why do we get sweaty palms if we’re doing something dangerous like climbing? Isn’t that counter-productive?
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Your body has evolved over millennia to say, “bro im scared. lets get down. Here ill release a lubrication liquid to help us get down.” Evolution and the human body in particular is awe inspiring.
Not everything has an evolutionary advantage. Sometimes things just *are*. There is a species of pig whose tusk curves backwards, can’t be grinded down and ends up stabbing them in the head, growing through their skull and killing them. There’s no reason for this. No benefit. It just *is*. We aren’t immaculate beings of design, we’re random products of natural selection. A scientific phenomenon, an organism. Nothing more.
its the climbing that is counter productive.
how many grains grow on the side of cliffs? how many antelope were hunted on the side of cliffs? zero.
people who got to work farming and hunting (even with sweaty palms) were selected over cliff climbers.
Do you mean rock climbing?
It’s not really counter-productive when rock climbing…we’re not really designed to be doing that, (hence the special shoes, and harnesses, and ropes, and chalk) so of course we’d have a physiological response.
We are not supposed to climb rocks, perhaps?
Why would we do that? It is simply dangerous.
So is fight-or-flight shrieking when you see a predatory animal that might eat you, but also that might not have even known you were there if you hadn’t yelped in fear.
Just because the body does something doesn’t mean it’s doing the right thing. It only really knows how to give “programmed” responses, even if those responses are in no way helpful in the situation.
When we are in stressful situations our sympathetic nervous system kicks in and we experience those physical symptoms we associate with stress.
If we are walking in the woods and encounter a bear, we’ll either fight, flight (run away), or freeze (play dead). Whether fighting or fighting, for example, we’ll see our heart rate increase and our hands/feet get colder as our bodies focus blood flow to the core and brain to maximize survival.
We sweat so if we are fighting with the bear, we’ll be slippery and harder for the bear to hold onto and throw around. As you noted, this is not really adaptive in every scenario.
tangentially i always wonder about vaso-vagal response. So i pass out due to X, reducing heart rate, for some reason, but then i’m unconscious and unable to do anything about whatever may have caused it
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