So we see that fear impacts politics,
but it also affects your body,
your physical, your mental health,
to better understand how this works.
I spoke with Michelle Bauer
from by vasity care center.
Well, Michelle, I haven't really
excited to talk with you about this.
We have been thinking about all
the aspects of fear for this show,
but I wanted to ask you,
what are some of the ways that
fear presents itself physically?
There's shows up for us physically
in so many different ways.
One of the real common things
people experience is actually
having a panic attack which the
symptoms of a panic attack actually
mimic those of a heart attack.
Oftentimes people will find
themselves in the emergency room,
convinced that they're having a heart attack.
And once everything is medically cleared,
these are actually the symptoms of anxiety.
I've been there.
I suffered from panic disorder myself,
so I know how debilitating it is.
I mean, it really does kind
of feel like you're dying.
Yes, absolutely. It's it's
incredibly physically painful.
And and emotionally terrifying
for so many people.
Yeah, I mean, panic attack is is hopefully
over within a few minutes to a few hours.
But can there be long term effects
created from fear? Overtime, yes,
we can actually have our immune
system impacted by fear.
The longer that we stay in a
heightened state of hyperarousal,
which is basically our.
Our fight or flight mechanism
that we possess that puts a toll
on our entire body so we become
overtime more susceptible to
different types of illnesses.
It actually speeds up our aging process.
We can age dramatically.
Experiencing so much fear.
We can also get lots of
chronic health issues,
anything from headaches
turning into migraines,
to developing chronic pain
that wasn't there previously.
Can I help make you lose your hair?
'cause I've been a bit jumpy lately and
I noticed I've been losing my hair.
Yes, stress and fear can
absolutely cause hair loss.
Shaking it can actually cause
eating disordered behaviors,
and it really effects our moods to
the point that we lose innocence.
Our resiliency and our ability
to kind of withstand stress.
And so we become much more
susceptible to becoming really
reactive to situations that maybe
wouldn't bothered us before. Yeah,
so how does fear impact us
mentally on that level?
It really affects our ability to.
Regulate our our feelings and
our emotions and as we become
more emotionally dysregulated,
where we're more more depressed or or
more anxious and worried and fearful,
we really start to see our thinking impacted.
And so we talk.
Order to think clearly.
It's harder to make well thought
out decisions and we start
reacting impulsively and making
choices without even considering
what the outcome might be.
Someone is listening to our
conversation right now and then
I'm thinking this is me and I don't
want to be sick in the future and I
don't want this to affect my health.
What can they do now?
There's so many things people can do,
the usual things that people are
going to hear is get exercise.
I like to frame it in the
theory of getting movement,
whatever that looks like for you,
trying to get better sleep most of the
time I sleep is impacted when we are
living in a state of constant fear,
be around the people that you care about
and the people that are important to you
doing the things that make you happy.
The hobbies, the activities you have,
even if they're not bringing
joy at the moment,
really helped to reignite.
Our resiliency and and improve our moves.
Taking a break from social media
from where we get our information
sometimes is really helpful because
that's something that we can control.
In a world where we can't control
a lot of things and honestly
coming and talking to someone,
finding someone that you trust
or finding someone that is very
neutral that can help you with the
skills makes a huge difference.
Social
media is a huge component, you know.
I enjoy it. It's part of the job too.
But I've noticed that sometimes it really
would get me riled up, so I actually.
Change I put my my Facebook app at
the back of all the screens and I
replaced it with my Pinterest app
and now I just scroll pretty things.
My last question, you know,
I know that there's something
called healthy fear dude.
Does fear have any positive qualities?
Yes, in the sense that it
does help to keep us alive.
We do need to have a a fear
response and there is a difference
between having a fear response,
like when we're in a car accident
and we we have those those immediate
reactions to try and stay alive versus
living in a chronic state of fear.