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Fight
or Flight
When the hypothalamus, which regulates most bodily
functions, receives the threat signal, it sends a group of
hormones to the pituitary gland at the base of your brain.
This in turn releases hormones that activate your adrenal
glands, which sit on top of your kidneys - a spot ideally
centralized in the body to make for the shortest trip to all
parts of the body for the adrenals' output: adrenaline.
Adrenaline is actually pretty cool stuff. It causes a
number of responses in the body, all of which are designed to
give your body the physical edge it needs to run like hell or
stay and fight to the death. It starts with the heart.
First, adrenaline increases the rate at which your heart
beats, speeding the process of moving blood through the
oxygenating function of the lungs. Next, it increases the
force of your heart's contractions, to ensure blood gets to the
far reaches of your body like your fighting hands or your
running feet. That's where the thump-thumps come from.
All's pretty good so far.
Then, to make sure all these muscle groups are working
best, adrenaline facilitates what is essentially a valving
process that ensures enough blood is flowing to the motor
control sections of your brain. Bit of a downside to this
process, however, in that the system has to get the blood from
somewhere, and finds the most convenient supplies in the
thinking portions of your brain. So just when the rational
parts of your brain, which actually don't fear imminent death at
the podium, want to have as much cognitive ability as they can
muster, greater forces have other plans. You actually get
a little dumber.
You’ve
got the fever
If all that weren't enough, adrenaline works to speed up
your metabolism as it works to turn glucose, blood sugar, into
glycogen, the form of 'energy' your cells can use. This
speed-up produces a couple of side effects, one being the
aforementioned perception of time slowing down. More
immediately noticeable is increased body temperature, which can
manifest itself in the "cooling" process known as
sweating. But that's not fair - weren't you told never to
let them see you sweat? And because burning all that
glucose is also a de-hydrative process, it can cause your mouth
to go dry, especially when the facility puts out gallon jugs of
water in front of every audience member but non at the podium.
Finally, whenever we send out hormones there's always an
anti-hormone emitted to keep it company, and in the case of the
adrenals we're talking nor-adrenaline. Nor-adrenaline's
effect is to increase your blood pressure, which you typically
feel in the form of flushness in the face.
So if you've ever found yourself walking into the
auditorium, or perhaps the boardroom or conference area and felt
your heart beating a little faster, with a discernible
thump-thump, thump-thump, and your brain both a little less
sharp than it should be and stuck in a minor time warp; if
you've ever felt moistness in your palms or around the collar
and your face a bit flushed, then congratulations! Your
body is performing precisely to spec!
What you need to take home here is the understanding that,
no matter what you may be consciously thinking, your sympathetic
nervous system will always respond to external stimuli in the
way it is hard-wired to do so. Every time. That is
why so much advice on overcoming fears is worthless - no amount
of "positive thinking" or alternate perceived
realities such as NLP ”therapy” will cause your body to
respond to an outside threat differently. As long as you
expose yourself to certain stimuli, your body's response will be
the same. It is why our species has survived this long.
Sounds depressing, huh?
Well, the good news is that although you cannot change your
response to certain stimuli, you certainly can change the type
and frequency of the stimuli to which you expose yourself.
More on this in a future column.
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