Can we control our fears?
A pair of almond-sized brain bits called the amygdala has been considered pretty much solely responsible for the learning and expression of conditioned fears. This certainly matches the general feeling that fear is a fundamental business resistant to rational control. But is it oversimplified?
Are our fears learned or innate?
4 comments:
Hi and thanks for stopping by. Due to increasing spam we now require all commenters to be registered.
We know this is a nuisance but it helps us weed out the spam bots and people posting comments to create backlinks.
Please be patient and we will authorise your comment as quickly as we can.
Talia & Nancy.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Really interesting question, and I'll share my experience with you about a fear I had for a long time: for years, since early childhood, I had an irrational fear of bugs and spiders. And I don't mean just poisonous creatures -- I mean pretty much anything with more than four legs, LOL, particularly if it was a fairly big creature with more than four legs!
ReplyDeleteWell, one day hubby got a tarantula as a pet. As you can imagine, the thought frightened me, but I told him it was okay, that I wanted to control my fears and broaden my mind.
And I'm not kidding you: it took exactly a minute, keeping my new attitude in mind, of studying our new pet before my fear started to subside and my curiosity and a sort of scientific detachment started kicking in: tarantulas are fascinating creatures! And they're harmless -- they're no more venomous than a bee, and rose hair tarantulas, like the one we have, are shy and non-aggressive.
And ever since we've had Ellie Mae (our tarantula, of whom I am quite fond -- she's very sweet :) ), I haven't been afraid of a six-or-eight-legged creature of any size.
In my experience, determined conditioning and exposure can stake a dagger through the heart of an irrational fear.
I think that curiousity can be a great factor in accepting fear. Thomma lyn's experience says much about it. It's only a matter of showing interest over the subject.
ReplyDeleteI don't know; I can see how there is a medical explanation for stress -- as it is a needed reflex in the wild.
ReplyDeleteI believe fear, however, is created by mankind through our own twisted imaginations. While it can never fully be conquered, there are those who master it.
This is one of our objectives in life, imo.
I think that our fears are learned. When we were still kids, our parents would tell scary stories to force to us to do something. If only children were to live without any influence, I guess there wouldn't be any imaginations to think about.
ReplyDelete