Short Stuff: Why does it feel good to be scared?

Guarantee human. Hey, it's Alec Baldwin.

“This season on my podcast, here's the thing I talked to composer Mark Shaman.”

It's about the hang. It's the pleasure of hanging out with the people that you're with.

You know, Robin Eye was always a great hang.

And director Morgan Neville. Film school teaches you all the wrong things about making documentary. What do you want to say? Documentaries all about your ear. What do you hear?

I feel like my job is listening really, really hard. Listen to here's the thing, on the "I Heart Radio App Apple Podcasts" or wherever you get your podcasts. It just came out. Jamie, what did you just do?

You just sit yourself up for the earlier. I've never heard you tell this story. I've never told this story.

This must have been tucked deep deep in the Jeremy Lin file.

My name is MC Jin, excited to tell you about laugh, but not least. I'll be chatting with guests from all walks of life about the power of humor when it comes to facing difficult times.

“These will be conversations that remind us all, life is hard.”

Listen, laugh but not least with MC Jin on the "I Heart Radio App Apple Podcasts" or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh and there's Chuck and Jerry's here too, sitting in for a day and this is stuff you should know.

We're here to answer a perennial question that everyone wants to know. Just why in the gosh darn heck do we make ourselves scared on purpose? Yeah, here scare me real quick, do something. Let's do the lecture size. You're starting to look old.

No, no, no. Okay. Really scared me. Say boo or something. Okay, that's going to scare you more.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, boo. Oh my god. Oh boy, has it turned out that was really exhilarating out of you great now? Yeah, well, you overcame fear, a real threat.

Yeah, it is an interesting question though and thanks to our old friends at House of Works.com as well as psychology today in the American brain foundation who have all as well as other places looked into that weird question of like you were talking about like why would anybody pay to go into a truly terrifying haunted house or a truly terrifying movie? And like yeah, we all know anecdotally or personally why, but like if you step back and

look at it from you know a rational standpoint, I'm a zero sense whatsoever. Yeah, we're purposely stimulating a what's meant to be like an unpleasant experience, a pleasant response in ourselves. Yeah, for sure.

You know, we'll get into that in a second.

We need to sort of delineate though like what we're talking about and we did an episode

“on fear a while back as a long time ago, I think it was pretty good if I remember correctly.”

But we're not talking about anxiety, like there's anxiety in there's fear, anxiety is the stuff that keeps you up at night, like existential threats or am I getting old or is our country being ruined or is there a looming war coming to our country? Like things that haven't happened yet that you're truly upset and anxious about is not the same thing as as fear of something that is like somebody jumping out and saying boo, something

that happens right in front of your face. Exactly. Right, so you've got that and fear is about something jumping out right in front of your face. It's about like an immediate threat to your wellbeing, maybe your life and it triggers the fight or flight response, yeah, for sure.

So a little more about that when you have the fight or flight response, your pulsing creases, your blood pressure increases, you just get ready to run or fly, which is the only time you can fly is when you're scared. That's right. There have been people that research this stuff, there's a book that we want to shout

out called Scream, Scream with an exclamation point from Margie Kee and her colleague Dr. Greg Seagull, who was director of for the cognitive neuroscience program at University Pittsburgh, but they're they're description of what we're talking about like paying to go to a haunted house or something or a really scary movie as voluntary engagement with negative high arousal stimuli.

So in other words, it's like, yeah, I'll give you my hard earned dollars to go into another world in October and could because the thrill of getting the due to scared out of me is like I enjoy that experience. Yes. Um, so yeah, that's a great, great term for it.

Um, I see we take a little break chuck and then we come back and we go step by step how this whole thing goes. Yeah. Let's do it. Okay.

Hey, I'm Hota Cotby, host of the podcast, Joy 101 with Hota Cotby, together.

like when actress Olivia Munn shared how she overcame fierce health challenges.

“I've gone through breast cancer and then helped my mother through breast cancer and that”

was more difficult. There's a lot of people who understand post-parner depression. I was not prepared for post-parner anxiety. Listen to Joy 101 with Hota Cotby on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

My first guest is Harry Soltin, Chetita, Luke, and Yiddin.

Samita E. Good I see you. I'm so excited. On the bounce, you bet. You have surprises.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend.

You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. You have to be a good friend. OK, Chuck, so we're talking about fun scary. Not fun anxiety.

I don't think there is such a thing really is fun anxiety. I mean, I guess it's like an existential or elevated horror movie. Like that develops a sense of dread. Yeah, OK. But it's so rarely pays off in a good way.

It's, yeah, I don't know that there's a good version of it. So we have to get grace. Like scary, the fun version, right? And one of the main reasons why we do this, it turns out is because we feel a sense of mastery over this thing that overwhelms us.

Because we're choosing to do this. That's step one. We're choosing to experience this scary thing. And by saying, like, I'm choosing to do this. Although, of course, you don't do this step by step.

It just kind of happens. You're saying, like, I'm in control. I'm in charge. Yeah, I'm going in this scary haunted house. But it's on the premise that I'm not actually going to be stabbed by this guy.

He's just going to come up like he, he's about to stab me, but he's not going to follow through some part of me knows that.

Yeah, I mean, that's always in the back of your head

when you walk into a situation like that. You're like, I'm going to be fine. It's not like the thrill that you get when somebody jumps out of the shadows to, you know, with a gun to mug you. Right.

Not what we're talking about. So that's the first step is you're like acknowledging that you're choosing to do this head on. So you've got some mastery and then the scare happens. Whatever that might be, whether it's a movie or, you know, a haunted house. I'm trying to, this seems like the obvious one.

So I'm trying to think of other ways. I guess maybe a scary roller coaster or something if that's a big fear. Sure. Yeah. So that's when the fighter flight kicks in.

And you're just flooded with, you know, some really eventually feel good stuff. That dopamine and oxytocin and endorphin start firing and our heart rate increases obviously in our breathing and our blood pressure and everything. So that's like an exhilarating experience, like biologically for your body. Right.

“So yes, like your, your amped, I guess is the way to put it, you know?”

Yeah. What did the kids say these days today? Um, they get a toilet. [laughs] Let's give it a toilet, by the way.

I like to give it a toilet. Let's start a new thing. All right. Boy, that's six, seven thing went away like quicker than I've ever seen anything go away. I was reading a book last yesterday.

It was crime and punishment. And I'm not just saying this just to show everybody I'm reading crime and punishment. But somebody mentioned something being like sixes and sevens. And I couldn't tell from the context that they were talking about still. I think it was kind of positive or something like that.

But I was like, is that where that came from originally? Or is it just coincidence? That was coincidence. Cause they coincidence. Cause they know where it came from, which I want for you to tell you that.

Well, it was a basketball player being interviewed. But where did he get? Yeah. Oh, I think it just came out of nowhere and it just caught on. But my whole point was that thing went away like in a matter of weeks.

“I think as soon as all the parents started writing it, every small child.”

Like I'm talking people my daughter's age and younger were like, no. Like I did it one time. She was like, ah, now when does that? Yeah. I feel like that's a valuable lesson if we are ever all annoyed by something that the.

Get into it. Get into it.

We start saying it ourselves.

Just adopted ourselves for a week. Yeah. For sure. I love it. That's a good.

We should test that out. But the next stupid thing comes along. Okay. You got it. All right.

So where were we?

“So we're in fight or flight mode. I feel bad for the poor person who were describing because”

they've been stuck in fight or flight mode the whole time we were talking about. Yeah. Toyless true. But we're back person to don't worry because now you're body. You're parasympathetic nervous system kicks in as like cool out.

Everybody let's just mellow out. Nothing actually happened. The threat is gone. And you can just feel great. You can feel relaxed.

You can feel maybe even a sense of gettingness. Yeah. Because you're experiencing something that you still. It's a transition between still having your fight or flight response going. And the parasympathetic thing starting to kick in and take over.

And while they're kind of. Those levels are adjusting. It's a very specific unique. Fun kind of feeling. Yeah.

For sure. And you can see that step. Literally coinciding with the next benefit rather.

Which is like, you know, you're almost always doing this with like friends and family or something.

Like you're out to have a good time with a group maybe or a small group. So you're building like a bond of an experience that will scare you that you share together. And like you see it when people are exiting. Netherworld or when they're coming off of that roller coaster. This almost euphoria of the shared experience that everyone has.

And you're all talking about like, oh my god, that one part, that one room where the guy had the chainsaw. I saw like in your face like you were about to do do in your pants. And it's like it's exhilarating. It's like a high that you can see everyone like reliving the experience together. And this bond that they created.

It's just like super fun. Yeah, it is. That's good. I mean, you mentioned oxytocin being released. That would explain that bonding, you know.

Yeah, for sure. And also I sometimes feel like press your face into the chest of the. Whoever you're with. Probably the person that you're with. Right.

Sometimes those places are dark for sure. You know, you know, you don't do that. Do a perfect stranger. No, you're like, oh, he's smell like onion. You're not my friend.

My friend smells like cheese. So yeah, foot cheese. Oh, god. So there's that feeling of catharsis.

“There's another, I think, great point too.”

In addition to that whole feeling of catharsis that comes from going through the. Yeah, that that regular roll and that is like, you're in a you that that scary place that you put yourself in on purpose, right? The volunteering engagement with negative high arousal stimuli. It's a place where you are. It's socially acceptable to do something like scream your head off.

Yeah. And just let out stress and that's a huge function that those play as well. That's scaring ourselves play as well. Especially say like a roller coaster. Yeah, for sure, like, you know, there's primal scream therapy, but a lot of people say like, well, that seems pretty weird.

But that same person might go to a haunted house and scream their head off because it's like a socially acceptable thing to do. And if you're someone who is maybe you have like real life anxiety or maybe you.

Have working a place or in a situation in your life where you always have to maintain like a very high level of decorum.

Yeah. And, you know, get go to another world, they should smash it this thing by the way. I think so too. That's a great idea. We should re-release this in October to see if we can get another world on board. I don't go to those. Do you go to those? No. They're too scary for me.

Yeah, I mean, I haven't been to a real haunted house like that. I don't think ever, I think the last haunted house I went to. It was in LA like these people got together and did these really, really high quality ones in the neighborhood a couple over. But I'd never paid to go into like the truly horrifying ones. I haven't either, but it's not because I'm too scared.

I was kidding about that. Why is it, you know, walk around on the dark with a bunch of strangers that might put their head in your chest? I don't, I don't know. There's one there. Let's go to one this year. Okay. There's one here if you're willing to come down to some universal overnight.

I think it's supposed to be really good. Is you me into that kind of thing? No. No, she doesn't like it. Neither is Emily. All right, they can wait outside while we go through.

Yes, that's fine. They'll have fun doing that. Yep, totally. He'll drink lemonade out of this big giant novelty plastic linemen. Yeah, exactly.

I guess it's a pretty short stuff, huh? Yeah, I think that means we're out.

“Stuff you should know is a production of Eye Heart Radio.”

For more podcasts to my heart radio, visit the Eye Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.