How does fears change with age

I think fear is a good thing to have in our lives. We put ourselves in danger every time we enter a freeway on-ramp, and the heightened sensory awareness fear causes helps us bring our vehicle up to speed and enter the freeway safely. Fear can alert us to dangerous situations, and encourage us to take steps to eliminate them. But fear can also paralize us. As we age, our eyesight may diminish. Fear of driving at night may cause us to stop attending evening events. Our balance may get a little wonky — the resulting fear of falling may keep us from actively exercising.

Some threats, like declines in health and physical strength, disability, loss of income, or loss of a spouse, particularly affect older people. In other words, there is merit to the fears. However, in my experience, when I avoid something that scares me, I start to feel like a failure.

And the longer I go being afraid of something and avoiding it, the greater my fear becomes. Taking refresher driving classes designed specifically for seniors, wearing night glasses that reduce glare, exercising at a barre or in a chair — these are active measures we can take to make ourselves safe and reduce our fears.

Sometimes the only way past a fear is straight through it. Some of my readers will remember when I took up cycling after 30 years of not owning a bike. My son offered to give me a refresher lesson in San Diego, which helped a bit. In the end a patient friend and a gentle cycling instructor helped me push past my fear. So, yes, my friends. Learning to drive my new RV is frightening. What frightens you? Please use the comment form below to share your own stories about fears that have paralized you, or fears you have overcome.

And type your email address into the subscription form if you would like to receive my take on the world whenever it appears here. I do admire you for taking on your road trip on your own. I do look forward to hearing about your adventures tho!!!

This post is right up my alley, Marlene. As someone who used to live in a foot motorhome that she refused to drive left that up to my husband , I can say without a doubt that I regret allowing fear to make that decision for me and keep me from an even bigger adventure—one of trusting myself. Thank you for your heartfelt thoughts, Helen.

I took some classes with you in Gavilan collage,you were one of my best Teachers there. Note: A computerized matching algorithm suggests the above articles. It's not as smart as you are, and it may occasionally give humorous, ridiculous, or even annoying results! Learn more about the News Feed. Materials and Equipment To do this experiment you will need the following materials and equipment: surveys, volunteers of different age groups, computer with spreadsheet software e.

Experimental Procedure Note: There are special considerations when designing an experiment involving human subjects. Designing and Administering the Survey You will need to decide which age groups you want to survey. You might be interested in comparing elementary school and middle school students, for example, or teenagers and adults. Make sure that you can find enough participants is a bare minimum for each age group so that your results are meaningful see Introduction. The survey should be anonymous.

You will want to ask the age of each participant, and perhaps also the gender see Variation 2. You will need to think of questions to ask in your survey. Here are some suggestions to think about when writing your survey: You can use structured questions, open-ended questions, or both.

An example of a structured question would be: Are you afraid of heights? Yes No An example of an open-ended question would be: List the three things of which you are most afraid. In order to write your structured questions, you'll need to come up with a list of common fears appropriate for each age group that you intend to survey.

One way to do this would be to start with a smaller survey! This could be as simple as an informal poll on the playground at recess. Try to compile a comprehensive list of common fears. Think about what type of response you want.

When you've completed the questions for your survey, first try it out on a small group 5—10 people. Make sure that the questions are all clearly worded and understandable. Make any revisions that are needed, and then run the survey on the larger sample group.

Analyzing the Results The most convenient way to analyze your results will be to use a spreadsheet program, like Microsoft Excel or WordPerfect QuattroPro. Each column on the spreadsheet can represent one question on your survey, and each row on the spreadsheet will contain the responses from a single participant.

You can use the spreadsheet program's formulas to count up the responses for each question. If you have questions with a rating scale, you can use the spreadsheet to calculate how many respondents chose each rating i.

There are also instructions on using Excel to make a frequency histogram, which you can use to show the survey responses graphically. Compare the results between the two age groups. Are some fears common to both groups? Are some fears unique to one of the groups? How many respondents did you have in each group? What can you say about the margin of error for your survey results?

Log in to add favorite More Menu Read More. Variations More advanced students will want to perform calculations to determine whether differences between age groups are statistically significant. Analyze the survey responses by gender.

What similarities and differences do see? Be sure that your sample population includes sufficient numbers of males and females. Expand the number of age groups for your study.

Maroun, Prof. Mouna Maroun, head of the Sagol Department of Neurobiology, who conducted the study, explains that she instinctively felt that this assumption was problematic. When I saw this, I realized that this was something I needed to examine in the laboratory. According to the study, this increased fear with age is related to the plasticity or flexibility of the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the area responsible for complex cognitive behavior. During exposure to a scary or stressful experience, two cerebral mechanisms enable us to respond efficiently to fear, on the one hand, but also to return to normality once the event ends.

During the event, a mechanism located in the amygdale, an almond-shaped structure in the brain, effectively tells us that we are in a frightening situation and must act fight or flight. After the event, a fear extinction process begins in the prefrontal cortex and effectively returns the body to its routine state. When the latter mechanism fails to function properly, we continue to experience reactions of fear while we no longer need it, leading to symptoms of anxiety and post-trauma.

According to the study, this explains why adults are usually more cautious in comparison to children regarding extreme or challenging activities, because their brains delay the fear extinction mechanism. In the study, young postweanling and adult rats were exposed to a mild traumatic event. Some of them were then placed on an elevated platform, creating exposure to stress, while the control groups were not exposed to stress.

The findings showed that the adult animals reacted as expected: strong fear responses were seen by comparison to the rats that were not exposed to trauma.