Fear Contagion.

Byline: Dr. Aamir Hanif

As cases of COVID-19 proliferate, there is a pandemic of fear spreading at the same time and at a much foster pace. Due to easy reach of media, fear contagion spreads like a fire. Watching someone close to you fearing about something will activate automatic fear in you without even knowing the cause of the fear. Mass media coverage on Covid-19 spreading and people suffering and dying only add to their misery and push an automatic panic button, leads to unbearable mental stress, anxiety, hoarding food stuff unnecessarily.

Animal studies show that fear contagion sparks in animals e.g a herd of antelopes sense a stalking lion suddenly freeze, then quickly sets off the alarm call and runs away from the predator and suddenly other antelopes follow. Same fear phenomenon operates in human beings. Our brain is hardwired to respond to threats in environment, deeply embedded in our brain is an area called Amygdala is a key to responding to threats.

It detects stimuli associated with danger. After receiving the dangerous signals, it passes the signals to other parts of the brain, including hypothalamus and brain stem area to coordinate a specific defense response.

The responses are in the form of fright, freeze, flight or fight. Human beings are exquisitely tuned to other people's survival reactions and one person panicked, can spread this fear to other member of the community...