Stress - The Cost of Fear

by Peter Shepherd

As far as the body is concerned, fear is a danger signal - it responds with an

automatic reaction called the "fight-flight response". The heart rate quickens, blood
pressure rises, breathing is disturbed, muscles become tense, the skin begins to
sweat, while digestion, reproduction and other processes that will not be needed for
the moment are turned down. The body is preparing for action - to flee or to fight.
In contemporary society such threats are few and far between. Our mastery of the
world has enabled us to avoid or guard against most such dangers. But this does not
mean that we are free from threat; human beings have created a whole new set of
things to worry about. Our need to feel in control may be threatened by imposed
workloads, tight deadlines, crowded schedules. We may feel threatened by traffic
jams, delayed flights, incompetent staff, unexpected demands and anything else that
might cost us time. Our need for self-esteem, recognition and approval can be
threatened by the fear of failure, the fear of looking foolish in front of others, fear of
criticism and the fear of being rejected. Uncertainty or anything else that makes us
feel insecure can likewise be perceived as a threat.
Such threats are unique to humans; we can imagine - and thus worry about - things
that a cat or dog could not possibly conceive of. The trouble is, our biological
evolution has not caught up with our mental evolution. Our bodies respond to these
psychological threats just as they would to any physical threat. So we find our hearts
thumping, our palms sweating and our muscles tightening because of some danger
that we perceive within our minds - because someone criticises us, because we have
to speak in a group, or because we may be late for a meeting.
Usually these turn out to be a false alarm, but the body cannot unwind and recover
so quickly to a state of ease as the second it took to jump to alert. The body seldom
has time to recover from one alarm before the next one has triggered. Before long
our bodies end up in a permanent state of underlying tension. This background
tension then feeds back and begins to affect our thinking, emotions and behaviour.
Our judgement deteriorates, we tend to make more mistakes, we may feel
depressed, hostile towards others, act less rationally, and so on. The toll on our
bodies manifests in various ways: aches and pains, indigestion, insomnia, high blood
pressure, allergies, illness - sometimes leading to premature death.