HARD-WIRED RESPONSES

                                                             

In the last issue I addressed body language as one part of nonverbal communication.  Another component is the body’s response to stress.  There is a physiological reaction that occurs in each of us that can be exciting in a positive or terrifying way mentally or physically.   Such a condition has been researched to reveal that this excited state creates what has come to be called the fight-or-flight syndrome described in the 1920’s by an American physiologist Walter Cannon.   Essentially, it is a response that prepares the body to either fight or flee a threat perceived as real or imaginary.  Cannon discovered that our sympathetic nervous system is the part that operates unconsciously stimulating the release of hormones and glands which results in an increase in heart rate, blood pressure and breathing.  It takes between 20 to 30 minutes for the body to return to its pre-arousal level after the threat is gone, 

Regardless of our age, stress is part of life and the way to handle it is how we deal with it.  At this point, it’s important to understand the difference between two of its attributes, fear and anxiety which occur in the fight or flight syndrome.   Both are helpful and provide us with valuable information.   These hard-wired responses tell us when danger is present and get us ready to act.   Fear is the emotion you experience when facing an actual situation.  For example, you might be afraid of snakes because the fear you have has a direct object.  Even when you are away from them you may still be afraid of them but your emotion may not be as high as if you were actually in front of them.  Whereas, with anxiety you experience uneasiness about something in which there is no direct object to fear but rather a free floating anxiousness or uncertainty about something that you might experience, but is not a direct object.  So we can say you have a high level of chronic apprehension or worry.  For example, if you don’t know whether you passed or failed a test or whether the storm will hit your house, you remain anxious.   Anxiety is more an intense level of worry often referred to in psychology as “angst” (From: German, a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically unfocused  about the human condition or the state of the world in general, a feeling of persistent worry about something even trivial).  It has been said that worry is like sitting in a rocking chair.  It can keep you very busy but it won’t get you anywhere.

An Austrian-Canadian endocrinologist, Hans Selye, did extensive research and documented that the physiology of stress differs from other physical responses in that it has two components:  a set of responses which he called the “general adaptation syndrome” and the development of a pathological state referred to as “ongoing, unrelieved stress”.  He considered these states to be largely attributed to glandular changes.   Whether one receives good or bad news, the impulses are stress.  He calls ones that are negative “distress” and those positive “eustress”. Thus, to him there are reservoirs of stress resistance and stress energy.   In conclusion, hard-wired responses can be neurological or glandular in origin.  Yet, it is up to us how we handle stress.