Your Survival Responses Pt 1 – The Self Defense Response
You will be amazed at the number of hardwired survival responses you have running in your head. These responses have allowed humans to survive millions of years to the extent of thriving and conquering the planet. These responses run deep within our brains and most of the time without our control.
In the next 4 short articles, I will cover very briefly these 4 survival responses in action;
- Self defense response
- Paralysis response
- Panic response
- Starvation response
The purpose of this series of 4 articles is to show you that we have a million year old genetic programming trying to adapt in an ultra modern world. Hopefully after reading these 4 articles, you would come to appreciate your starvation responses. Understanding of the starvation response is fundamental in achieving weight loss correctly. If you understand this basic survival mechanism, you will never diet or starve yourself again!
Self Defense Response Acting in Your Favour
What happens if someone suddenly comes charging towards you, trying to hit you with a stick? Your reflex action would be to steer your hands towards the threat to do one of two things. If the threat is far, then your hands will lunge themselves towards the stick trying to break the impact. If the stick is already in flight to hit you, your hands will try to cover your head to protect it.
If the threat moves too fast for the hands to react, the head can still duck away for protection. Remember the lightning speed at which President Bush reacted when a shoe was hurled at him. I did not think this old man could move his head so fast. Amazing and absolutely hilarious!
Lets have a look at some of these self defense mechanisms in action.
Self Defense Response Acting Against You
Imagine you are driving in your car on a highway at a reasonable speed. Now what do you think will happen if you suddenly find a truck from the opposite lane swerve towards you.
Totally beyond your control, your brain will have the tendency to steer your hands towards the oncoming threat. It will react in the same way as if someone was charging at you with a stick! The action is so automatic that it is unbelievable!
There is another strange peculiar way that this survival response works. In prehistoric times, if man was running away from something, he was probably running away from a threat. If man was running towards something, he was probably running toward a prey animal (lunch). For example running with a club or spear towards a deer. This has served us well to find food for millions of years.
Have you ever noticed how if you try your very best to avoid a pothole by keeping your eyes on it, and yet you steer your car right into it? Keeping your eyes focused on a target while moving towards it will cause your brain to steer you towards that target.
Its also the same thing that happens to a motorcyclist when he knocks a sole pedestrian on a wide road. All the while the motorcyclist keeps his eyes on the pedestrian and his brain’s actions moves the bike right for a collision course. And the motorcyclist never intended it on purpose.
So there you have it! A million year old program running in an ultra modern world. Catch the next article on the paralysis response and how we react to it in this modern world.
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// Categories: Science & Research
// Tags: Self Defense, starvation response, survival Back to top
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