I’ll never forget the first insight I had into human psychology. I was 16 years old and in school we’d just learned about hyperarousal or the acute stress response and how the body responds in this situation.
The acute stress response is also known as the fight-flight-freeze response, it’s your body’s physical reaction to stressful situations. It helps you react to things that you perceive as threats, like a stray lion or your drummer after too many sambucas.
I developed a theory that all emotions are essentially the same; the only difference is in how we perceive them based on the circumstances we find ourselves in when they arise.
I called this the rollercoaster paradox. How one person can be terrified of riding a rollercoaster while another can find it exhilarating. I know it’s pretty simplified but I was 16, give me a break!
Anyway, I went to my girlfriend’s place after school that day and she told me she loved me. My automatic response was “I love you too, but I also know it’s just a cognitive perception of a physiological change in my body”. Needless to say, that didn’t go down too well.
Putting ‘love’ aside for a minute, let’s get back to the fight-flight-freeze response.
This response creates hormonal and physiological changes in a split second. These changes mean that you can react with ninja-speed and protect yourself from whatever danger you’re facing, whether that’s real or perceived.
It’s a survival instinct that our ancient ancestors developed squillions of years ago.
What’s the physical response to fear?
On a hormonal level, your body releases two main hormones when this response is triggered; cortisol (the ‘Fuck no!’ hormone) and adrenaline (the ‘fuck-yeah!’ hormone).
Some of the ways this shows up in your body are:
Your heart-rate increasing, this is logical as you may need more oxygen in your muscles for all that fighting and running you’re about to do. If you freeze there’s a good chance that your heart rate will actually drop.
More rapid breathing, same function-faster breathing means more oxygen delivered to the system. Freezing on the other hand could mean that you ‘forget’ to breathe or you’re breathing becomes more shallow.
Dilated pupils. This is so cool, if you sense danger, you don’t know which direction it’s gonna come from- think velociraptors in Jurassic Park, “clever girl”. When your pupils dilate they let in more light giving you better peripheral vision.
Tingling in your skin and sweating, your skin could also become pale and you might get goosebumps.
What’s the physical response to excitement?
On a hormonal level, your body releases two main hormones when this response is triggered; cortisol (the ‘Fuck no!’ hormone) and adrenaline (the ‘fuck-yeah!’ hormone).
Some of the ways this shows up in your body are:
Your heart-rate increasing, this is logical as you may need more oxygen in your muscles for all that fighting and running you’re about to do. If you freeze there’s a good chance that your heart rate will actually drop.
More rapid breathing, same function-faster breathing means more oxygen delivered to the system. Freezing on the other hand could mean that you ‘forget’ to breathe or you’re breathing becomes more shallow.
Dilated pupils. When your pupils dilate they let in more light giving you better peripheral vision.
Tingling in your skin and sweating, your skin could also become pale and you might get goosebumps.
Do you see what I did there? Clever, right?
So if the body’s physical response to fear and excitement are the same, what’s the difference between fear and excitement?
I actually first stumbled onto this idea through Tony Robbins. He told a story about Carly Simon and Bruce Springsteen. He compared two pretty famous musicians; Carly Simon, who stopped performing because of her “performance anxiety” and Bruce Springsteen, who loves performing because of the “excitement” it gives him. But when they were asked for details, both described the exact same physical experience: “butterflies in the stomach,”, “tingling sensation”, “rapid heartbeat” and “sweaty palms”.
And it made so much sense to me because I realised I’d already had a very similar realisation when I was a teenager (as you now know).
And I experienced the very same thing years later when I started performing on stage. That nervous anticipation feels exactly the same, whether it’s the anticipation of something enjoyable or something fearful…am I scared? Am I excited? I don’t know!
It all depends on your perspective.
So, being anxious and excited are actually the same physiological states for your body. The only difference is in your perspective; how you relate to the situation.
That means your mind can make the switch between those states very easily if you train it.
The most common ‘solution’ to feeling anxiety is to ‘calm down’ and relax. While I definitely recommend controlled breathing and mindfulness practices to deal with states of panic and get that cortisol level down, I also believe that you can switch from fear to excitement much easier than switching between feeling anxious and calm.
How can you turn fear into excitement?
Here’s a 6-step process for turning your fear into excitement:
- Don’t fight it. Don’t try to resist or distract yourself from your fear, face it and allow it to be there.
- Name it. When you have recognised the sensation, name it. Say “oh, hello fear”, tell yourself simply “I’m feeling fear right now”.
- Feel it. Take a moment to really feel the sensations. How do you recognise when your feeling fear? What does fear feel like? Where does it show up in your body? What are the specific sensations?
- Know it. Recognise it for what it really is; a physiological response, caused by hormones being released in your body. That’s all. The sensations themselves can’t damage you or cause you harm in any way.
- Love it. As you have acknowledged the feeling for what it is, know also that it’s just there to help you (even if it’s not really working). Approach it with a sense of curiosity and compassion, let it guide you. Respond in a way that serves you, don’t react.
- Play with it. The best part, now you’re sitting with the fear and getting cozy with it like best buds drinking a beer on the porch on a hot summer night, it’s time to have some fun. Encourage the physical sensations, jump up and down, shout out loud, get pumped up. Let your heart race. Fill your lungs with beautiful oxygen. See, hear and feeeeeel! Let the beat loose and say fuck yeah I’m alive!
OK, how are you feeling? Good? Taking these 6 steps to gain power over your fear can be transformational.
Now what is it that scares you? A decision you need to make? A confrontation? Putting yourself out there? Making an investment? Pick something that scares the shit out of you, you know what it is, and go through the process.
You’ve got this!
