How To Differentiate Between Fear and Anxiety with Joseph LeDoux

Today we’re discussing fear and anxiety with neuroscientist Joseph LeDoux, Professor of Science at the NYU Center For Neuroscience. Joseph’s work focuses on the brain functions of memory and emotion, and he is the author of The Emotional Brain, Synaptic Self and Anxious.

In our society, three quarters of all medical visits and 60 percent of medical conditions are directly associated with stress.

This begs the question: How can we take control of how stress affects our physiology?

When we are in danger, we both feel afraid and act afraid, which confuses the two things in our mind. Joseph explains that the conscious experience of fear is actually generated separately from the brain’s response to danger.

The feeling of fear doesn’t come from the amygdala like the response to danger. Rather, it is put together in the neocortex like any other conscious experience. In order to feel afraid, you have to be aware that you’re having that experience, so Joseph doesn’t believe in unconscious fear.

To break it down even further, Joseph points out that the conscious experience of fear includes several elements:

1) perceptual stimulus, e.g. a snake,

2) long-term memories associated with that perception, e.g. “snakes are scary” and

3) the physiological responses of the amygdala, e.g. tensing of body. These three things combine to create what he calls a “fear schema,” which compels a feeling of fear.

Joseph underscores our need to break out of antiquated ideas about fear and anxiety – we must completely separate our use of the terms “fear” and “anxiety” to describe responses that happen unconsciously.

The amygdala doesn’t feel fear; fear is actually a highly cognitive process that involves an integration of information from the defense response of amygdala with perceptional information and long-term memories about the stimulus and the fear schema.

1. People feel guilty when they’re anxious or hypersensitive to threats – remember that it’s not your fault; each of our brains is wired differently. We don’t have a lot of natural ability to regulate these initial reactions.


2. We can through training methods, e.g. psychotherapy and coaching methods, learn to be more active copers as opposed to passive copers in order to gain some control.


3. Proper breathing is the most effective way everyone can reduce stress. It also relaxes muscles and helps you to sleep better. When you’re breathing properly, you’re training the parasympathetic nervous system to counteract the fight or flight response generated by the sympathetic nervous system.

Joseph’s book, Anxious

Joseph’s band, The Amygdaloids