Do Horror Movies Really Help With Anxiety?

Anxiety is fear that has nowhere to go

First, anxiety is a complex thing. This is not a universal pattern and there are many different types and causes. While fear is completely normal and helps keep us alive, people with anxiety experience excessive fear that is out of proportion to the situation. As someone who can just as easily panic himself in the snack section of a grocery store as I presumably could in the shower at the Bates Motel, I’m all too familiar with the grueling struggle against misplaced terror. Anxious people can react to non-threats or perceived threats in the same way that they react to very real threats, so you might think that experiencing fake but still frightening situations in a horror movie would be bad for the anxious mind. However, there are many ways that these scary situations can be good for us.

Horror films allow people to experience disturbing feelings in a safe and controlled environment.

One thing that watching a horror movie can do for a person with anxiety is to give them a chance to focus their anxiety energy. Anxiety gets you stuck in what some people call the mental hamster wheel, with your anxious thoughts spinning around in your brain. Focusing that unsettling energy on a horror movie gives it a place that has nothing to do with you. It can also help you feel in control, which is difficult for anyone with anxiety to achieve. While the main characters in a horror movie may be dealing with terrifying situations, as a viewer, we can close our eyes, turn off the movie, or just leave it on and let the characters deal with the horror. Toni Collette decapitates himself with a piece of piano wire? I can’t help it.

A lot of anxiety is also triggered by specific situations and triggers, and many horror movies speak directly to these fears, such as being trapped in a creepy basement or being followed by threatening strangers. Experiencing these fears in a controlled environment allows us to experience these feelings in a safe place where we know they cannot harm us. A horror movie can also be a distraction if we’re under a lot of stress and help us regulate our nervous system as we use tools like deep breathing to calm down. A 2020 study even found that people who watched horror films were more psychologically resilient in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic because they practiced emotional regulation skills through their experience of watching scary situations played out on film.

Horror Movies Can Help End Your Stress Cycles

Another thing that horror movies can help with anxiety is ending the cycle of stress. When people with anxiety (and especially people dealing with PTSD) get stressed out by things that aren’t currently happening to them, the stress cycle often doesn’t end. Essentially, your sympathetic nervous system triggers your fight-or-flight response and helps you avoid or resolve potentially dangerous situations, while your parasympathetic nervous system works to relax your body after the danger has passed. Unfortunately, if there is no real threat to deal with and therefore no real solution can be found, people dealing with anxiety or trauma can get stuck in this cycle of stress and thus cannot feel at ease.

However, when we watch a horror movie, it allows us to relive stressful situations, feel that stress, and then feel relieved when the conflict is resolved or when the movie ends. We go through the entire cycle of stress without being in real danger, and we still benefit from all those happy hormones that flood our systems when the threat has passed. Whatever happens, the movie will end, and it teaches us that while fear can be terrifying and debilitating, it won’t kill us.

For some people, horror movies can exacerbate feelings of anxiety.

Now, for some people, watching a horror movie can do the opposite. When you watch a horror movie, even if your brain knows the threats are unrealistic, your body doesn’t. This means that you can still experience the same fight-or-flight experience that you would experience in the face of real danger. For some people, especially people with anxiety, this can lead to real panic. For example, some people experience something called anxiety sensitivity, which means that simply feeling your body’s reaction to anxiety-producing stimuli increases anxiety. For example, the increased heart rate and muscle tension you experience when you expect a strong fear of jumping can make a person with increased anxiety sensitivity even more anxious, which definitely doesn’t help.

Similarly, I’m sure we can all remember a horror movie that kept us awake at night after watching it - thank you so much, midsommar. This effect may be worse for those who experience anxiety, and lack of sleep also worsens feelings of stress, so we can see how this leads to a vicious cycle. There have also been studies that have found that watching horror movies is a “golden spot”, meaning that fear and excitement must be balanced. If something isn’t scary enough, people won’t like it. However, if it’s too scary, it won’t be enjoyable either, and in some cases may even hurt the viewer.

Horror Movies Can Help People With Anxiety, But It’s Not For Everyone

Moral of this creepy story? Participate at your own risk and know your limits. When we watch movies, it can be helpful to watch things outside of our comfort zone to learn something or broaden our horizons, but it’s also important to watch what we enjoy. Horror movies can be a great way for people with anxiety to experience thrills in a safe environment, relieve stress, and experience catharsis as the credits roll. However, horror movies can also increase feelings of stress and disrupt your sleep. So if you’re having a particularly bad bout of overwhelming anxiety, this might not be the time to settle down for a night of watching. Exorcistbut if you’re up for it, a healthy dose of horror might just be Thing you need.