SEATTLE, Wash.-Halloween can be a scary good time, the one time a year when we love to scare and be scared, but those frights could be affecting your body.
A University of Washington psychologist recently explained the science behind our love of fear and how our responses to feelings of terror are hardwired into out bodies in a UW Medicine Newsroom article.
Michele Bedard-Gilligan, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, studies fear and how mammals react to it.
Fear is detected in the amygdala, the structure in the brain associated with emotions, then according to Bedard-Gilligan, “other systems kick in and process the threat, as well as-the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex in particular.”
Once a threat is detected, stress hormones and the neurotransmitters dopamine and adrenaline are released almost instantly to the body, resulting in the sensation of fear that we are all familiar with.
According to the UW Medicine’s report on fear, at this stage of our evolutionary process, we can tell the difference between authentic fear and industry-created scares like haunted houses and horror movies, which makes the fears associated with Halloween attractive.
The social aspect of Halloween can also make the usual Halloween fears appealing.
“For some, it’s really about the horror and the fear and the sort of immersing yourself in that,” Bedard-Gilligan said. “For others, it’s really about the socializing and coming together as groups in neighborhoods and walking around and knocking on people’s doors.”
