Posted by IsoM on October 15, 2002, at 6:38:36
In reply to Does anxiety serve any purpose?, posted by Tabßitha on October 15, 2002, at 3:19:49
I had once thought, as a child, that life as a prey animal in nature would be a horrible way to live - always nervously looking over your shoulder, wondering when you were the next meal. I had decided I would rather be a predator.
But anxiety doesn't work like that for animals. If you ever watch nature shows, you'll see a herd tear off in terror as a lion goes after it but when the lions have selected their target, the other herd animals will slow down, sometimes watch, but return to eating again. Same with small birds when a predator bird like a hawk or eagle targets one & then flies off with it. It's amazing how calmly the rest return to normal activities.
Like Beardy said, anxiety serves a purpose to suddenly enervate one to react quickly with single-minded purpose. Reactions speed up, heart rate, blood pressure, & strength all increase. It enables one to react in a super-human capacity. I had read years ago of an old semi-crippled grandmother in China who fought off & killed a healthy leopard with a large branch that had attacked her & her two grandchildren when they went for a walk one day. It was that "fight or flight" response that gave her the ability.
Trouble is, in modern man, our response has gone 'whacko'. Animals respond quickly to a sudden need then calm down almost as quickly - the stress hormones clearing out of their system in a matter of minutes. But because of the stresses of life for most of us now, we live in a state of perpetual low stress & our system stays aroused. We rarely calm down as we were meant to do. The effects of this long term stress & the hormones it produces causes many of the ills associated with modern man. Our bodies don't get the chance to return to normal low stress levels but stay hyperaroused. Ever read how salmon die enmasse upstream after spawning? Their death is the result of massive levels of stress hormones building up to the point where their body's system break down totally. That's what sustained stress hormones can do when not checked.
That's why exercise is so good for relieving stress & depression. It clears the body of the long term stress hormones - anxiety & stress keys us up to move fast but we 'freeze' instead. Exercise allows our bodies to return to the resting state that a normal physical reaction to real danger would've given. And that's one reason that exercise needs to be sustained for a short while & done regularly to really benefit us. We've built up stress over along period of time & the return to normal doesn't happen overnight.
poster:IsoM
thread:31168
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20021010/msgs/31173.html