This Is Your Brain on Fear

A friend recently told me she’s struggling to fall asleep ever since Trump was sworn into office. She said, unlike during his first administration, where she was often angered by his actions, recent headlines are evoking a new and more disturbing feeling within her, which interferes with her ability to relax when her head hits the pillow: fear. 

She is far from alone. In conversations with friends and colleagues, that word—that feeling—keeps coming up. Fear that our economy will crash. That our institutions will crumble. That our loved ones will be victims of oppression or violence. That we are on the brink of another, perhaps deadlier, pandemic. That our rights, already so tenuous, will be taken away. That we are powerless in the face of what’s happening in the world today.

That fear can manifest itself in different ways. There’s my friend dealing with sleep disturbances. But other people I know report feeling generally anxious and panicky. Others are extra irritable, ready to snap at the slightest (and sometimes imagined) provocation. And then some are responding to fear by withdrawing, hoping to make themselves small enough to avoid being a target. 

The fear is insidious—and research suggests its hold on our society has been growing for some time. Christopher Bader, a sociologist at Chapman University who conducts an annual survey about what scares Americans most, said that over the decade he and his colleagues have conducted this study, they’ve learned that “fear has become a bigger and bigger part of American society.” 

And that fear, unfortunately, is taking a toll on our brains.

Drew Ramsey, M.D., renowned psychiatrist and author of Healing the Modern Brain: Nine Tenets to Build Mental Fitness and Revitalize Your Mind, said fear—even a vague fear of the unknown—is a distressing state for humans to be in, especially over time. 

“That fear, even if we can’t always put our finger on what exactly might be causing it, puts you in a hypervigilant state,” he said. “The brain is basically on DEFCON 1 [an acronym used by the U.S. Armed Forces to denote a cocked and ready defense readiness condition], releasing a flood of stress hormones that influences every system in the body.”

There is an evolutionary explanation for that DEFCON 1 response, one that goes back to our hunter-gatherer roots. Thousands and thousands of years ago, as our ancestors searched for food and shelter in forests and savannas across the globe, having a well-developed fear response helped our species not only to survive, but thrive in uncertain environments. Fear, by design, is a “go big or go home” type of emotion. It primes the nervous system, releasing hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, so we do not overlook an unexpected predator or suspicious-looking plant. As those stress hormones, as well as other neurochemicals, flood the brain and nervous system, they cause distinct physiological changes across the body. Your breath quickens. Your heart rate kicks up a few notches. Your pupils dilate. Blood flows to your muscles. As a result, your brain and body are hyper-focused and ready to do whatever it takes to manage the threat before you.

Over the course of a few minutes, a dose of fear is a good thing. It can keep you safe. Over the long term, Ramsey said, it can take a significant toll on your mental and physical health.

“There’s an opportunity cost when your brain is on fear all the time,” he said. “There’s all those chemicals which, when left unchecked, can lead to issues like mood swings, sleep problems, weight gain, and high blood pressure.”

Another byproduct of chronic cortisol and stress hormone release in the brain is inflammation, which scientists and physicians now understand is linked to depression, anxiety, and neurodegeneration.

“Not only does this kind of lasting fear take up a tremendous amount of cognitive energy as we work to suppress it, distract ourselves from it, or disassociate from it,” said Ramsey. “Between the inflammation from the cortisol, as well as the inflammation from not sleeping well, eating well, or attending to your needs, you will see an erosion of your physical health, too.”

The question then becomes what to do about it. Because while reflexive fear responses are often couched in binary terms—fight or flight—there is a third option: freeze. And that’s what far too many of us are doing these days. Overwhelmed by our fears, we often find ourselves paralyzed by our feelings, unable to do much more than catastrophize or doomscroll. Ramsey said that is understandable and why it’s so important to cultivate what he calls mental fitness.

Mental fitness, Ramsey said, is the combination of “knowledge, patterns, habits, and skills that culminate in a more enjoyable, more mentally sound life.” And by embracing the healthy habits that optimize your brain’s health, you can make yourself less susceptible to the effects of escalating fear.

“The first step of mental fitness is self-awareness,” he said. “If you are a person who is part of a group who is being disenfranchised, you can’t be in denial of that. You shouldn’t be in denial of that. But instead of giving in to ruminative worrying, you can refocus your efforts into preparation. You can be more aware and do what you can to redirect your fear into action.”

Other tenets of mental fitness include proactively making lifestyle changes to eat more nutrient-dense foods, move your body more, improve your sleep, and connect with your community. While, at first glance, these may seem like things you’d find in any self-help book, Ramsey said research studies show that such lifestyle changes are physiologically and psychologically protective—and can reduce the risk of transforming your fear into a chronic issue.

“By being intentional about doing things that provide your brain the nutrients it needs, by moving your body in a way you enjoy, by being with your community, you’ll find the fear doesn’t have the same kind of power over you,” he said. “The world may not be changing. But your response to it can. And by building mental fitness, you are building more resilience that can help you adapt and respond to what’s happening in healthier ways.”

Ramsey said, when you can make small changes to take care of your brain, you can see big differences to the way you feel. And it puts you in a better position to, as he put it, “put your angst into action.”

When you take steps to ensure you are well rested, nourished, and connected to like-minded people, it becomes easier to act. My friend, once she realized her sleep problems were unsustainable, started calling her representatives each day. When she finds herself amped up come bedtime, she unloads her concerns on her senator’s office voicemail and then “sleeps like a baby.” But there’s no one size fits all approach to putting angst into action. You may find you can better hold fear at bay by setting a hard limit on your news or social media consumption or getting out into the woods for a hike. You can find ways to change the things that are scaring you, by joining local protests, educating voters before midterm elections, or volunteering in ways that best support your values. Ramsey added that one of the best antidotes to fear is finding ways to be joyful. He said opportunities to gather with friends and loved ones, to connect with your people, is also a tenet of mental fitness–and one that can yield high dividends.

“Fear can be paralyzing. But mental fitness makes it easier to take a step back and realize you are not powerless,” he said. “Small revolutions start in small acts of kindness. And it is easier to recognize those opportunities when your brain is mentally fit and can recognize the fear for what it is—something that was designed to get you attention, so you’ll act and bring all those hormones back to baseline, not keep you in a cycle that is going to negatively affect your health.”