Staying Calm In the Fear Loop (Part 1)

My heartbeat was galloping. Beads of perspiration formed on my forehead, but I was perfectly still. I felt like I had to run — anywhere — but even standing would have been difficult as my legs wobbled beneath me. I was alone with these feelings. No one was angry with me or wanting to fight me. No one said a word to me. This all happened as a result of the thoughts in my own mind setting off a bodily response that prepared my body for a crisis. I was stuck in a fear loop.

Tony Blauer talks about FEAR as an acronym:

• False

• Expectations

• Appearing

• Real

Fear is the result of our process of running mental scenarios to predict what might happen. Those scenarios reveal expectations of what we think might possibly take place. Sometimes this process leads us to predict catastrophe. When we expect we are about to face a crisis, our body will respond with a physiological response that is meant to protect you.

Imagining the worst-case scenario can be a survival mechanism — it prepares us to run from possible danger, or to fight it. Unfortunately, the process can result in a hijacking of our amygdala. The Harvard Business Review perfectly describes what you feel when your amygdala is hijacked:

We notice immediate changes like an increased heart rate or sweaty palms. Our breathing becomes more shallow and rapid as we take in more oxygen, preparing to bolt if we have to.

The flood of stress hormones create other sensations like a quivering in our solar plexus, limbs, or our voice. We may notice heat flush our face, our throat constrict, or the back of our neck tighten and jaw set. We are in the grip of a highly efficient, but prehistoric set of physiological responses. These sensations are not exactly pleasant — they’re not meant for relaxation. They’re designed to move us to action.

The active amygdala also immediately shuts down the neural pathway to our prefrontal cortex so we can become disoriented in a heated conversation. Complex decision-making disappears, as does our access to multiple perspectives. As our attention narrows, we find ourselves trapped in the one perspective that makes us feel the most safe: “I’m right and you’re wrong,” even though we ordinarily see more perspectives.

(You can read the HBR Article here)

Staying calm when descending into the fear loop can feel impossible. In the next article, we’ll continue to discuss ways to make your fear and stress feel much more manageable. But, this first step of understanding the amygdala hijacking is an important step in that process.