5 Weird Facts About Being Scared

Your pupils dilate to adjust to the dark. You see a staircase ahead of you. You run up the rest of the way not looking behind you, you turn on the light and your heart unclenches.

Fear is an Interesting Thing, Isn't It?

Here to give you five weird facts about being scared.

Fact 1: Some People Prefer the Treat While Others Prefer the Trick

Some people like being afraid. They watch horror movies. They ride rollercoasters and they often take us along for the ride. But why do these people like being scared? Isn't fear inherently a negative emotion? When scared, our instinctual survival response kicks into action. This floods our body with hormones and neurotransmitters, making us stronger and faster. Adrenaline is a hormone that plays a huge factor and gives us the rush some people crave.

Fact 2: Most of Our Fears are Nurture and Not Nature

We are born with two innate fears: Heights and loud sounds. Most other fears are learned as children. We learn that snakes are scary based on the surrounding adult's reactions to snakes. The more scared you are, the scarier things appear.

Fact 3: The More Scared You Are, The Scarier Things Appear

Once scared, your heartbeat is increased and you're on red alert for danger. This makes your body more jumpy than usual, at least until the fight or flight response wears down.

Fact 4: Fear Guides Decisions

Do you ever catch yourself going for the safe choice? Everyone does. Fear stops us from doing things we may want to do and, funnily enough, it also guides us into doing things we don't want to do. As a species, we're more scared of the stick than we want the carrot and, in a lot of cases, the stick doesn't even exist.

Fact 5: We Can Literally Smell Fear Off of Other Humans

We can tell when others are scared from what their sweat smells like. Although this is all unconscious. So you can't exactly sniff your friend's armpit during a scary movie. Even though we may not realize through our noses, our brain can tell when specific fear chemicals are released from your peer's sweat.

Outro

Fear plays a huge part in our lives, from roller coasters to skydiving. Do you like it? Does it control you? Do you smell other people's armpits? Please share with us in the comments below and finally, please don't smell other people's armpits.