I’ve heard of people with near death experiences having these calm, soothing experiences. It’s lovely that our brains do this for us.
I know there’s a natural selection, those with the best characteristics continued, and those who didn’t have the qualities to survive would pass away. But everyone dies in the end. What made it so that all brains release those chemicals to ease our last moments?
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We know that opium, which is a plant extract, causes us to not feel pain, or more accurately to not feel disturbed by pain and feel at peace.
We then found that our brain has receptors that sense the presence of opium (opioid receptors), that when in presence of opium, create those effects.
As it is improbable that the human brain has evolved a receptor for a plant substance, the search of the normal signal those receptors react to, started. Thus we found the endorphins.
Endorphins are hormones secreted by the brain to counteract excess pain or stress. These are for example the cause of the second wind, or runner’s high that endurance athletes feel , and it is possibly the cause of the effect you describe.
Answer: B/c if we sent shockwaves through our human tribes with unexplainably violent and tragic deaths every time, maybe the tribe that has the peaceful brain chemical might secure a more lasting peace with nature.
It’s because animals are always tastier without stress hormones coursing through us, so our brains are trying to make us tastier for whatever is eating us alive. Welcome to ELIH: explain like it’s horror
Wasn’t Kübler-Ross who speculated that *afraidnessless* could be like a desperate yoga to allow the brain a few extra precious seconds of air and blood. Like a reflex switch kind of “i’m gonna die, let’s switch it all off and see what happens”. I don’t know if that’s 100% evolution-wise, but it somehow makes sense
Not everything that has evolved has a purpose. There would certainly be no reason to select against such a trait, so it was passed on.
However, it is likely that being calm when you think you are about to die is helpful, because maybe you’ll figure out a way to not die at the last moment because you’re not panicking.