Anxious? Try Watching A Scary Movie

Short Wave

NPR

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4.7 • 6K Ratings

🗓️ 9 October 2024

⏱️ 15 minutes

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Summary

In human history, fear kept us safe when running from predators and anxiety kept us from going back to that lion-infested area. But what happens when these feelings get out of hand in humans today? And why do some of us crave that feeling from scary movies or haunted houses? For answers, we turn to Arash Javanbakht, a psychiatrist from Wayne State University. He likes studying fear so much, he wrote a whole book called Afraid. This episode, he gets into the difference between fear and anxiety, many of the reasons people feel afraid and why things like scary movies could even be therapeutic.

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Transcript

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0:24.0	You're listening to Short Wave.
0:28.0	From NPR.
0:40.0	Hey Short waivers, Regina Barbara here and I'm going to tell you a secret. I'm scared of pretty much everything. Heights, the dark, whales, small spaces,
0:47.8	plane rides, and I'm definitely not a fan of scary movies.
0:58.0	Some people love to be scared them.
1:02.0	Like Dr Arash Javambach, a psychiatrist from Wayne State University in Michigan.
1:05.6	I do love scary movies.
1:08.9	Do you really?
1:09.6	Yeah.
1:11.0	What's your favorite scary movie? There's two of them.
1:14.0	Exorcists that I watched when I was a teenager and
1:18.0	hereditary scared me a lot.
1:22.0	He loves talking about fear and anxiety so much. Not only did he make it part of his job,
1:27.0	he wrote a whole book called Afraid. Throughout the book, he gets into many of the reasons people are afraid, including the reason he loves those horror movies so much.
1:36.7	I feel more alive when I am in situations like this.
1:41.1	Because you... like this is
1:49.0	is something happening on the TV and these are all actors and actresses there is no reality to it but a big chunk of you, big part of your psychic being believes it,
1:55.8	understand it, because that involves their thrill brain and excitement brain and gives them a sense of control.
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