What kind of music is scary for balloons? Pop music. I'm Mimi Fotz, and this is the fear episode of Hello from the Van. It was Halloween over the weekend. In my mind, there are basically two groups of people that celebrate Halloween. For the first group, Halloween means haunted houses, scary movies, and late nights. For the second group, it means pumpkin carving, hayrides, corn mazes, and trunk retreats. Then there's this odd third group who also celebrate season, but that's a discussion for a separate podcast. In my traipsing around the neighborhood this weekend with my kids, my mind started to wander. Why do some people enjoy being scared and others don't? I am strictly teen, not so scary Halloween. I don't enjoy scary things in the slightest. Watching a scary movie? Yeah, count me out. No thanks. It's not that I'm too scared, it's that I just don't enjoy it. It's not fun for me. It's the same as cleaning a toilet. It's just not actually, I'd rather clean the toilet. That's more enjoyable. I get instant gratification. Watching a scary movie, it's not fun for me at all. However, I have a sister-in-law who loves scary Halloween. She enjoys it so much. Halloween is her jam and her favorite season of the year. Why do some people, like myself, not enjoy being scared and others just love it? And while we're at it, what's the function of fear? Why do we even get scared in the first place? To get these answers, I consulted two groups of people, psychologists and biologists. In their simplest of definitions, psychologists study emotion and the way the brain handles different situations. And biologists study what is happening in the body when we get scared. They study the biology of fear. To begin, these two groups of scientists define fear in very similar ways. It's an emotion, quote, an unpleasant, often strong emotion caused by anticipation or awareness of danger, close quote. One biologist described it as a stimuli and a reaction. Basically, something starts the emotion, that's a stimuli or a stimulus, and then the body reacts, physically, emotionally, or both. Here's the kicker. That danger or stimulus can be real or imaginary. Fear doesn't have to be based in something real. We can feed our mind scary but unreal or imaginary things, and our bodies will react in very real, physical, and measurable ways. Let me give you an example. As a kid, I hated the dark. As an adult, I can't sleep unless all the lights are out and it's pitch black. I sometimes even wear an eye cover to make it more dark. So what changed? In short, my experience and my brain. Due to their brain development, kids do not have the ability to tell the difference between real or imagined danger. It's all the same for them. Adults, this means that chastising your kid for being afraid of something, like a basement or the dark, won't actually help. The stimulus is there, and so is the very physical and emotional reaction. It's what we do next that determines how we as parents and kids move forward. There are very different types of fear. There is useful fear. This is the fear that says, hey, don't touch the stove, it will burn you. That's a useful fear. The fear of the burn keeps us from doing silly things like burning our hands or accidentally starting the kitchen on fire. According to Dr. Carl Albrecht and his article in Psychology Today, even the memories of times we were scared can affect us. The good news is there are ways to deal with it. Quote, some of our fears, of course, have basic survival value. Others, however, are learned reflexes that can be weakened or relearned, close quote. But what do we do when the world seems inherently scary? Knowledge is power, especially when it comes to fear, so let's break down what's happening inside of our bodies when we are scared of something. As Dr. Albrich says, if you are aware of what's happening, it can help you through these scary situations. Your fear can be weakened and it can be relearned. So, part one, stimulus. This is the first part of fear. We have to have something to kick off the fear. We perceive a danger or a threat. This is the stimulus that the psychologists and biologists describe in their definitions. Again, this could be something real or imaginary. Let's imagine we're all living in prehistoric times and suddenly there is a saber-toothed tiger in front of us. This would be an appropriate time to be scared. Our brain says danger, danger, and then starts reacting to help get us to safety. This brings us to part two of fear, reaction. In this part two, we have a physical reaction in our bodies to the perceived stimulus. Your brain sends a message to your endocrine system. Your endocrine system is the part of your body responsible for the release of hormones. This is what helps keep your body functioning and surviving. These messages your scared brain sends to your body cause a chain reaction that releases a flood of different hormones. These hormones then affect your bodily systems. Very helpful when facing a prehistoric saber-tooth tiger with only a spear and leather pajamas. One thing that the biologist and psychologist agreed on is that when we are scared or fearful, our body goes into what is called a fight or flight response. We get scared and we either want to fight the thing we're afraid of. This is why some people get angry when they're anxious, or we want to run away from the thing we're afraid of. I'm normally this second type. According to Jonathan Abramowitz, professor of psychology at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, here's how that fight or flight comes about. Quote, your heart starts beating faster to circulate blood. You breathe faster to get more oxygen into your system so that your heart can circulate oxygenated blood, which your body uses for energy. Your muscles tense, you start to sweat. Collectively, this is called sympathetic arousal because it's your sympathetic nervous system that is activated when we perceive a threat. This is also an important psychological response. Your attention becomes laser focused on the perceived threat. As a result, it's really hard to concentrate on other stuff. That's a good thing if there's an actual threat. You want to be focused on the saber-toothed tiger and not daydreaming about some fantasy or something like that. Then, behaviorally, with all that energy from the fight or flight response, we feel like we either need to fight back or run. Some animals go into a freeze response, and if we can't run or fight, we might become restless, fidgety, and even short-tempered with others. This presents itself as anxiety, close quote. According to Professor Abramowitz, anxiety is a type of fear. Think about times you've been scared. Have you had any of those endocrine responses we've talked about? I sure have. Remember how I mentioned as a kid I was afraid of the dark? Boy was I ever. It didn't help that I lived in an old house that at the time made very scary noises to me. As an adult, I recognized that those noises were just the function of the house. It was the furnace coming on, or a creaky hinge that needed some lubricant, or my brother flushing the toilet at two o'clock in the morning. But as a kid, the noises were absolutely frightening. My brain filled in the gap of what it could have been and made it scarier than it actually was. I would have a hard time sleeping because everything seemed so loud. Experience calmed my fears or my anxiety around the dark, and now it's something I enjoy. That explains my fear of the dark, but what about those people who really love being scared? Well, it's because they get a weird pleasure from their brains when they're scared. I'm not kidding. They get a physical reward when they are scared. Let me explain. Remember how we have an endocrine response to fear? The thalamus in your brain. That's the part responsible for sensory input, things that you smell, touch, taste, feel. The thalamus sends a signal to your amygdala. The amygdala is the part of your brain that's responsible for emotion and survival. So sensory says, hey, survival system, here's what we need to do. The amygdala, wanting to survive, tells your adrenal glands to release stress hormones. Remember, this is a chain reaction. The hormones that are released are things called adrenaline and cortisol. Here's the thing about adrenaline: we get a flood of it when we are happy and excited, but also when we're scared. Excited and scared are sister emotions. They are two sides of the same amygdala coin. The adrenaline gives you a rush of endorphins and another super awesome hormone called dopamine. Dopamine is a particularly powerful hormone that is known as the feel-good hormone. For some people, they get a rush of dopamine when they're scared. It's like they're being rewarded for their fear. I get scared and I get a heavy dose of cortisol response. My body goes into deep fight or flight. My sister-in-law gets scared and gets dopamine. She gets enjoyment, an exciting adrenaline response. Two different bodies, two different brains, two very different experiences when it comes to fear. There are physically different things happening inside each of our bodies. So what if you get scared or have fearful anxiety? According to scientists, here are some things that you can do. This is a big one. Learn to face your fears. Experience helps us overcome our fears. Remember my fear of the dark? Experience taught me that it wasn't actually scary. One way parents can help kids or themselves is to talk about what they are afraid of. Calmly talking through the fear with someone you trust when you are not actively in the fear helps your brain make safe connections. As you talk through the fear, you can also talk about why you have that fear, and then you can make a plan for how to deal with it. The great terrible thing becomes less scary when it's talked about and planned for. According to psychologists, having a plan with those that you love will help so that you are not as fearful when you are faced with a stimuli. So acknowledge your fear, get support, then make a plan. A lot of time, the antidote to fear is bravery. According to Dr. Rachel Bussman with the Child Mind Institute, quote, saying things like, you've got this or you're being so brave can help you feel more confident, close quote. Simply telling yourself, I am being brave is a great way to combat your fears. There's a lot that goes into our fears, our experiences, our physiological responses. It's okay to take some time to face your fears and to need multiple attempts at getting over them. In short, there's more to it. But for now, I'm Mimi Fotz, and this has been Hello from the Van.