You’ve felt it. That cold, creeping sensation in your chest when you’re about to give a speech or ask for a raise. We call it fear. But honestly, fear is just a word we use to label a physical response that is basically just your body’s battery overcharging. It’s a linguistic bucket. We dump a thousand different physiological reactions into that one bucket and then wonder why we feel paralyzed.
Language is weird like that. It shapes how we experience reality. If you tell yourself you’re "terrified," your brain looks for a reason to be scared. It scans the room for lions. But usually, there aren't any lions. There’s just a spreadsheet or a difficult conversation.
The Biological Reality Behind the Vocabulary
Biologically, what we call fear is almost identical to what we call excitement. Your heart rate climbs. Your palms get a bit sweaty. Your breathing gets shallow. These are the physical markers of "arousal"—the physiological kind, not the romantic kind. Dr. Andrew Huberman, a neuroscientist at Stanford, often talks about how the nervous system doesn't have a specific "fear" circuit that is entirely separate from "alertness." It’s all just energy.
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The difference is the story you tell yourself.
When you’re on a roller coaster, you call that energy "fun." When you’re backstage at a theater, you call it "nerves." But the chemicals—the adrenaline, the cortisol—they don't care about the labels. They’re just doing their job. They’re prepping you for action. That’s why the phrase fear is just a word isn’t just some motivational poster nonsense. It’s a literal description of how we misinterpret our own biology. We take a neutral physical state and give it a negative name.
Why Your Brain Loves to Label Things
Brains are lazy. Evolutionarily, it’s easier to slap a label on something than to analyze it from scratch every time. If your ancestors saw a shadow in the tall grass, they didn't sit there thinking, "My, what an interesting physiological spike in my noradrenaline." They just thought "Scary!" and ran.
This kept us alive. It also turned us into people who are constantly spooked by shadows that don't exist. In 2026, our "shadows" are social rejection, financial instability, or looking stupid on the internet. Our brains haven't caught up to the fact that a "mean" comment on a post won't actually kill us. We still use the "fear" label for it, and that label triggers the same panic response that a predator would.
Turning Fear Is Just a Word into a Strategy
If you can change the word, you can change the experience. This isn't just "positive thinking." It’s cognitive reframing. Harvard Business School researcher Alison Wood Brooks conducted studies on "anxiety reappraisal." She found that people who told themselves "I am excited" before a public speaking task performed better than those who tried to "stay calm."
Why? Because trying to go from "fear" (high energy) to "calm" (low energy) is a massive jump. It’s like trying to go from 60 mph to 0 mph instantly. You’ll skid. But shifting from "fear" (high energy, negative) to "excitement" (high energy, positive) is just a slight turn of the wheel.
You’re already at 60 mph. You might as well enjoy the ride.
The Problem With the "Fearless" Myth
We see athletes or CEOs and think they don't feel it. We think they’ve deleted the word from their vocabulary. That’s a lie. They feel the exact same heart-pounding thud you do. The difference is they’ve realized fear is just a word that signals they are in the "growth zone."
If you don't feel that spike, you’re probably bored. You’re stagnant.
Look at someone like Alex Honnold, the guy who climbed El Capitan without ropes. People used to think he didn't feel fear. Researchers actually put him in an fMRI and showed him disturbing images to see if his amygdala (the brain's "fear center") would react. It barely did. But Honnold doesn't say he's "fearless." He says he expanded his comfort zone so much that things which would terrify us are just "tasks" to him. He didn't kill the fear; he just stopped calling it fear and started calling it "focus."
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The Social Construction of Terror
We learn what to be afraid of from the people around us. Think about kids. A toddler falls down, and the first thing they do is look at their parents. If the parent gasps and looks horrified, the kid screams. If the parent laughs and says "Whoops!", the kid usually gets up and keeps playing.
The "fear" wasn't in the fall. It was in the reaction.
As adults, we do this to ourselves constantly. We look at the news or our social feeds, and we see everyone else panicking. We adopt their vocabulary. We start saying things like "I’m terrified of the economy" or "I’m scared of AI." But what are we actually feeling? Usually, it's just uncertainty. Uncertainty is uncomfortable, sure. But it’s not a threat to your immediate survival. By calling it fear, we make it bigger than it is. We give it teeth.
Breaking the Loop
You have to catch yourself in the act of labeling. It’s a habit.
- The Physical Trigger: You feel the stomach flip or the tight chest.
- The Automatic Label: Your brain says, "Oh no, I’m scared."
- The Response: You pull back, avoid the situation, or freeze.
To break this, you need to intervene at step two. When that stomach flip happens, remind yourself that fear is just a word. Replace it. Call it "preparation." Call it "the engine starting." It sounds silly until you realize that your brain is actually listening to the words you use.
Practical Steps to Redefine Your Nervous System
Stop trying to be "brave." Bravery implies there is something scary to overcome. Instead, try to be curious. Curiosity and fear have a hard time existing in the same space. When you’re curious, your brain is in "explore" mode. When you’re scared, it’s in "protect" mode.
Watch your adjectives. Stop using words like "terrifying," "horrible," or "nightmare" to describe things that are actually just "challenging" or "inconvenient." If you describe a tough meeting as a "bloodbath," your nervous system is going to react like there’s actual blood on the floor.
Physical grounding. If the "fear" feels too real to ignore, use the 5-4-3-2-1 technique. It’s a classic for a reason. Name five things you can see, four you can touch, three you can hear, two you can smell, and one you can taste. This yanks your brain out of the "word" (the abstract concept of fear) and back into the physical world (the reality that you are safe in a room).
Exposure therapy (the DIY version). Do the thing you’re "scared" of in tiny increments. If you're scared of networking, don't go to a massive gala. Just say "hi" to the barista. You’re proving to your brain that the "fear" label was a false alarm. Each time you do this, the word loses its power.
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Realize that most of the things we fear are just "future-tripping." We are afraid of things that haven't happened and probably won't. We are living in a fiction constructed of scary words. When you strip away the labels and the "what-ifs," you’re left with the present moment. And in the present moment, you’re usually totally fine. You're just breathing. You’re just existing. The rest is just vocabulary.
Actionable Insights for Daily Life:
- Audit your self-talk: For the next 24 hours, notice every time you use the word "scared" or "afraid." Ask yourself: "Is there a physical threat, or am I just feeling high-intensity energy?"
- Rename the sensation: Next time your heart starts racing before a big event, say out loud, "I am getting pumped up for this." Use the word "pumped" or "charged" instead of "nervous."
- Move your body: When the "fear" label starts to paralyze you, do ten jumping jacks. This gives the adrenaline somewhere to go and proves to your brain that you are in control of your physical state.
- Focus on the 'how' not the 'why': Instead of asking "Why am I so afraid?", ask "How is my body reacting right now?" This shifts you from emotional analysis to objective observation.
- Limit the input: If certain news outlets or social accounts constantly use fear-based language (e.g., "Why you should be terrified of..."), unfollow them. Don't let others choose the words for your internal experience.