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(air whooshing)
- Halloween is one of my favorite holidays.
I love dressing up as someone else
and it also marks the beginning of fall
and the holiday season.
However, I do not enjoy being scared.
Not at all, I never have.
Even as a kid, going to a haunted house was a total chore,
and I would only go along because everyone else loved them
and kept asking me to go.
But the whole time I would just tell myself over and over,
"It's not real, these are people playing dress-up.
"These are people that I know.
It'll be over soon.
And I would just rush through as fast as I possibly could
just to get it over with.
But then there are some people, like my husband, Sean,
who love being scared.
He gets excited for Halloween because that means
all of the new thriller or horror movies are gonna be out.
So why is it that some of us love to be scared,
while others, myself included, would rather not?
Well, that is just what we are going to dig into today
as I address the six reasons we like being scared
on this week's episode of Mental Health 101.
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Enjoying being scared seems like a contradiction,
because when we fear for our safety,
that's not usually seen as a good thing,
and something that we would all want to avoid.
But what if we aren't really in danger?
Well, that's where reason number six comes in.
(air whooshing) (heart beating)
Being scared triggers our stress response,
you know, fight, flight, freeze, and fawn.
Our body readies us for action,
if we can take that action.
And in doing so,
it releases various hormones to help in that process.
It dumps things like adrenaline to help us fight or flight,
and endorphins to help minimize our pain response,
both of which are key in getting us away safely.
Now, this rush of energy,
and the reduction of any pain that we may feel,
can feel good,
which then triggers our brain to release dopamine,
which is really just a chemical messenger
that helps us think clearly and plan,
and that's involved in how we feel pleasure.
So this chemical change in our brain
can obviously be overwhelming to some,
but for many people, they enjoy the rush,
and can seek out more stimuli to trigger the response
again, and again, and again,
which could explain why some people need
scarier and scarier triggers to get that same rush,
kind of in the same way addicts need more and more
of their drug of choice to get that same high.
I don't know, it's just interesting stuff, to be honest.
(air whooshing) (heart beating)
Number five kind of rolls easily off of number six,
and that is the fact that we are actually safe.
When our stress response is triggered,
and our brain dumps all of those hormones,
but we check our surroundings
and we're safe, on our couch, in our home,
then we get that rush without any of the real danger.
Our frontal lobe, the responsible, planned
and organized part of our brain
quickly recognizes that we aren't really in danger.
It stops that fight-flight response
from getting out of control,
calms our nervous system down. (sighs)
And therefore, we are able to enjoy
the thrill of being scared.
Now, obviously, this only happens
when we enter into a scary situation
knowing that it's not real, like turning on a scary movie,
or going into a haunted house.
Part of our brain always knows that the threat isn't real,
but that doesn't shut off our amygdala
from trying to sound the alarm anyways,
since it's its job to constantly be assessing
our environment for any possible threat to our safety.
I hope that makes sense.
Does it?
Because it's like our brain dumps those hormones,
but then the adult part of our brain,
that prefrontal cortex, right?
It lets us know that this isn't really a credible threat,
and that safe fear that was created can be enjoyed,
instead of it turning into a terrifying event.
So make sure you stick around for the last four reasons
because they will shock you.
Ha-ha, pun intended. (chortles)
(air whooshing) (heart beating)
Number four, the love of the thrill.
For some of us, our brain just doesn't dump endorphins,
adrenaline, or even dopamine very easily.
So much of our regular life
can feel kind blah. (lips vibrating)
And we can struggle to get excited
when something good happens in our life,
or even find it difficult to get emotional
when something's difficult.
This lack of any real ups or downs
is kind of we're hanging in the middle there,
it can lead us to seeking out scenarios
that give us those ups and downs.
We can be extremely extroverted,
seek adventure at any chance and be impulsive.
And sure, this could mean that if we don't find
a healthy way of doing this, like watching scary movies,
we could put ourselves in unhealthy relationships
or maybe turn to other addictions
or seek out actually threatening situations.
But this urge to feel something can push us
into enjoying the feeling of being scared,
which makes me wonder whether those of you--
(babbling) (heart beating)
Which makes me wonder whether those of you with ADHD
are more prone to enjoy the feeling of being scared.
I'm just curious,
because we already know that the ADHD brain
is just seeking out dopamine all the time, right?
Which is why we can get bored
of some things more easily than others.
So if you're out there and you have ADHD, let me know,
do you enjoy being scared, or am I way off base?
Moving right along to reason number three,
which we are all pretty aware of,
but maybe we haven't thought of in this con--
(babbling)
(air whooshing) (heart beating)
Moving right along to reason number three,
which we're all pretty aware of here,
but maybe we haven't thought of it
in this context, distraction.
Often, when we're caught up in our thoughts and our worries,
or maybe we're stressing about our life
and what's to come next,
we can look for an out,
something we can focus all of our attention onto
so that we don't have to think
about all we're going through.
Fear does that.
In order for our body to keep us alive,
when it feels threatened, nothing else matters.
Our heart rate increases
to pump more blood to our muscles and our brain,
our metabolism even goes up
so that we have all the energy at the ready when we need it.
Our pupils dilate so we can see more clearly.
And we breathe faster to ensure that we have enough oxygen.
And even our digestive system slows
so that our body can focus all of its energy
on getting us to safety.
Our brain and body don't allow us to think
about that test that we have coming up,
or that issue that we're having with our friends and family.
It forces us to focus on the threat
and the fear that we feel
and work towards getting us to safety.
And we'll take this deeper and reason number one,
so stay tuned for that.
(air whooshing)
We can love to be scared
because it helps us feel accomplished.
Now, I know that sounds a little weird,
so let me explain.
When we put ourselves in these frightening situations,
even though the threat isn't real, our fear response was.
We really felt scared.
We wanted to run away,
and maybe we even screamed as loud as we could.
When the situation or event is over,
and we've survived it, obviously,
we can feel like we've accomplished something.
We pushed our boundaries,
we learned more about ourselves and what we're capable of.
And this feeling of going farther than we thought
and coming out the other side,
it improves our mood and our beliefs in ourselves,
which is kind of cool, I think.
(air whooshing)
And finally, number one, it can connect us more closely
to those that we shared the experience with.
When we are pushed into our stress response,
all sorts of things are happening to ready our body
to take action and to help us survive.
And this creates an intense-- (babbling)
And finally, number one.
It can connect us more closely
to those we shared the experience with.
When we are pushed into our stress response,
all sorts of things are happening to ready our body
to take action, and to help us survive.
This creates an intense, emotional experience,
which allows us to form memories where we can easily recall
all the things that we saw, heard, felt, smelled and tasted.
And we usually talk about those things
as they relate to trauma memories
and how our five senses can often be the source of a trigger
or help us recall more of what happened.
But when the threat isn't real, and we are safe,
all the intensity that was created
only helps to create and deepen the bonds
with the people that we shared the experience with.
We can all scream and laugh together
while walking through a haunted house
or turn into our partner
when someone jumps out from a dark closet in a movie
and they're there to comfort us.
Our nervous system is queued up,
it's taking in all that's going on.
And those who are around us during that time
can feel closer to us than those who aren't.
Oh, and why do some people, like myself,
not like being scared?
Well, it's hypothesized
that we don't like our nervous system being queued up.
This could be because of an anxiety disorder,
in which we're already feeling on edge
most of the day anyways.
And also, they find that some people
just don't like the sensation of an adrenaline rush.
I've always just said that I don't like being scared
because life itself is scary enough.
But what are your thoughts?
Do you like being scared or not?
And if you wanna read up more on the topic,
please look into Dr. Margee Kerr.
She has been doing research on fear for over 10 years.
And I also loved the book
"The Culture of Fear" by Barry Glassner, too.
Thank you so much for watching.
And if you like these Mental Health 101 videos,
please make sure to subscribe and give this video a like,
and you can also watch others just like it
by clicking over there at the playlist.
And I will see you next time.
Bye.
(spooky music)