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Jessica Rinaldi / Reuters
A New York police officer stands at the scene of a suspected bomb contained in a UPS package at a bank in Brooklyn today.
Today's reports of suspicious packages sent from Yemen can add a real-life fear factor to the fictional scares that folks typically experience during Halloween weekend. Whether the scares are make-believe or real, neuroscience provides some strategies for channeling our fear response in the right way.
Millions of years of evolution have optimized our brains' hard wiring to cope with immediate threats -- such as the predators that crossed paths with our ancestors in Africa, said Andreas Keil, a psychologist at the NIMH Center for the Study of Emotion and Attention at the University of Florida.
"Today, we rarely experience the lions that want to eat us, or snakes that want to kill us ... but we respond a lot to cues where somebody tells us through a newspaper article or a Twitter tweet that a threat is around," Keil told me. "The brain's response to those cues is a lot like the response to the real thing."
Acute vs. chronic stress
Successfully coping with a stressful episode actually produces rewards in the brain, said Ki Ann Goosens, a neuroscientist at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research who specializes in the study of fear, anxiety and stress. "It's good to be in a state of moderate arousal," she said. "That can actually enhance your ability to perform."
In contrast, chronic stress is bad for the brain. "Unfortunately, there's less known about the effects of chronic stress," Goosens told me. "The effects that it has on the cells of the brain aren't uniform. For a lot of the cells in the brain, their function is impaired. You can cause atrophy of cells in the brain."
One of the targets of chronic stress is the hippocampus, the area of the brain that plays a key role in managing memory. "You can imagine that if you have atrophy in this structure, often it's associated with memory impairment," Goosens said. But chronic stress actually causes the opposite response in a different part of the brain, known as the amygdala. Stress boosts activity in the amygdala.
"You might think, 'Well, great, there's a part of my brain that's enhanced by chronic stress,'" Goosens said. "But it turns out that the amygdala is particularly involved in negative emotions, like fear. ... It's actually maladaptive, because you're better at processing bad things."
Goosens' lab is focusing on the health effects of long-lasting stress -- effects that appear to range from cardiovascular disease to mental disorders.
"If you're someone who's never been diagnosed with a mental illness, but you have a genetic predisposition for, let's say, bipolar disorder, and you experience a strong, lasting stressor -- for example, someone in your family dies -- then there's a higher likelihood that the illness would be triggered," she said. "Or if you're somebody who has been diagnosed, then you're more likely to start showing symptoms of mania or depression."
Controlling the fear response
So what does all this have to do with terrorism alerts? Our brains and our bodies are better-equipped to handle well-defined threats that come along with an action plan and a sense of resolution.
"It's best to think about these fear episodes as networks that belong together in the brain," Keil said, "and one thing that goes with the fear response is to have an action plan. If I have no action plan, that will change the way the brain responds to the threat. ... The response is more unpleasant."
That may be why so many people find scary movies and Halloween-style frights to be absolutely pleasurable. Such experiences let people experience the chemical high that goes along with the fear response, in a safe and controlled environment. In such a situation, it's easy to know what to do. "The action plan is to sit there and eat popcorn while the zombies are wreaking havoc," Keil said.
In a way, the make-believe scares serve as "practice runs" for coping with real-life dangers -- and if they're handled in the right way, terrorism alerts can provide similar opportunities for visualizing how to deal with an immediate threat. "I get the benefit of the tickling of my fear system, but at all times I'm in control of my fear response," Keil said.
The action plan is an important part of the process.
"With a terror alert, what are you going to be doing?" Keil said. "When an alert doesn't come with a recommendation for what people shoud do, there's a vague fear that's less appropriate and less functional."
Even if the authorities don't provide those recommendations, it's a good idea to take the opportunity to review your own personal emergency response plan. "That's so in line with common sense you don't even have to ask a brain scientist," Keil said.
Goosens has another piece of common-sense advice: Don't fret alone. Being part of a group makes it easier to cope with fear -- whether it's stimulated by a visit to a haunted house or an actual terror threat. "That reduces your stress response while you're exposed to the threat, and when you're being social, you're activationg parts of your brain that are associated with reward," she said. "One of the things about people who are exposed to chronic stress is that they often exhibit social withdrawal or abnormal social interaction."
Filling in the gaps
Risk consultant David Ropeik -- a former msnbc.com contributor whose most recent book is titled "How Risky Is it, Really?" -- said that it's important for government officials and news media to fill in the gaps in information about a threat as fully as they can.
"The psychological effect is called 'representativeness bias,'" he told me. "We take partial information, and when we don't have more, we fit that information itno the pattern that we already know and seems to make sense. Yemen? Ding-ding-ding-ding. Possibly explosive? Ding-ding-ding-ding. It's a mental shortcut that we use to make decisions about whether we're in danger."
That effect meshes perfectly with our hard-wired response to perceived threats. Hundreds of thousands of years ago, the hominids who were careful about keeping their distance from an unknown creature usually fared better than those who blithely walked into the predator's lair. But if the information gaps aren't eventually filled in, there could be negative consequences, particularly in a modern global society.
"If the pattern forms in our minds, that Muslims are dangerous and that chemicals are dangerous, and if we don't find out the truth about all that, then we're left with that pattern. Everything fits the pattern, so we have Islamophobia and all sorts of stereotypes," Ropeik said. "The government and the media need to take more responsibility for clarifying those scary circumstances that, down the road, turn out not to fit the pattern. Because the more we have a pattern in our mind, the more it binds us to irrational representativeness bias. And that's bad for our health."
What do you think? Is the news a source of chronic stress? Do you feel as if the gaps in our information about terror threats are being closed? Is there a psychological benefit to putting real-world worries aside and watching "Saw 3D" instead? Feel free to weigh in with your comments below.
Halloween tales from the crypt:
- 2002: Ghostly mysteries solved
- 2003: Why we seek out an eek
- 2004: Sharing your scares
- 2005: Ghosts on the rise
- 2006: Bring me your ghost stories!
- 2007: The science of spooks
- 2008: Chasing phantoms on film
- 2008: The science of bloodsuckers
- 2009: Seven ghoulish discoveries
- 2010: TODAY celebrates Halloween
- 2010: Superstitions getting more common
- Inside Science: Why we love to scare ourselves
To learn more about the workings of the brain, check out our interactive "road map to the mind." Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page or following @b0yle on Twitter. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," Alan's book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
Leave a Comment:
i'm in fla...i've got a much better chance of being hit by lightning or bitten by a local critter than worrying about a terrorist;-)
If you were terrorists, what would you do?
It might be a testing. And, the terroists may have a better run next time. And, we need to prepare.
Just turn off the TV and the computer. Voila! No more stress!
Perhaps oddly, my fear of terrorism mostly disappeared sometime around late 2002. I found constant -- or at least frequent -- worrying to be too distracting and damaging in the long run. I wouldn't say it's denial of the problem, but simply the result of a realistic assessment of the odds of such things occurring and the sheer square mileage of the United States, which are very low and very high, respectively.
Not to be flippant, but day-to-day, I'm more concerned about the fact that in the last few years, I've had to take evasive action three times on the road to avoid being killed in a head-on collision by chowderheads texting fifty-year-old jokes to their chowderhead pals while obliviously drifting into my side of the road. Now that's something to be scared about.
A lot of potential "threats" keeps the atmosphere fresh. It has been consistently fresh since WW2. The more scared the masses, the easier they are to lead. Authorities have "all the answers." But will they, when, one by one, citizens start wanting to claim back liberties quashed by "anti-terrorism" laws? They probably will; but their answer will scare the s*** out of everyone and, again, 6 billion people will cloak their wool and baaa together. Its a shame; 6 billion people, all standing together, claiming back their lives, severing the slavery to the "select few": Oh I'm sorry, I was daydreaming again...silly me ;)
amen
No thinking person believes this terror scare. The fact that these "devices" were so easily intercepted points to foreknowledge, foreknowledge of the sort that a hoax entails. More likely than not, an intelligence agency allied with the United States created and mailed the "devices" at the request of the Obama Administration. The faux terror scare accomplishes several goals all of which benefit Obama, the security industry, and Israel.
Sadly, most people in the United States are not thinking persons and will respond to this most recent scare exactly as the Obama Administration wants them too.
Give me a break. And Roosevelt let us be attacked at Pearl Harbor too, that bastard. Tell it to the aliens.
In general, you're right, Stephen. I doubt the Obama administration ordered it, but surely, it's the work of an intelligence agency. (Hint: During Communism, Communist countries were controlled by their secret police agencies, not by their governments.)
When the "powers that be" sense public opinion rising against the incursions into Afghanistan et al., they order a little terrorism "reminder" such as this B.S. "devices found" incident.
C'mon, Steven, continue your argument and tell us that the Bush administration flew those jets into the Twin Towers and the Pentagon.
You've got to be kidding!!!!
Stephen,....... Seriously?
Yes, seriously.
I fear our government more than the terrorists.
Well said and prolly true for most ppl these days! ;)
Islam is a social disease that is spread by Muslims!™
Since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, I have tried a variety of strategies to deal with all the stress its consequences caused, and lately I find that confronting it directly is quite effective, for sure . . .
For sure!
The fact of the matter is that terrorism is the Muslim version of evangelism and outreach, where the pattern begins with an egregiously violent physical attack, which is followed almost immediately by the apparently spontaneous appearance of a cadre of completely and totally unknown imams who call for a meeting of respected scholars and community leaders, during which calls they take the opportunity to declare themselves in fact to be respected scholars and community leaders, even though prior to the terrorist attack nobody on the planet actually knew who they were other than perhaps a handful of their goofy followers . . .
At the same time the imams are declaring themselves to be respected scholars and community leaders, they work diligently to make it very clear that the particular terrorists actually are not mainstream Muslims but in fact are lunatics from another planet who have nothing whatsoever to do with Islam, even though there are readily available audio tapes and video of the terrorists screaming "Allāhu Akbar" . . .
And then for the next few weeks, newspaper and web headlines are filled with various key words and phrases pertaining to Islam, and the text of the news reports and articles provides insights into such things as the various rules that apply to kafirs, infidels, and unbelievers, as well as the correct way to spell "Qu'ran" and "burqa", and such important information for people who prior to the terrorist attack had never heard of Islam and had no reason to know anything about it as the "adhan" being the five times a day Muslim call to prayer, as well as such clearly useful information for example that it is acceptable to beat children and women so long as there are no visible bruises and other injuries on them after the beating . . .
This pattern continues ad nauseum essentially forever or until Muslims overthrow the government and establish a caliphate that operates under Sharia, which is the holy law of Islam and includes such spanky practices as stoning women to death based on the testimony of enraged husbands or male relatives so that "honor" will be restored, which simply is demented on a level not seen since the Spanish Inquisition and the horrors of the National Socialist German Worker's Party concentration camps of World War II . . .
And so forth and so on . . .
Yet, because the unsuspecting folks on the receiving end of the terrorism and subsequent Muslim evangelism and outreach typically are quite naive, as well as being ready, willing, and able to turn the other cheek toward the goal of being gracious, none of them step forward and state the obvious, because as best as I can determine they are in complete and total denial, which is another aspect of terrorism and is strongly related to the Stockholm Syndrome, which is the phenomenon where victims bond and identify with their captors to the point of defending their captors and in some instances having romantic interactions . . .
Nevertheless, at some point one begins to remember that there was a time (a) when a cartoonist never had to consider the possibility of being advised by the FBI that she should change her name to "The Cartoonist Formerly Known as Molly Norris™" and then to go into hiding to avoid being attacked by mujahideen based on a fatwā issued by Yemeni-American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and (b) when the newspaper and web headlines never mentioned terrorism, burqas, stoning women to death, jihad, fatwā, Qur'an, mosques, kafirs, infidels, unbelievers, fitna, Ramadan, Mecca, stoning the devil, and all the other nonsense that collectively defines the patently evil cult of death, destruction, and hate called "Islam" . . .
[NOTE: For those folks who have not yet discovered how everything works at the dawn of the early-21st century, when the photograph of Yemeni-American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki'appears in front page news several days in a row, along with encouragements from federal officials to "turn yourself in", then the fact of the matter is that there already is an AGM-114 Hellfire air-to-surface missile with Yemeni-American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki's name on its nose cone, along with a special message from the White House (which recently decided to handle the matter "in secret"), ready to go on an U. S. Air Force remotely-piloted General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper as soon as the CIA gives the go-ahead to "Get 'er done!" . . . ]
And you remember a time when there were no armed military police at the airport, no TSA screeners, no particular rules about what you could put in your luggage, and no special rules that included allowing plenty of time for being scanned, having to take-off your shoes, submitting to a full-body x-ray to look for exploding underpants, and so forth and so on . . .
But most importantly, something quite amazing happens when you decide that you have had enough of being terrorized, at which point you take the opportunity to begin your remarks regarding terrorism the way I do, and then you end your remarks with another useful bit of information, which more than anything is quite liberating with respect to freeing yourself from the patently disturbing state of being constantly stressed by terrorism . . .
Something similar happened on December 7, 1941 with the infamous Japanese sneak attack on Pearl Harbor, but it only took about an hour or two for the citizens our great nation to decide what to do in the those days, which to be precise is the only way to solve the problem, which from the perspective of physics is a matter of balancing the completely and totally skewed energies in this section of the universe, which at the dawn of the early-21st century once again are so skewed that the only way to make terrorism and Islam go away is to introduce a bit of overwhelming balance into the energy equation via the swift and intense application of advanced thermonuclear physics . . .
Burn a Qur'an and barbecue Bull's-Eye Memphis Style pork ribs for Elvis and Jesus!™
Baldenario, if I look up the word bigot in the dictionary, do I see a picture of you next to it?
@jimbo:
With respect specifically to Islam, Muslims, and terrorism, absolutely!
I am completely and totally intolerant in this respect, which is fabulous . . .
Fabulous! :)
Jimbo -- if I look up gullible, politically correct, media-propaganda-controlled herd-follower in the Imam-approved encyclopedia ten to twenty years from now, will I see a picture of you next to it? Probably not; there are too many of you.
Wayne LaPierre facilitates the death and injury of tens of thousands of us every year. How many has ObL killed in his entire career? Who am I really supposed to worry about?
Let's knock off the conspiracy theories and all this "I fear the gov't more than terrorists" nonsense. The only people who care that you believe that are the TP types who will exploit your vote on Tuesday.
It's time to start acting like adults. We will be hit again. We could make Dick Cheney king of the world and waterboard everyone short of Nancy Reagan, and we will still be hit again.
Pattons, Halseys and Schwarzkopfs win battles. Nimitzes, Eisenhowers and Powells win wars.
You are referring to the D-Day Eisenhower and not the Korea one, no? Where do the Westmorelands, Petrauses, and Caseys fit in?
Operation Northwoods. Look it up. In the 60's it was "Cuban terrorists" allegedly hijacking airplanes, usually Eastern Airlines on almost a regular basis. Someone must have a vested interest in scaring the public into the acceptance of living in a police state.
I am more afraid of cockroaches than terrorists as I have a much higher chance of encountering the former here in Georgia. And really, since when has the world been a "safe" place? People die every day of all kinds of causes. No one gets off this rock alive (unless you count astronauts). Do not listen to politicians who tell you they can keep you safe if you vote for them. They can't. Do not listen to religions of any persuasion that say "Just do what we say and believe what you're told and you'll be saved." You won't be. My advice is to stop living in fear and exercise your constitutional right to the pursuit of happiness. Happiness is a goal that can be achieved even in the worst circumstances. Safety is a fleeting illusion at the best of times. Just do your best to be kind to yourself and others, realize that bad things happen even to good people, and concentrate on reacting positively instead of negatively in any situation and you'll find that life isn't as bad or as scary as some people want you to think.
I fear brain researchers more than I fear terrorists.
What is there to fear about terrorists? When they attacked us we went and destroyed two of their countries. If they attack us again well do even more damage to them. Eventually they will learn or they will die.
you mean we destroyed two countries, the terrorists didnt have a govt, they lived in a country. Last time I checked we didnt win any war we are still fighting it. What good is decimating a country that are full of innocents when you only kill a small percentage of the terrorist factions.
If anything you spurn the innocent and create more terrorist that are out for revenge. Sorry but we didnt win anything, we struck out, we killed a lot of terrorist but just like cockroaches there are plenty more to fill the ranks.
Dont delude yourself that we are any safer. Terrorism is still alive and kicking. we need another tactic other then violence to end terrorism, what that is I dont know but hopefully someone will.
I've never really felt afraid of terrorists or terrorism. To me, it's like walking down the street at night or driving a car, or just sitting in my own home for that matter. There's always a chance that "something bad" could happen, but what good does it do to dwell on it?
I've traveled abroad extensively and people always ask, "But aren't you afraid to be a woman traveling to these places alone?" The answer is no. Whenever you're doing something that could cause you harm or put you in a situation where "something bad" might happen, you just need to be smart. Be aware, be alert, but don't let fear rule your life.
I think that one of our problems as a society is with the overabundance of information the media outlets provide us. We've become a nation that is afraid to travel because "something bad might happen". We're afraid to let our children play outside or walk over to a friend's house because "something bad might happen."
Where do we draw the line and stop allowing this fear of "something" to control us?
That's the point right there! Frightened people are people who can be controlled. And it seems there's always someone telling us to be afraid. According to the "authorities", all we're supposed to do is lock ourselves and our children into our houses and watch TV or play video games. When I was a kid, I rode my bicycle without a helmet, climbed trees and roamed over acres of countryside without a parent or a cell phone by my side.
Could "something" have happened to me? Sure, and occasionally something did happen to me or, more often, my brother. But we survived and often enough we figured out how to get out of whatever trouble we got into all by ourselves. In order to live and learn you have to take some risks. You don't really learn anything about life by just watching sitcoms on TV and I wouldn't really call it living. Life is messy, dirty, beautiful, scary, exhilarating, amazing and an infinity of other adjectives, but it ain't safe. Read your history, people. There was never a "safe" time and place to be alive. People got hurt, got sick, robbed, beaten, molested and killed back in the "good old days" too.
According to a friend of mine, courage is fear that has said it's prayers. So let's say our prayers, brothers and sisters, and get on with our lives.
I agree with bbowen and amalizzy. It doesnt make any sence to crawl under the bed. If something is to happen, it will. You can't hide from it, even under the bed. I tuned out most of the coverage of 9/11 because there was so much repetition from that, that it became mind numbing and I didn't want to see it anymore. I never went I wanted to go because of it. I live in Co. a few miles from the NORAD facility that might be one of the targets for terrorists, but who cares. BOOM, and your gone, no matter what you believe or not. There is no future in the past or the present since it dies tomorrow.
Wtf? I have a brain that terrorists can get to?
The best way to deal with stress is to reach out and choke the living @!$%# out of those causing the stress..
Not having that option one could just take it out on anyone handy...
Personally I can't wait to use option number one...first chance I get...bring it....
Yes, every time there is a terror alert I jump under my bed.....Yeah, right. They act like a terror alert happens everywhere in the US every hour of the day. Terror alert would be like during the London Blitz during WWII every time the siren sounded. Only the chronic paranoid people are worried about every terror alert or the writer of this article.
Does anyone ever think about how this stress impacts flight attendants and pilots? At least passengers get from point a to point b and can breath a sigh of relief... flight personnel have to do it over and over again and again. I have to think this weighs on them, and has some kind of impact... similar to ptsd (pre-traumatic stress disorder).
So this is what the science editor stinks. That does not supprise. All science as lead by the NSF is founded on the same level of understanding. No, there s no supprise here. Maybe he is a Genius. Or at least brilliant. I am proud of the efforts of the NSF and their achievements. Their lead as directed by Congress has turned our scientific community into a bunch of babbiling idiots. But they did create a level playing field. All morons. Our Congress has had as much of a sucess with the Countries finances. Wow, they are great.
He is a Science Fiction writer. This science fiction story just was placed in the wrong pile. But it does indeed belong in a pile. Along with his other writings.
WOW!
I don't know about you guys but at this point my brain handles terrorism scares like...
"Yeah, whatever...Who gives a crap."
Not back to then RED light ,Green light B S .The last attack on a plane didn't the device burn his underwear.The crimminal was pathetic,do your job and don't start this scare B S.Were a big country we can take a hit.Not at the golf course please. Our troop die everyday,so we should be ready to sacrifice.But not our freedom,because of the underwear attacker. B S.