Hello, I'm Kendal Clapham, a senior Communication Studies major at Longwood University. I have always had an interest in horror movies over other movie genres because of the amount of emotion I felt watching horror movies.
My blog will cover different justifications behind why horror movies have a physical reaction to your body, their effect on your mental health, the misconceptions behind horror movies, love and hate feelings toward horror movies (and why you should love them), and the highest reviewed horror movies.
My intention for my blog will be to help justify why watching horror movies is good for your health and helps you face your real-life fears.
My blog today will be discussing what happens to your body when you watch a horror movie
Do you enjoy watching horror movies? The feeling of sweaty palms, tense muscles, skin temperature dropping, blood pressure spiking and raising heart rate.
Although you might have answered no, I'm here to convince you to try watching horror movies to test your body and brain for a new experience.
There has been no evidence that horror movies positively affect your brain but there are other ways they help. The more you watch horror movies, the more your brain is exposed to similar images of fear, and the more you become less emotionally reactive over time. It's called the desensitization effect.
So what part of the brain is responsible for this whole body experience?
It's located in your temporal lobe, called the amygdala. It tells you how to react to fear, not only in your brain but your heart, lungs and hormones.
So what is it about fear that makes our bodies react these ways?
Our body reacts to fear in a fight or flight response. We want to either fight or run away from the object of fear. This explains the extreme hate from some people toward horror movies because they choose not to fight the feeling of fear they receive while watching a horror movie.
The reaction can be an unintentional response and therefore have a variety of physical responses.
You freeze.
This makes you less visible to a potential object of fear.
Your heart and breathing rates quicken.
The increase in heart rate boosts your oxygen level throughout your body. It also shunts blood from the digestive system to your muscles to provide more strength incase you need to face off the object of fear.
This is also a result of why you feel out of breath or feeling like taking less breaths. It's the body's way of increasing your respiration rate and therefore providing more oxygen for emergency responses.
Feeling of nausea or upset stomach.
This reaction is from when our ancestors had to engage in fight or flight responses of greater magnitude. In dangerous situations, it was the body's way of getting rid of anything that could hold you back from running away or fighting for your life.
This also relates to why the blood flow is so rapid because it is also being moved away from the gastrointestinal system and toward the muscles to help prepare your body for fight or flight mode.
Your cortisol and adrenaline levels rise.
These hormones of stress are what keep the fight or flight response maintained so you can keep safe.
Ever hear a story of someone with feats of strength in a fit of fear, like someone lifting a car up off an injured person, cortisol and adrenaline are the ones to thank.
Your mental focus sharpens.
Your brain when it needs to be in full focus isn't wondering what it's going to wear tonight with your friends, it's wondering the next move to keep you safe. Colors are brighter, movements are more visible, and hearing is more acute. This provides a more accurate and faster response to fits of fear.
After reading all of that detail about what your body is doing, it might be hard to want to relate to it because you don't know if can be good for you.
Although it may be hard to subject yourself to 90 minutes of exercising your fight or flight response, the comedown after watching a horror movie is really where your brain reaps the benefits.
The calming down effect on your brain after watching a horror movie is a pleasing neuro-chemical response. The dopamine release causes an increase in sense of well-being.
On the other hand, there is a psychological response that benefits your ability to comprehend fear. After experiencing something that seems scary and then coming out safe afterward, it can provide a new outlook on how to handle fear.
For things that scare us, it can challenge us to face our fears because of a new perspective on the outcome. For moments that may have seemed intimidating, after getting through examples of fear, it can be easier to face real examples in the future.
Enjoying so far? Tune in next week where I will dive into discussing if horror movies are good for your mental and psychological health !
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