AlaskaDenise
In Memoriam
by Ben Tracy
(WCCO) Paying the bills, crime and the war in Iraq all are things people in the Twin Cities say they worry about.
"I just worry about everything," said one woman.
We may think it's unhealthy to worry, but Dr. John Tauer, who teaches social psychology at the University of St. Thomas, said some worry is what keeps us alive.
"It protects us from things that are dangerous," he said. "We're hardwired, we're prepared to fear those."
He's talking about things like a mugger on the street today or a wild animal thousands of years ago. Our response is controlled by the amygdala, a cluster of tissue in our brain that triggers our "fight or flight response", which causes us to react.
"The old adage, 'better safe than sorry' is very, very true," said Tauer. "Often times our rational, cognitive side gets overridden by our emotional side."
Humans are the only species that understand risk, but we also engage in what's called "probability neglect". This is when we ignore probabilities and worry about more traumatic possibilities.
We fear bird flu when it has yet to kill a single American, but don't get our flu shot when the common flu contributes to 36,000 deaths each year. We worry about mad cow disease, but not the fat and cholesterol in our burgers that contributes to nearly 700,000 heart disease deaths each year.
"I don't worry about driving as much as I worry about flying," said one woman who realizes that auto crashes kill many more people than plane crashes.
Time Magazine recently pointed out that 20 percent of us still smoke cigarettes, 20 percent don't wear seatbelts and two-thirds of us are overweight or obese. Yet, we obsess about the possibility of E. coli in our spinach.
This may be because our brains are programmed to fear pain and suffering. The more traumatic an event, such as terrorism, the more we fear it. We also worry about things that are covered in the media even if they are unlikely to happen to us.
"We hear the very dramatic stories and we end up fearing those far more than we really should," said Tauer.
Here's one more thing to think about: Do you ever find yourself worrying about the driver not paying attention to the road because they're talking on their cell phone?
The truth is most of us have done that very thing ourselves, but we think we're different and not as bad as the other driver. That's called "optimism bias." It is the belief that the risks that apply to other people don't apply to us.
http://wcco.com/local/Good.Question.worry.2.365200.html
(WCCO) Paying the bills, crime and the war in Iraq all are things people in the Twin Cities say they worry about.
"I just worry about everything," said one woman.
We may think it's unhealthy to worry, but Dr. John Tauer, who teaches social psychology at the University of St. Thomas, said some worry is what keeps us alive.
"It protects us from things that are dangerous," he said. "We're hardwired, we're prepared to fear those."
He's talking about things like a mugger on the street today or a wild animal thousands of years ago. Our response is controlled by the amygdala, a cluster of tissue in our brain that triggers our "fight or flight response", which causes us to react.
"The old adage, 'better safe than sorry' is very, very true," said Tauer. "Often times our rational, cognitive side gets overridden by our emotional side."
Humans are the only species that understand risk, but we also engage in what's called "probability neglect". This is when we ignore probabilities and worry about more traumatic possibilities.
We fear bird flu when it has yet to kill a single American, but don't get our flu shot when the common flu contributes to 36,000 deaths each year. We worry about mad cow disease, but not the fat and cholesterol in our burgers that contributes to nearly 700,000 heart disease deaths each year.
"I don't worry about driving as much as I worry about flying," said one woman who realizes that auto crashes kill many more people than plane crashes.
Time Magazine recently pointed out that 20 percent of us still smoke cigarettes, 20 percent don't wear seatbelts and two-thirds of us are overweight or obese. Yet, we obsess about the possibility of E. coli in our spinach.
This may be because our brains are programmed to fear pain and suffering. The more traumatic an event, such as terrorism, the more we fear it. We also worry about things that are covered in the media even if they are unlikely to happen to us.
"We hear the very dramatic stories and we end up fearing those far more than we really should," said Tauer.
Here's one more thing to think about: Do you ever find yourself worrying about the driver not paying attention to the road because they're talking on their cell phone?
The truth is most of us have done that very thing ourselves, but we think we're different and not as bad as the other driver. That's called "optimism bias." It is the belief that the risks that apply to other people don't apply to us.
http://wcco.com/local/Good.Question.worry.2.365200.html
