The sound of a bell. He gave an electric shock to a dog and recorded electrical changes in the dog and he always associated the sound of a bell parallelly along with the electric shock. To his surprise, he found after repeated exposure to this dual stimuli, that exposure to one stimulus like the sound of a bell without an electric shock would bring about the same reaction of electric shock in the dog.
Unfortunately, our fear is always paired with something else. I would like to tell youngsters my story of fear and anxiety and how I got rid of it! (maybe a little late in life)
I learned it a little late, nevertheless, I mastered the way to overcome fear. However, fear at a younger age had left some indelible scars in me. I have dedicated the rest of my life to educating those who have become victims of this avoidable Frankenstein Monster!
It was in the year 1960 when I was preparing to go to High School, my father for some reason thought that I should learn typewriting and shorthand. During summer holidays before school opened, I was sent to a nearby town where this facility was available. I was supposed to stay in a cheap accommodation of an open hall exposed to all guests walking in and out of the room. That isolated and circumscribed stay in a huge hall itself was a psychological shame.
An astrologer was staying in one of the rooms in that hotel. He somehow wanted to attract me towards him (maybe he was a homosexual, I am not sure because he never treated me badly in that sense). He just materialized a popular sweet from a nearby famous restaurant in an instant under a pillow (I still don’t know how he did that magic) and displayed his supernatural power to a youngster. I believed in him completely. He started foretelling my future. I became curious. He said that my father is going to die shortly. This news shocked me. Suddenly the picture of the whole family who were all dependent on my father was projected in front of me. I shuddered. I believed him. My heart started racing and sweating. The next day I ran back to my village and obsessively started observing my father and other members of my family, always thinking about how and when this tragedy would unfold. It became stressful for me. I lived through that stress throughout my younger days and by my 18th year, I was diagnosed as ‘anxiety neurotic’. That incident was the trigger point to contract severe anxiety.
Do you know how I was affected by those astrologer’s words?
Whenever I saw my father, I thought of his death because the astrologer had told me that he would die. Perhaps, the news of the death of my father was coupled with his presence. Whenever I saw him, I was reminded of the prophecy of that astrologer. That was unfortunate in my case. By repeated stimulation of the same thought, the very presence of my father led me to a state of phobia and that was converted into ‘anxiety neurosis’ because of continued long term potentiation.
What is this long term potentiation (LTP)?
Imagine that there is an event where we are supposed to keep clapping as long as the lead-clapper is clapping and we are supposed to stop immediately after he stops. Surprisingly, we cannot immediately stop along with the lead-clapper. We invariably clap one or two times more. This process of adaptation to a task is called long term potentiation (LTP). The mechanism of memory is based on LTP. New receptors of the glutamate neurotransmitter are recruited in this process. Normally there are GABA inhibitory receptors in the amygdala which reduce the intensity of fear through the constant input of rational prefrontal cortex. However, because of genetic makeup or other predispositions, GABA receptors may become weakened, thereby ‘fear’ is augmented in the amygdala. To put it briefly, fear comes as a saviour and is recorded in the amygdala. However, normally its effectiveness is reduced by the GABA neurotransmitter. If we couple it with other thoughts, then the other thoughts present in another part of the brain or in the hippocampus stimulate the fear expression constantly. This habit gets memorized by the process of LTP and the effectiveness of GABA is steadily reduced. It is at this stage that, what has been fear thus far, may become a phobia. People with phobias work hard to avoid their phobias, but they become powerless to avoid them because of the LTP in the amygdala. This is due to the structural plasticity that has occurred in the amygdala.
Social transmission of fear
By observing those who are conditioned to fear, others who are normal also may develop a condition called observational conditioning. We do not have to be directly involved in negative emotion. Even the company of negative minded people may bring about changes in our amygdala leading to chronic fear. Therefore, the saying, “Tell me your friends, and I will tell you what you are!” is a very appropriate statement.
Unfortunately, many youngsters fall prey to some abnormal relationships with other boys (though girls are not excluded from this, it is more prevalent in boys). They suffer from ‘anxiety neurosis’ because of ‘amygdala hijack’. ‘Amygdala hijack’ is the metaplasticity (change in the structure) in the amygdala that facilitates the fear and nullifies the inhibitory effect.
Modern youth are exposed to all kind of literature on the internet and they read it and apply that half-cooked knowledge on their clandestine behaviour. It is a disaster. It becomes a constant fearful inner state in the brain which is always working in the background. This reduces the threshold of the inhibitory mechanism and creates a new LTP memory. They even start dreaming of the ill-effects of their activity and steadily it is converted into a type of phobia. All those who have this inner persistent guilt appear normal outside and they refrain from discussing these issues with their mentors because of guilt.
How do we get rid of this fear?
- It is possible to rewire our brain
Please take this as a mantra. It is possible to change the brain’s connections. There are always two mechanisms in the brain 1) Excitation 2) Inhibition. Whenever there is fear, we should understand that the balance of excitation and inhibition is lost and we have to encourage the opposite of what we are suffering. If we are suffering from fear of loss of health, then we should try to learn all about our body. We should imagine the front of the brain giving instructions to the amygdala to stop its erratic activities. Replace the memory of fear in the hippocampus with the memories of those who have been cured of fear (like me), or replace it with the realisation of the irrationality behind our thoughts. 1) We have to steadily replace our existing negative thoughts in the hippocampus with positive thoughts 2) Rational explanation of the existing situation has to be kickstarted in the prefrontal cortex. By overcoming these two inhibitions, the amygdala can be released from its hijacked situation.
- It is the thought of disease that is more detrimental than the disease
The very thought of the ill-effects and life-shortening nature of a disease plays havoc on our health rather than the actual disease. A person dies of fear before actual death comes. Let it be any future condition, it can come to us only if our mind permits it to come. If our decision is strong, it can change our genetic expression and can cure even cancer (refer to my previous post).
- Fear is just a signal
Fear cannot make space to sleep in us if we do not give it a place to even sit. It is the improper teaching in schools, at home and in society that has made certain conditions secretive and bad. If a person has hypertension and diabetes, they can openly talk about this (sometimes they themselves boast of having these conditions). This has social acceptance. However, if a person is mentally ill (It is the same body), the condition is kept secret even by the parents. If a boy has developed neurosis because of some bad habit, our society does not permit him to openly declare it. The problem will be solved in no time if he/she opens up. The secretive nature of some conditions makes them incurable.
- Meditation
Start meditating in the following unique way.
As usual take a comfortble position. Breath normally. After settling, imagine yourself to be present inside your mother’s womb and start enacting the whole drama of your life till today. Wipe this out completely. Go back to your foetal state. Start as a new person. Begin a new storyline. Forget all that you have experienced until today as a bad dream. Wake up from your previous dream and start with a new dream. In this life, be sure and pure, go to the original settings of your body. You can easily change the connections of the brain. You become happy. You will discover that you are ‘bliss-personified’.
You will enjoy life like never before!
Remember you are born to enjoy!
P.S: This is how I was able overcome my fear and illness. I am sure you can too.
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Thank you
Dr R N Sreenathan
Director Chinmaya International Foundation
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