Don't be Afraid. Be Informed

There is a small almond shaped part of the brain known as the amygdala. It’s the brain’s danger sensor that lets us know whether we should be afraid or not. In prehistoric times the amygdala is what made our primitive ancestors run when they heard something in a bush. After all, it could have been a saber toothed tiger with a hearty appetite.

Here’s the problem with the modern world. The bushes are always shaking. The media is fully aware of this neurological reality and thus constantly hides in the bushes and shakes. This way we will look and have them tell us whether or not it’s a tiger. Personally, I don’t need Don Lemon or Sean Hannity to tell me if it’s a tiger.

The problem with the amygdala is once it’s turned on it’s very hard to turn off. If left unchecked it can become an automatic fear producer leaving us in a state of pessimism and fear. Once the amygdala begins hunting bad news, it’s going to locate bad news.

In primitive times the dangers were more finite. Either there was or was not a tiger in the bush. Maybe you ran away and avoided the potential threat. Maybe you learned that it wasn’t a tiger but just a couple of mating birds. Either way, threat absolved. Nothing to worry about. You went back to the cave, gnawed on some mammoth bone and told the kids how you avoided danger. Picked up a stone and had a nice game of tossing the boulder.

That’s not the case with today’s tigers which take the form of economic disaster, global terrorism or the big one of the day a pandemic. Today’s tigers are probabilistic. Our “fight or flight” sensory was designed to stay on until the threat was completely averted. These tigers of today cannot be made gone and gone for good. They linger. There are omnipresent.

We are a constantly freaked out people, and that’s not good. In Dr. Marc Siegel’s book “False Alarm: The Truth About the Epidemic of Fear” he brings some reality to the otherwise overhyped doom and gloom.

Statistically, the industrialized world has never been safer. Many of us are living longer and more uneventfully. Nevertheless, we live in worst-case fear scenarios. Over the past century, we Americans have dramatically reduced our risk in virtually every area of life, resulting in life spans 60 percent longer in 2000 than in 1900. Antibiotics have reduced the likelihood of dying from infections…Public health measures dictate standards for drinkable water and breathable air. Our garbage is removed quickly. We live temperature-controlled, disease-controlled lives. And yet, we worry more than ever before. The natural dangers are no longer there, but the response mechanisms are still in place, and now they are turned on much of the time. We implode, turning our adaptive fear mechanism into a maladaptive panicked response.

Have you ever wondered why we get so wound up when something horrible happens to a celebrity? Afterall, we didn’t know them. The chances of suffering the same fate is very unlikely. The reason we have a visceral response is because the brain doesn’t know the difference. If Joe Diffie could die of COVID then oh my God I surely may.

So how do we manage this? Like any other mechanism the amygdala must be trained and controlled. We must be able to assess the data the amygdala puts forth as likely or unlikely. We use data. We must take the time to breathe easy and ask, “What is the likelihood of this happening to me?”

However, more important that any of this is minimizing the bushes that contain the tigers. Turn off the news. Use social media sparingly. One of the best ways to tame your social media habit is to determine to be a creator not a consumer. Create things that will be uplifting on social media and refrain from obsessively consuming posts and feeds about fear anger and the like. Read history. There’s nothing new under the sun. Look for similarities in history of what is happening today. What was the ultimate result that brought a sense of normalcy back.

This is more important now than ever. Those of you reading this who know me are well aware of my time in government and the political world. Never have I been more pissed at the manipulation going on by politicians all around the world to the detriment of humans and societies. It is now more important than ever we exercise our right to self education and knowledge seeking. Read, learn, question, test and in doing so you will strengthen your tiger sensor. You will know the difference between a saber toothed tiger and a paper tiger.

We need more optimists right now. We need more rational thinkers. We are living in amazing times. Never has the human experience been this good. From healthcare to poverty to mere creature comforts; most of us live better than the wealthiest people on earth did in 1900. So when things start to look bleak, take heart and don’t be afraid. Be informed.