Landscape of Fear by Angela Rieck

Fear. Politics depends on it. The conservative news stations sell it. PBS and NPR give it away. And it invades us and causes us to lose our ability to process rationally.

Fear causes an automatic reaction in the limbic system. The reaction begins in the thalamus of the brain, which receives the signals, then the amygdala alerts the pre-frontal or sensory cortex. The cortex alerts the hippocampus, the brain’s memory center, and it heightens our senses to an almost superhuman degree and triggers fight-or-flight response. Once the fear pathways are ramped up, the brain short-circuits more rational processing paths and reacts immediately to signals from the amygdala. 

When in this overactive state, the brain perceives events as negative and remembers them that way. Constant exposure to fear can weaken long-term memory and cause constant feelings of anxiety. Fear can also have long-term consequences on our health, including “fatigue, chronic depression, accelerated ageing and even premature death,” again according to the University of Minnesota. And that’s only the start of their bad news:

If we stay attached to these fear stimuli, the world can be a scary place, the fear interrupts our ability to regulate emotions, read non-verbal cues, process information rationally, overreact and reduce our ethical brain. So being inundated with messages of fear and constantly processing them prompts tons of negative consequences for our body and psyche. But we don’t have to accept them. We can beat fear; we just need to train ourself.

We have several choices, we can recognize this fear and refuse to be stimulated by it, we can set up our own resolutions to address them, or we can learn to control our response to these stimuli.

That is not what the news and politicians want from us, so they continue to ratchet up the fear.

I watch PBS, especially NOVA, Nature, American Experience, and pretty much all of the documentaries that they produce. But it seems that at the end of every Nature show, I am bombarded with the bleak future for our planet, extinction, climate change, poachers, these things that I just fell in love with will be gone. 

Admittedly, organizations such as PBS are trying to send an alarm to politicians and decision makers…climate change is real, and there are real dangers. But politicians aren’t listening. (Fortunately, the military has recognized climate change as a fundamental threat to American security and is funding research on it.)

What do we do? After many sleepless nights about our political situation, climate change, and its implications for the next generation, I decided to stop worrying and to start thinking about what I could do. I have committed to buying only hybrid vehicles, voting every election for candidates who share my concerns, driving fewer than 10,000 miles per year, buying recycled paper and plastics, buying organic, and trying to eliminate my use of single-use plastics. My resolutions matter very little, but what if everyone fulfilled their own resolutions? In the absence of coherent leadership, we can still make changes.

We have other choices, we can stop listening to fear-based stories; or we can “feel the fear”, then question the story using facts (and not Internet or AI misinformation). Afterall, addressing fear is important to our health and well-being. If we continue to be products of fear-based thinking, we will become more polarized, less objective and continue the current path that we are on.

Admittedly, it is easier said than done.

Angela Rieck, a Caroline County native, received her PhD in Mathematical Psychology from the University of Maryland and worked as a scientist at Bell Labs, and other high-tech companies in New Jersey before retiring as a corporate executive. Angela and her dogs divide their time between St. Michaels and Key West, Florida. Her daughter lives and works in New York City.