Fear – Surprising who is Afraid

While at the gym today I was listening to a podcast about fear. There were some interesting and surprising illustrations of this sensation that we have all felt. There were three great examples that I would like to share with you.

They talked to David Blaine who simply explained that you could condition yourself to achieve anything, and forget all of your fears. Thus from a very young age he had taught himself to hold his breath for a prolonged time. That developed to the point where he could publicly break the world record for breath holding, yes there is such a thing. Interestingly for this and the other bizarre acts he performs he practices constantly. Thus he practices holding his breath for a number of minutes before going to bed each evening, as well as drinking kerosene. Now me I prefer a cup of cocoa. He has performed a number of scary things and professed to have no fear. He was then reticent when asked whether he was frightened of anything. His answer staying in a strange house on his own and most significant if he perceived that his three-year-old daughter was exposing herself to danger. I think that is a common reaction, I certainly am more fearful for my children, even in their grown up state than I am for myself.

More predictable was the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, you know the one who famously sang Bowie in the International Space Station. He said he was extremely frightened when at launch and re-entry. He used his astronaut training to get over those fears. Quite simply he had so much to think about that he had no time to be scared. You think there is a lot to do in a spacecraft, for Chris this is compounded by the fact that he has to know how to do it in Russian so that he can communicate with his co-crew members and the ground staff. So here is somebody suffering from a sensory overload that precludes fear.

Often it is said that fear drives people to make good decisions in difficult circumstances, this refers back to the cavemen whose fear of the sabre-tooth tiger helped them be hyper-aware and thus sense danger before it became apparent. The corollary is that sometimes irrational fear can cause people to make the wrong decision. Thus the whaler crew shipwrecked in the South Atlantic, had a couple of options, all by the way which were difficult. The easiest was to set sail for some islands, the snag they believed the islands to be inhabited by cannibals. The more risky option was to risk running out of food by striking for the South American mainland. Their fear of the cannibals that was irrational and not necessarily supported by fact caused them to take the fatal option. Most in fact died before they were rescued.

So fear is on the surface a simple emotion, however as we see if we examine its nuances we find it to be hugely complex. Thus is it a fear of dinosaurs in her bedroom that cause my grand daughter to come down from her bedroom, or is it just the tale that she weaves to stay up a little longer.

Boooooo……..