Fear is primal. Evolution gifted us with it for a reason—to protect us. It sharpens attention, increases vigilance, and primes the body to respond to danger. In the ancestral wild, that meant outrunning a predator or sheltering from a storm. But while our environments have changed dramatically, our brains haven’t caught up. They still respond to perceived threats with the same urgency as physical danger. The result? We live in a world where the fear system is chronically acti