I've been fascinated by fear theory and practical techniques to overcome fear.
For example, exposure therapy through hyperventilation: breathe rapidly for 25 breaths, exhale, hold breath for 30 seconds, and repeat five times. In just five minutes, you can simulate a full-blown panic attack and get used to the feeling.
Even more fascinating is the use of language in "narrative therapy": how you can extinguish cortex-based fear pathways just by
- Talking about traumatic memories, and
- Replacing them with narratives about recent positive experiences with the same "stimulus" (that is, recent positive experiences of the same person, incident, location, etc.)
It's amazing that there's a systematic way to rewire your amygdala's deeply-seated fear responses. Imagine doing that for a few key things:
- fear of traveling
- fear of talking to new people
- fear of public speaking
- fear of being alone
What kind of a person would you become afterwards? If you worked through the "good for you" fears that everyone else is afraid of?
It makes me wonder if I could chart out a one-week exposure treatment for some of my own fears. Start with small challenges, then gradually increase the difficulty. When my amygdala's fear response shows up, slow my breathing and remind myself: "This is a false alarm, I'm not in danger". Over time, that could numb out those fear pathways.
There are still open questions: How would I measure improvement? Who keeps me accountable? How do I include "narrative therapy" - should I hire a therapist or just talk to an AI?
Still, what's interesting is that there are practical, scientific ways to overcome your fears. It would be cool if all of us could take a college class where a neuroscience professor helped us work through our fears systematically. I imagine that class would have a pretty high ROI for the rest of our lives.
Written by Aryan Bhasin