People planning to walk through a haunted house or sit down to watch a scary movie during Halloween should know the physical effects of fear on the human body, to deal with it better. When experiencing a real-life or fake scary situation a person's bodily reaction can cause many chemical changes as the adrenaline is pumped throughout the body.
Felipe Amunategui is a psychologist at University Hospitals Case Medical Center in Cleveland. He explained that a frightening event's effects on people can include faster heart rate and breathing, and different brain activity.
Psychologists refer to this as a "fight or flight" response. Amunategui told ABC News that in a millisecond the eyes' pupils get bigger and blood starts to flow to the hands and feet.
As the adrenaline reaches the brain, a small almond-size part causes people to stop thinking logically. It is called the amygdala.
Amunategui explained that this response helped ancient humans survive when they met danger, according to ABC News. They could use all their energy to stay and fight, or run away.
The same thing even happens when people know they are watching a zombie actor in a horror movie or haunted house, for example. It connects the fake world with the real world.
Dr. Frank Farley is a professor at Temple University in Philadelphia. He explained that people get even more scared after watching a horror movie. They have a sense of fear after connecting the images and sounds in the film, with real-life horror stories they have heard.
However, studies show that people can beat their fears by being exposed to them many times, according to CNN. That is true whether it is a fear caused by scary movies, spiders, clowns, snakes, high places, public speaking, or robots.