Britain is increasingly in the grip of fear. A report by the Mental Health Foundation has found that 77% of people think the world has become a more frightening place over the last 10 years, with the same percentage believing that people in general have become more frightened and anxious. This correlates with the government's own studies, which show that one in seven of us has an anxiety disorder – that's more than 7 million people, a rise of 800,000 since the early 1990s.
Fear on the increase during a time of economic turmoil may not seem surprising – and indeed, phone calls to Anxiety UK's helpline doubled in the first two months of this year. But the snowball of fear has roots way deeper than recession: the rise in anxiety disorders actually occurred in the midst of economic boom.
What then is behind the jump in fear? The report, which I wrote for the foundation, identifies several overlapping factors. First is biology: for most of human history our ancestors lived in small groups of hunter-gatherers and the automatic fear response – offering an instant "flight or fight" response to attack – made evolutionary sense. However, in an astonishingly short space of time, we have been thrust into a 21st century age of information, and are constantly presented with apparent threats to our existence, from terrorism to crime to economic meltdown. These threats are usually abstract and distant (compared to a snake attack, say), but our brains have not evolved to keep pace with sociological change and our fear is out of proportion to the danger posed.
Secondly, agencies that disseminate information – the media, pressure groups, government – often do so in a way that magnifies threats. They focus in on bad news and worst-case scenarios, frequently using shrill, catastrophising language to get our attention. This creates a vicious feedback loop – we fear, public bodies respond in ways that connect with that fear and the anxiety builds.
We often attempt to restrict our activities in a bid to minimise danger, but this risk-aversion is counter-productive. It results in excessive health and safety procedures that crush workplace creativity, exaggerated and costly attempts to beat terrorism that play into the hands of terrorists and children being denied the chance to play outside, leaving them bored, unfit, and poorly developed. Our misperception of risk is also implicated both in the unchecked greed that led to financial crisis and the fear that inhibits recovery.
Finally, there is the changing structure of society itself. People with anxiety disorders are more likely to be single, divorced or separated, live alone and in big cities and move home frequently. More of us live in such fear-producing circumstances – nearly four times as many live on their own as 50 years ago. We may have greater material wealth than previous generations, but studies suggest that this has little positive impact on wellbeing – the drive for possessions and status may actually make us more anxious, as well as fraying the social bonds that make us safer and happier. In our poll, 61% of people cite loss of solidarity and community as a driver of fear.
The impact of all this is enormous – aside from the suffering caused by anxiety itself, fear is linked to a whole range of physical health problems, from heart disease to gastrointestinal disorders, to unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking and heavy drinking, to the perpetuation of dysfunctional economic, social and political systems that fuel fear and reduce quality of life.
There is plenty we can do to reduce the burden of fear, including offering better help for people with anxiety disorders, working to develop social and economic cohesion and moving towards values and behaviours that lead to happiness. But we won't make much progress on these while the psychological factors that affect our health and behaviour are omitted from public debate. We like to think of ourselves as rational creatures, but that doesn't stop emotion impacting on everything we do. Indeed, we are much more likely to be swayed by our emotions if we ignore how they influence us.
That's why the Mental Health Foundation is calling for a national campaign to raise awareness of how emotions affect our health and behaviour, and what we can do about it. If the government had the foresight to invest in such a campaign, just a tiny fraction of the money spent on rescuing banks to save the economy, installing CCTV cameras to fight crime and implementing security measures to ward off terrorists, then in future we might have less cause to be worried about these drivers of fear and anxiety.
