The Little Black Book of Decision Making by Michael Nicholas

Author:Michael Nicholas
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780857087058
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2017-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

Our Evolutionary Heritage

Although a lot of stress these days is dysfunctional, at its root, stress makes perfect sense: it is our instinctive biological response to fear. The reaction itself is probably prehistoric, because we can see that it is triggered in a primitive area of the brain which is an inheritance from our pre-human past. Even the most ancient organisms display this type of response, despite lacking the complex brains that many species have today, and we can see it in all animals.

For animals in the wild, survival depends on remaining constantly alert to their surroundings for any sign of a threat, and a specialised part of the brain, called the amygdala, developed to handle this capability. If a gazelle gets the slightest hint of a tiger in the vicinity, its amygdala triggers a response, via another part of the brain called the hypothalamus which looks after some of our most basic drives; this then activates all of the bodily systems necessary to mobilise as much energy as possible to enable it to flee. This is a perfect “adaptive” response in those circumstances. In other species, this same energy would enable them to prepare to, quite literally, fight for their lives. Hence its name: the fight-or-flight mechanism. We also call it the threat response or stress response.

When this reaction gets triggered, its effect throughout our body is remarkable. Muscles get prepared for action as extra blood is pumped to them. Heart rate and breathing are optimised for maximum physical performance. The senses become heightened and the mind is tuned to be super-alert. Concentration intensifies. Non-essential bodily processes, like digestion and repair, cease (it is not the time to digest a meal when you are about to be eaten!), and feelings of hunger and thirst subside. And in human beings, one other thing also happens that has a critical impact on decision making: we stop thinking.

With the activation of the threat response, brain activity changes as blood is channelled into the hind brain and away from the forebrain. This hind brain deals with automatic reactions, so that we can maximise our ability to cope with what is happening right now, whilst the forebrain is like the captain of the ship, giving us the potential to set a new course: to think, then react.

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