Why can’t we trigger our own fight or flight response, purposefully, on command?
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Because that would not help us survive. Evolution priorities traits that help us to survive and reproduce. What would be the purpose of this?
Adrenaline is kind of like nitrous oxide in a car, but for your body. It makes everything work harder, faster, exceeding your limits.
But just like a car, your body isn’t designed to run at that level all the time. If you could trigger a massive adrenaline dump whenever you wanted, you’d risk damage to your circulatory system, muscles, maybe even bones depending on what you were doing. It’d be like giving yourself a panic attack…and possibly a heart attack.
The fight or flight response is designed to literally save your life. It’s for situations where you’re about to die anyway, so the risk of some damage in the short term is no big deal.
The response is involuntary because waiting for your thought processes to finish to decide whether or not to activate a response is counterproductive to survival. The whole reason we have a panic system to provide that response is to have an instantaneous reaction. All the Neanderthals who had to think about whether or not to induce an adrenaline response were still thinking about it when they died presumably
We absolutely have the ability to do this. It just doesn’t look like you think it does. Most often we see this as a panic or anxiety attack. Not that they want to have it happen but that their brain is triggering those responses without the external input based on internal inputs. We also see it though in athletes, and even workers who can “turn it on” to get that boost to their productivity. I think with training and focus one could trigger a fight or flight response.
I kinda can after being through a lot of trauma. I only really do in situations where it would happen anyway. There’s a big backlash afterwards.
The whole point is to help you escape imminent death by releasing your body’s safety limiters. You’d tear yourself apart if you were like that all the time.
Similar to the people who are born unable to feel pain. They don’t usually live long. Pain has a serious function just like those safety limiters.
Inside our bodies, we have a superhero power called “fight or flight.” It’s like when you see a pretend monster, and your heart beats faster, and you feel really strong and fast.
But guess what? This power is super smart! It only turns on when we really, really need it. Imagine if you had a special robot that helped you with your toys, but you only called it when you had a big problem. That’s how fight or flight works – it comes to help us when we’re in danger.
Now, if we could turn it on whenever we wanted, it might get confused. It’s like if you played with your superhero toys all the time, they might not be as special anymore. Plus, our bodies need to rest and be calm too. If we were always in superhero mode, we’d get tired and grumpy.
So, fight or flight is like our secret helper that only shows up when we really need it. It’s smarter that way, and it helps us stay safe and strong!
We kind of can. If you’ve ever decided you’re going to fight someone before you fight, you’ll notice that you feel the rush as soon as you know what you’re about to do, it doesn’t take until the first punch is thrown. But if you mean why can’t we trigger it for trivial purposes, then the answer is that it doesn’t help. A trivial situation is, by definition, one where your survival doesn’t hang in the balance. So the ability to enter fight or flight for trivial matters doesn’t provide a survival advantage and so it isn’t selected for. Also, it has disadvantages. You can seriously injure your muscles through the strain you can put them under, and it wreaks hormonal havoc on your body.
Same reason you can’t tickle yourself.
If you are expecting it (because you’re doing it), it won’t work.
Makin this system dependent upon slower parts of the brain, such as the conscious thoughts, would likely decrease reaction times when you need it the most. Muscle memory and instinctual reactions access parts of the brain which are older and better connected to every part of the body than our conscious thoughts.
At the end of the day, even if the whole system could be linked to both instinct and wilful action without drawbacks, there wouldn’t be any advantages to it. People with such a “super system” probably wouldn’t pass on their genes anymore than their neighbors. Considering how genetics work, anything that doesn’t have a strong natural selection in favor of it tends to disappear or degrade fast after a few dozen generations.
You can, you just need to trick your brain into thinking you are in danger….That’s what an adrenaline rush is and people like me trick it, because it’s the only way I feel ALIVE.
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