Watch: The Science of Being Literally Scared to Death

In some cases, people can react to a perceived threat bad enough for their body to go haywire and eventually shut down

  If you are scared enough, your heart can give out

Plenty of movies out there promise to scare us to death. The thing is that, if we're being honest, we have to admit that none of us actually expect this to happen. I mean, we would not watch them if we believed they could ever have that power over us.

However, this does not change the fact that, as surprising as this may sound, it is actually very much possible to scare somebody to death. This is because of how our body reacts when face to face with a situation or an object we perceive as threatening.

When we are scared, our body releases loads of adrenaline which makes our heart beat faster in order to deliver more blood and oxygen to our muscles. As a result, we become instantly stronger and better equipped to fight for our life, should circumstances demand for it.

Too much adrenaline, however, can cause heart damage. What this means is that, in those rare cases when we are utterly and completely freaked out, our heart can give out, and as a result, we can die. The good news is that, most of the time, our own body makes sure this does not happen.

What's more, studies carried out over the years have shown that people can trick their bodies into producing less adrenaline when confronted with a potential threat by training their mind to think differently about, say, spiders or confined spaces.