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PHOBIA LIBRARY
Read up on fear, panic and phobia to get a general overview of phobias and trauma and fear management. Learn mindfulness based self care principles and exercises for managing phobias from my books on trauma and self care.
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Fear | Function | Thought | Treatment | Coping
For Help See: Fear in the Brain | Fear Dictionary
Fear | Function | Thought | Treatment | Coping
For Help See: Fear in the Brain | Fear Dictionary
THE LIBRARY TOPIC HOME PAGES
Introduction to Trauma, Fear and Phobia
Part 1: Defining Fear and the Fear Response
Part 2: Emotional & Cognitive Functions of Fear
Part 3: Maladaptive Thought Processing
Part 4: Professional Therapy & Mindful Self Care
THE PHOBIA COLLECTION DOWNLOADS
Browse Collection of Phobias by Topic
Download Collection of Phobias
Download Dictionary of Fear and Phobia
Download Self Care Guides for Coping
Introduction to Trauma, Fear and Phobia
Part 1: Defining Fear and the Fear Response
Part 2: Emotional & Cognitive Functions of Fear
Part 3: Maladaptive Thought Processing
Part 4: Professional Therapy & Mindful Self Care
THE PHOBIA COLLECTION DOWNLOADS
Browse Collection of Phobias by Topic
Download Collection of Phobias
Download Dictionary of Fear and Phobia
Download Self Care Guides for Coping
PART TWO - FUNCTIONS
BRAIN FUNCTIONS OF FEAR
MEMORY & EMOTION
Articles defining the structure and characteristics of the emotional center (emotions, feelings, stressors, triggers) and the memory functions that affect fear, phobia, anxiety and panic
BRAIN FUNCTIONS DIRECTORY
Function of Memory
Download the Dictionary of the Mind and Brain for help on the terms in this section
See Also
Structural Functions of the Brain
Neuroplasticity (Rewiring Your Brain)
RELATED SELF CARE GUIDES BY KAIROS
View All Downloads
Phobia Home | Library Home | Topic Home
- Mind Your Memory and Processes of Fear
- Memory Effects on Other Functions
- Memory Types Serve Different Functions
- Role of Emotions & Emotional Responses
- Characteristics of the Emotion of Fear
- Feeling the Feelings
- Defining the Feelings of Fear
- Feelings You Can’t Define
Download the Dictionary of the Mind and Brain for help on the terms in this section
See Also
Structural Functions of the Brain
Neuroplasticity (Rewiring Your Brain)
RELATED SELF CARE GUIDES BY KAIROS
View All Downloads
- Uncovering the Traumatized Brain
- Riding the Crazy Train of Emotions
- Promoting Mindful Self Care
- Principles of Mindfulness for the Soul
- All Brain and Mind Glossaries
Phobia Home | Library Home | Topic Home
ALL CONTENT PROVIDED BY MY BOOKS ON MINDFUL SELF CARE FOR TRAUMA AND FEAR
Download for Free Here
Download for Free Here
The Role of EMOTIONS
AFFECTING FEAR and the
STATE OF MIND
EMOTIONS are states associated with the nervous system brought on by neurophysiological changes in thoughts, feelings, behavioral responses, and degrees of pleasure or displeasure. Emotions are often intertwined with mood, temperament, personality, disposition, creativity and motivation. Emotions are responses to significant internal and external events and are the result of a cognitive and conscious process which occurs in response to a body system response to a trigger. From a purely mechanistic perspective, emotions can be defined as a positive or negative experience that is associated with a particular pattern of physiological activity. Changes include increased pulse rate, body temperature, activity in the glands, or an increased or decreased breathing rate.
The word emotion dates back to 1579, when it was adapted from the French word ‘émouvoir’ which means "to stir up". The term emotion was introduced into academic discussion as a catch-all term to passions, sentiments and affections. It was coined in the early 1800s by Thomas Brown and it was around the 1830s that the modern concept of emotion first emerged for the English language. People prior to 1830 called emotions "passions", "accidents of the soul", "moral sentiments" - and explained them very differently from how we understand emotions today.
Emotions or Feelings - What is the Difference?
Most neuroscientists distinguish between the words “emotion” and “feeling.” They are two separate functions that perform different things.
- Emotions are physical and qualitative.
- Feelings are mental and subjective.
Emotions are discrete, measurable, and physiologically distinct
EMOTIONAL RESPONSE
Emotion is typically defined as a response to stimuli that causes physiological changes that motivate a person to act. Emotions are lower level responses occurring in the subcortical regions, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortices of your brain. Brain activity triggers biochemical reactions in your body. At the core of any emotion is a complexity of changes in your body. These changes prepare your body to take action. For example, fear triggers the “fight or flight” response in the amygdala which then prepares your body for defense. Historically, psychologists have disagreed as to whether emotions arise before an action, occur at the same time as an action, or are a response to an automatic physiological process.
Emotions are an evolutionary advantage which helped humanity survive by producing quick reactions to perceived threats in the environment. Emotional reactions are hardcoded in our genes, in our DNA, and vary slightly from person to person, depending on the circumstances. However, they’re universally similar within all humans and even other species.
Emotions have meaning and the feelings they prompt are subjective and differ depending on your mental capacity, environment and past and present experiences and memories. Your beliefs, temperament, and experiences shape your own emotional responses. Let’s look at feelings. Emotions can last from a split second to a few minutes. We experience negative emotions longer than positive emotions. The mood is longer than the emotion. We can stay in it from a few minutes to several days.
Some emotions are occurrences (panic); dispositions (hostility); short-lived (anger) long-lived (grief); involve primitive cognitive processing (fear from danger); involve sophisticated cognitive processing (fear of losing); some are conscious (disgust) and others are unconscious (fear of failure); some have facial expressions (surprise) and others lack them (regret); some involve strong motivations to act (rage) and others do not (sadness); some are present across species (fear) and others are exclusively human (schadenfreude).
People with alexithymia (Greek for "without words for emotions") have trouble identifying internal emotional states and describing their emotions to others. Alexithymia is caused by brain structure abnormalities, either present at birth or resulting from brain damage.
Web suggested that objects (emotions) have representative properties. For example, anger represents slights, fear represents dangers, shame represents failures to live up to an ideal, sadness represents losses, happiness represents progress towards goal, and pride represents enhancement of one’s ego identity.
Five Elements to an Emotion
In a component processing model of emotion, there are five crucial elements to an emotion.
Not all feelings include the emotional component, such as the feeling of knowing. In the context of emotion, feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions.
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Negative emotions are those that we typically do not find pleasurable to experience. Negative emotions can be defined as as an unpleasant or unhappy emotion which is evoked in individuals to express a negative effect towards an event or person. If an emotion discourages and drags you down, then it’s most likely a negative emotion. A few of the most commonly felt negative emotions are:
Negative emotions give us a counterpoint to positive emotions; without the negative, would the positive emotions still feel as good? Negative emotions serve evolutionary purposes, encouraging us to act in ways that boost our chances of survival and help us grow and develop as people.
Negative Emotions Research has shown that the expression and experience of negative emotions (e.g., depression and anxiety) show higher activation in the right frontal cortex and in the deeper brain structures, such as the amygdala, while positive emotions are accompanied by more left frontal cortex activity. Try to control your negative responses because we have shown here that the amygdala is one sneaky bastard when it comes to setting off the alarms and throwing you into a panic attack.
As well as being a psychological phenomenon, emotions are also felt outside of the brain in the rest of the body. Certain parts of the body, especially the upper half, are heavily stimulated during emotions such as love, happiness and pride, whereas depression and sadness are linked to numbness. Fear driven anxiety or panic cause you to have a racing heart or palpitations due to higher blood pressure levels..
Emotion is typically defined as a response to stimuli that causes physiological changes that motivate a person to act. Emotions are lower level responses occurring in the subcortical regions, amygdala, and ventromedial prefrontal cortices of your brain. Brain activity triggers biochemical reactions in your body. At the core of any emotion is a complexity of changes in your body. These changes prepare your body to take action. For example, fear triggers the “fight or flight” response in the amygdala which then prepares your body for defense. Historically, psychologists have disagreed as to whether emotions arise before an action, occur at the same time as an action, or are a response to an automatic physiological process.
Emotions are an evolutionary advantage which helped humanity survive by producing quick reactions to perceived threats in the environment. Emotional reactions are hardcoded in our genes, in our DNA, and vary slightly from person to person, depending on the circumstances. However, they’re universally similar within all humans and even other species.
Emotions have meaning and the feelings they prompt are subjective and differ depending on your mental capacity, environment and past and present experiences and memories. Your beliefs, temperament, and experiences shape your own emotional responses. Let’s look at feelings. Emotions can last from a split second to a few minutes. We experience negative emotions longer than positive emotions. The mood is longer than the emotion. We can stay in it from a few minutes to several days.
Some emotions are occurrences (panic); dispositions (hostility); short-lived (anger) long-lived (grief); involve primitive cognitive processing (fear from danger); involve sophisticated cognitive processing (fear of losing); some are conscious (disgust) and others are unconscious (fear of failure); some have facial expressions (surprise) and others lack them (regret); some involve strong motivations to act (rage) and others do not (sadness); some are present across species (fear) and others are exclusively human (schadenfreude).
People with alexithymia (Greek for "without words for emotions") have trouble identifying internal emotional states and describing their emotions to others. Alexithymia is caused by brain structure abnormalities, either present at birth or resulting from brain damage.
Web suggested that objects (emotions) have representative properties. For example, anger represents slights, fear represents dangers, shame represents failures to live up to an ideal, sadness represents losses, happiness represents progress towards goal, and pride represents enhancement of one’s ego identity.
Five Elements to an Emotion
In a component processing model of emotion, there are five crucial elements to an emotion.
- Cognitive appraisal: provides an evaluation of events and objects.
- Bodily symptoms: the physiological component of emotional experience.
- Action tendencies: a motivational component for the preparation and direction of motor responses.
- Expression: facial and vocal expression almost always accompanies an emotional state to communicate reaction and intention of actions.
- Feelings: the subjective experience of emotional state once it has occurred.
Not all feelings include the emotional component, such as the feeling of knowing. In the context of emotion, feelings are best understood as a subjective representation of emotions.
NEGATIVE EMOTIONS
Negative emotions are those that we typically do not find pleasurable to experience. Negative emotions can be defined as as an unpleasant or unhappy emotion which is evoked in individuals to express a negative effect towards an event or person. If an emotion discourages and drags you down, then it’s most likely a negative emotion. A few of the most commonly felt negative emotions are:
- Fear
- Anger
- Disgust
- Sadness
- Rage
- Loneliness
- Melancholy
- Annoyance
Negative emotions give us a counterpoint to positive emotions; without the negative, would the positive emotions still feel as good? Negative emotions serve evolutionary purposes, encouraging us to act in ways that boost our chances of survival and help us grow and develop as people.
- Anger: to fight against problems
- Fear: to protect us from danger
- Anticipation: to look forward and plan
- Surprise: to focus on new situations
- Joy: to remind us what’s important
- Sadness: to connect us with those we love
- Trust: to connect with people who help
- Disgust: to reject what is unhealthy
Negative Emotions Research has shown that the expression and experience of negative emotions (e.g., depression and anxiety) show higher activation in the right frontal cortex and in the deeper brain structures, such as the amygdala, while positive emotions are accompanied by more left frontal cortex activity. Try to control your negative responses because we have shown here that the amygdala is one sneaky bastard when it comes to setting off the alarms and throwing you into a panic attack.
As well as being a psychological phenomenon, emotions are also felt outside of the brain in the rest of the body. Certain parts of the body, especially the upper half, are heavily stimulated during emotions such as love, happiness and pride, whereas depression and sadness are linked to numbness. Fear driven anxiety or panic cause you to have a racing heart or palpitations due to higher blood pressure levels..
COMMON MYTHS
Myth #1: It’s wrong to change my emotions.
We all regularly experience emotions that we want to change. That doesn’t mean we are trying to change who we are. We need to just change our behavior and how we react. .
Myth #2: My emotions speak the truth.
Sometimes strong emotions are based on how we interpret events, not on the truth of the event. Your mind will confuse you. Just because you feel something doesn’t mean it’s the truth.
Myth #3: Some emotions are stupid.
Believing your emotions are stupid invalidates you. This is especially true for the vulnerable emotions such as shame, sadness or fear. Recognize it for what it is and don’t make harsh judgements on yourself. Everyone feels shame or fear.
Myth #4: I need to be very emotional to be creative.
Often strong emotions can inspire works of art. But you need discipline to implement your creative projects, so you will need to use your rational reasoning side of the brain. The analytical brain. Working on emotion alone may bring creative ideas but they won’t be enough to get it done.
Myth #5: If I start crying, I will never stop.
Avoiding sadness doesn’t make it go away. It’s still there in the background. Crying is a healthy release of emotional pain. Let yourself release the pain and maybe your sadness will lift. You may see clearly if the tears are not ready to flood the dam.
Myth #6: Emotions happen for no reason.
There is always a reason for emotions. Even if you aren’t aware of the reason. Often memories and associations from the past happen outside of conscious awareness. This may make you think there is no reason when there is. Mindfulness meditation can help you see into yourself and find the reason. Find the reason and you can deal with it.
Myth #7: It’s better to be rational than emotional.
All rational all the time is burying your emotions. You may not feel sadness or anger but you also won’t feel happy. Ask yourself what the world would look like if you didn’t have emotions:
Myth #8 I am my emotions.
You are much more than your emotions, even if you are highly emotional or sensitive.. Our emotions are always fluctuating. It’s not uncommon to feel more than one at a time. Often, these differing emotions fuse together.
For example, you might feel angry and sad at the same time over the same thing. As you move between emotions, it can be difficult to pin one down. This results in a feeling of constant wavering, being uncertain of who you really are.
MORE ON BRAIN FUNCTIONS
This content is provided for informational purposes only. Author is not a medical professional. Talk to your doctor to determine what therapy is right for you.
Self care techniques are meant to supplement professional treatment not replace it.
DISCLAIMER OF THE LEARNING LIBRARY
Self care techniques are meant to supplement professional treatment not replace it.
DISCLAIMER OF THE LEARNING LIBRARY
BROWSE PHOBIA COLLECTION
Phobia collection is presented in eight themed parts
VIEW LIST INDEX or JUMP TO A PART
PART [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] [ 6 ] [ 7 ] [ 8 ]
PHOBIA COLLECTION BY TOPIC
common ~ abstract ~ ordinary ~ bizarre ~ catastrophic ~ psyche ~ icky - academic ~ knowledge ~ education ~ literary ~ art ~ music ~ religion ~ political ~ law ~ order military ~ war ~ discrimination ~ science ~ chemical ~ energy ~ time ~ numbers ~ technology ~ nature ~ environment ~ astronomy ~ weather ~ geography ~ people ~ family ~ community ~ anatomy ~ medical ~ disease ~ emotions ~ senses ~ sensations ~ movement ~ conditions~ love ~ relationships ~ sexuality ~ lifestyle ~ places ~ events ~ objects ~ clothing ~ tools ~ vehicles ~ home ~ cooking ~ food ~ entertainment ~ sports ~ recreation ~ toys ~ games ~ monsters ~ characters ~ spooky ~ nightmares ~ delusional ~ joke ~ fiction
DOWNLOAD PONDERING THE PHOBIA
Now Available for Download for Offline Reading
All the phobias in one download. Browse by both topic/subject and by alphabetized list
Download/Share: http://bit.ly/ponderingphobia
OTHER PHOBIA AND FEAR DOWNLOADS:
Dictionary of Trauma, Phobia and Fear
Self Care Guides for Fear & Phobias
common ~ abstract ~ ordinary ~ bizarre ~ catastrophic ~ psyche ~ icky - academic ~ knowledge ~ education ~ literary ~ art ~ music ~ religion ~ political ~ law ~ order military ~ war ~ discrimination ~ science ~ chemical ~ energy ~ time ~ numbers ~ technology ~ nature ~ environment ~ astronomy ~ weather ~ geography ~ people ~ family ~ community ~ anatomy ~ medical ~ disease ~ emotions ~ senses ~ sensations ~ movement ~ conditions~ love ~ relationships ~ sexuality ~ lifestyle ~ places ~ events ~ objects ~ clothing ~ tools ~ vehicles ~ home ~ cooking ~ food ~ entertainment ~ sports ~ recreation ~ toys ~ games ~ monsters ~ characters ~ spooky ~ nightmares ~ delusional ~ joke ~ fiction
DOWNLOAD PONDERING THE PHOBIA
Now Available for Download for Offline Reading
All the phobias in one download. Browse by both topic/subject and by alphabetized list
Download/Share: http://bit.ly/ponderingphobia
OTHER PHOBIA AND FEAR DOWNLOADS:
Dictionary of Trauma, Phobia and Fear
Self Care Guides for Fear & Phobias
Phobia articles provided by my self care series Healing the PTSD Mind and my series on mindfulness based self care Be Mindful Be Well. These self directed guides are written from a trauma perspective but the content applies to the symptoms of phobia like fear and panic. Learn and simple self care techniques with mindfulness.
BE MINDFUL. BE WELL. TRY MINDFULNESS.
DOWNLOAD SELF CARE GUIDES FOR FREE
Books copyright 2021 by By Kairos
BE MINDFUL. BE WELL. TRY MINDFULNESS.
DOWNLOAD SELF CARE GUIDES FOR FREE
Books copyright 2021 by By Kairos
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A SERIES OF BEAUTIFUL WORDS
Collection of Vocabulary Books, Sites and Resources
Series Homepage | View Sites | Download Books
Words are also posted on twitter under the hashtags #beautifulwords and #wordoftheday and shared visually on pinterest bulletin boards
ABOUT SITE | SITEMAPS | SEARCH | FEEDBACK
Content by Kairos ~ @kairosoflife
Homepage | Portfolio | Contact
Original content © 2021 Copyright, Kairos
