The answer is in the structure of the
brain. The
brain stem, which we share with
lizards, is the
part with the fight/flight/freeze
response. Our
ancestors needed this part for the
dangerous
situations they encountered before we
all
started building houses and living
safe, cushy
lives indoors. If a big, hungry
animal is after
you, you don’t have time to ponder,
you need
the fear instinct to kick in with
fight, flee, or
freeze, immediately! This reaction is
out of
place in modern life, when the most
dangerous
thing most of us face is probably a
stapler, but
we still have the brain stem looking
at
everything with fear, because that’s
what it’s
built for.
In addition to the brain stem, we
also have the
amygdala, which we share with other
mammals. The amygdala stores all of
our bad
memories and looks for patterns of
things to
be afraid of. Again, this was handy
when
people needed to notice the rustle of
grass that
meant a tiger was stalking, but not
so great in
the cubicle farm, especially since
the amygdala
triggers the endocrine system to
release stress
hormones like adrenaline and
cortisol. You
need these hormones if you’re running
from a
tiger, but in modern life, they
mostly just make
you more likely to have a heart
attack.
These two parts of the brain do the
fear
processing. Basically, they generate
unhappiness. Luckily, we don’t have
let them
rule our lives—we have other brain
parts that
can override them
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