scared

Fear – our brain could be playing games – 4

Energy, Fear, Human Brain, Risks

Most people talk about how our brain has evolved from the reptilian brain over multiple millinea. Most other animals didn’t have the real estate in their heads to allow for their brains to grow and evolve. Human beings had the real estate and therefore we have been able to evolve. Zebras a hundred thousands years back looked exactly the same as they do today. Human beings a hundred thousand years back and now are totally different.

Now this evolution doesn’t mean that the oldest part of the human brain – the lizard brain – does not exist. It still does. As in lizards its main function is to preserve the life of the lizard. And it believes that it can do it by conserving energy. So whenever you take into a direction where it needs to expend energy, it dissuades you by giving you resistance, by throwing massive negative ideas at you to make you feel scared.

Yesterday I wrote about being fearless versus being reckless.

Being fearless does not mean an absence of fear. It means that when you see resistance, or when fear throws its head up, you realise that there could actually be something worthwhile in that direction. Its just one way for your brain to give you an indication that there’s something new, which it has not encountered before and therefore you need to take a judicious call and move forward.

Your brain is a habit forming, pattern recognition system. If it cannot see a pattern it throws up alarm bells that it will need to spend more energy to do work and therefore it should be avoided because it has to save that energy for your survival. Anytime you learn something new this is what will happen till the new becomes old.

Without being reckless, welcome the fear as a sign of progress for yourself and move forward.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!

Fear – your brain could be playing games

Brain size, Energy, Fear, Human Brain, Worry

A few posts back I had written about how we tend to procrastinate because our brain does not want to expend energy.

Based on what I have been reading, I have a feeling that even fear could be your brain playing games on you. The whole premise below is my own deduction without any scientific evidence to the effect.

As a kid, I used to be scared of everything. Some of that changed as I became around 7-8 years old. I had a friend named Jaimee who used to stay in the apartment above us. My father had bought one small cycle for me. He used to prod me to keep cycling in spite of the fact that I would keep falling.

Once I became proficient in riding my small cycle he pushed me to ride a bigger cycle which we would bring on rent. As I developed the ability to ride bigger bikes, I also got more confidence in myself.

After reading so many books on the research on brain activity, I have been reviewing from my memory a lot of the episodes in my life where I was scared.

Most of the places where I feared something, I have realized, I was not confident of handling the situation because I had not been in it before. Whenever there was someone who gave me the support I would be able to do things without any issue. But whenever there was no one, my brain would show me all the terrible consequences I would face.

Now I realize that brain eats so much energy, even though its so small in size. So the brain’s first objective is to save energy to ensure survival. So whenever it feels you intend to make it do work, the brain throws ideas to make you feel scared. This fear then stops you in your tracks and you back away and the brain feels happy because it did not have to spend the energy.

Now obviously in case someone is pointing a knife at you, then there’s actual danger to you and you need to be careful, but most other times my feeling is that the brain is trying to save energy.

Think about it.

Till next time then.

Carpe Diem!!!