Halloween Is a Chance to Rethink Your Relationship With Fear

Whether you’re watching a scary movie or tiptoeing through a haunted house, Halloween can stir up spooky feelings. A gory scene may force you to cover your eyes or jump out of your seat. What drives these reactions is fear, a powerful core emotion.

Being afraid can feel like getting stuck in your own horror show—your heart pounds, your pupils dilate, and you may gasp or scream. These reactions are not under conscious control; they’re rooted in biology. Like all emotions, fear plays an important role. It helps you survive and bolt for safety. 

Halloween gives you a chance to experiment with fear. It’s a time when the fright is real, but the threat is not. 

As psychotherapists who specialize in Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP), we know that being able to name and work with fear is good for health. Acknowledging your emotions makes you less likely to suppress or avoid them, drink too much, or become numb to what you’re feeling. 

While these behaviors take the edge off temporarily, research shows that stuffing down your emotions can lead to mental-health concerns, such as depression and anxiety, which have become more common among U.S. children and adults in recent years.

If you’d like to safely explore your relationship with fear this Halloween season, here are five exercises we recommend. 

Recognize fear in your body

Have you ever tried to outsmart fear? Perhaps you scolded yourself for being a scaredy-cat or tried to stop the feeling with logic. Messages from society and our families often promote a mind-over-matter approach, reinforcing the belief that we can think our way out of an emotion. 

A healthier approach is to get out of your head and tune into your body. During a frightening moment, notice the telltale signs of alarm, like trembling hands, a racing heart, or feeling cold. These physical sensations are important messengers that clue you into what core emotions you’re experiencing. 

Once you identify and name them, their intensity will likely diminish. It may sound like a small act, but research shows that putting language on your emotions can help regulate and tame distress. 

Watch fear come and go

Gripping, painful emotions can seem permanent. But watching them come and go can remind your brain that even the most frightening experiences are temporary. 

During a spooky scene, you may want to cover your face or turn away. Rather than immediately distracting yourself, approach the emotion with curiosity. Observe how fear builds, peaks, and eventually subsides. 

Curiosity helps us embrace a sense of wonder. Research shows that a curious mindset can cultivate positive emotions and reduce worry. 

Calm the scary feeling

When fright takes hold, breathing techniques like 4-7-8 breathing or box breathing can soothe your nervous system. Taking long breaths instead of shallow ones sends oxygen to your muscles, which can help relieve tension. 

You can also practice what eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapists call “dual attention.” Keep your eyes glued to the frightening scene and stay with the sensations in your body as you take deep belly breaths. Research shows that belly breathing increases parasympathetic regulation of the heart through vagal pathways, helping the body settle into a calmer state. 

Discover how fear makes you want to move

When a ghoul jumps out or a frightening sound catches you off guard, pay attention to what your body wants to do. Do you feel an urge to flee, freeze, duck, or reach for someone’s hand? 

In AEDP, we call these “adaptive actions,” and they offer clues about how your nervous system responds to perceived danger. 

All core emotions, including fear, have impulses—energy in the body that makes us want to take action. When someone responds to our emotions with shame instead of empathy, we learn to block these impulses, creating a pressure-cooker effect. This can lead to symptoms like insomnia, muscular tension, and rumination that can hurt your health.

Noticing fear’s impulses expands your emotional awareness and sets the stage for you to work through other core emotions with greater wisdom. 

Notice how connection changes fear

Sharing a scary moment with another person can make it easier to tolerate. That’s because having someone by your side doesn’t just provide reassurance; it calms the amygdala, the brain’s emotional center, and helps you heal past wounds and traumas. 

We recommend this experiment: Watch a horror movie alone, and then with someone you trust. Or visit a haunted house with a trusted friend or partner. Notice what happens when you share the experience.