What Causes Fear?
What is fear
Fear is an emotional response to a threat. It is a basic survival mechanism occurring in response to a specific stimulus, such as pain or the threat of danger. Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable.
Causes of fear
Our brain consists of clusters of nerves that make it a profound organ. The nerve cells in it, sends sensory signals to every part that is essentially connected to it. It can be a signal that makes us consciously aware of things around us or a signal that can be present only when stimulated. One of them is fear; fear is aroused by different stimuli. It varies in form and condition. Fear is felt when certain factors give us a feeling of being threatened or being afraid on something that might possibly happen.
While it is important to be aware of potential and real threats, it is just as important to react appropriately to them. For most of us, our initial startle response subsides as soon as we realize that there is no actual threat or danger. However, this is not always the case. There are many people for whom fear becomes maladaptive, as they struggle with anxiety, phobias and panic attacks. Children are also at risk of overactive fear, as they are not always able to rationalize fears that are unrealistic or unfounded.
There are classifications of fear and what causes fear itself. Our brain is developed to identify what causes and signifies fear in us. There are a lot of sources where we get our fears. It can be develop within our social environment, in our subconscious mind, and in the clause of our norms and values, or even during drastic changes.
In the concept of fear, there are different variations of this response, which is according to its degrees. It can be just a mild cautionary fear, phobia or trauma, or paranoia. Certain emotional relations with anxiety, pain, worry, fright, panic and terror relatively emits fear.
Today, there is several fear factors that trigger these emotional responses, one of them is highly mentioned and voted for recently. It’s the fear with terrorist’s attacks, death, failure, war, heights, crime, violence, and some selected animals or insects like spiders or cockroaches. But in reality, we all get that feeling of fearing something once in our life and the best thing to do is to overcome what causes fears so we can live according to what we want and not because fear is hindering us.
