Harnessing the power of fear: Do horror movies help with anxiety? – Far Out Magazine

Disclaimer: All proprietary content on Physicians Now is exclusively owned by Physicians Now. All RSS feed content is owned by the respective 3rd party website.

(Credits: Cinedigm Corp)

For lifelong fans of the genre, there’s often nothing more relaxing than unwinding after a long and stressful day by watching buckets of blood, mountains of gore, and butcher’s shop worth of entrails splayed across the screen in a gory horror movie.

It sounds counterproductive to the idea of relaxation, but everybody has their own quirks. Some folks favour comedies, others chill out to music or podcasts, while those of a sterner disposition find nothing more comforting than watching innocent victims be brutally hacked to pieces by a psychotic killer determined to reduce them to a steaming pile of vaguely human-shaped goo.

There’s a staunch band of fans who adore the genre that wouldn’t even contemplate the notion of watching anything even remotely spine-chilling before going to sleep, while others can’t think of anything better. Each to their own, as the old saying goes, but there’s a smidgen of scientific basis in illustrating that it might just be worth anyone’s while to fire up some horror on the nearest television or device in order to keep feelings of anxiety at bay.

Margaret J. King – the director of the Centre for Cultural Studies and Analysis – believes that horror can act as an emotional comfort blanket of sorts. “Horror movies have a long history of providing a kind of reassurance,” she offered. “Viewers can immerse themselves in a harrowing narrative yet at the same time be perfectly safe, able to control the stimulus by turning it off or shifting attention to the surrounding space.”

Studies have found there to be a myriad of potential mental health benefits to be derived from horror, although it goes without explaining it’s entirely subjective. After all, someone who doesn’t care much for the medium at all is best advised against sitting down to watch The Exorcist when it’s going to have the opposite effect.

On the other side of the coin, stress relief can be a benefit, as well as the ability to gradually reduce the impact of real-life stressors and triggers by being exposed to fictional content depicting fears and terrors within a safe, controlled, and self-regulated environment, as clinical psychologist Melanie Bryan explained to South China Morning Post.

“There are not many environments, aside from concerts, that allow the strong emotional release of a horror movie,” she said. “In a real, threatening situation, that adrenaline surge prepares a person to fight, take flight or freeze. There is no true release until a sense of safety has been re-established. Then the relief can be huge.”

Horror can affect stress hormones and adrenaline, increasing heart and breathing rates. When the story reaches its resolution, the brain releases endorphins to relax and calm. It’s hardly going to work for everyone, but when the professionals are happy to state that tales of terror on screens, big or small, have the potential to aid in combating stress and anxiety, it’s something that can’t be dismissed as an outright falsehood.

Related Topics