Читать книгу Phobias, Disappointments and Grief: A Fast Remedy - Андрей Ермошин - Страница 14

Fear leads to an increased heart rate and hyperventilation; it increases blood pressure, a person feels hot, there’s tension in the muscles, the pupils are dilated, and all the senses are heightened. When this happens, other functions, such as those responsible for digestion, rest and sexual interest are slowed down or upset. This is done in order to prepare the body for an attack or retreat. Mobilization effects are connected with the active work of the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system.

Fig. 1. Physiology of the autonomic nervous system: as we see, the work of the sympathetic nervous system mobilizes the body, and parasympathetic brings it back to calmness and helps to store energy.

The opposite reaction is a collapse: blood pressure falls, and a person feels cool and close to fainting.

This reaction can be compared to the one of a bug that got touched: it keeps still and doesn’t make a single move.

There have been cases when people froze as if they were dead when meeting a bear, and the bear walked away.

We can see the similar reaction in the painting “The Nightmare” by Johann Heinrich Füssli (1741—1825). Fear is sitting on the stomach, while the mind is “switched off”.

Such reaction can be justified at the moment of danger but the problem is that the person remains in this state even after the danger has passed. The body seems to find it hard to return from the extreme mode to a normal state.

Fig. 2. J.H. Füssli. The Nightmare. 1790.