Unthinkable_ Who Survives When Disaster Strikes - and Why - Amanda Ripley [34]
Over the previous two months, there had been a dozen embassy seizures in Latin America alone. At that very moment, Iranian militants were occupying the U.S. embassy in Tehran. Asencio had read accounts of diplomats held hostage, and he himself had recently been involved in negotiations to free a Peace Corps officer held by Colombian guerrillas. Given all that he knew, he did not anticipate things going well for him. “My feeling was that there was absolutely no way I was going to survive,” he remembers. “I was for all intents and purposes, dead.”
The Physiology of Fear
What does it feel like to face death? What happens in our brains as the ground buckles under our feet? Fear guides our reactions in every station of the survival arc. But we’ll consider its effects here, in the beginning of the deliberation phase, because fear is typically at its peak once we’ve grasped the danger we face. Any deliberation that follows will happen through the prism of fear. People’s behavior in a disaster is inexplicable until we understand the effect of fear on the body and mind.
The human fear response looks a lot like the fear response of other animals. So scientists understand fear better than, say, guilt or shame. “Fear is so fundamental,” says brain expert Joseph LeDoux. “There are key environmental triggers that will turn it on and well-worked-out responses that help you cope with it. These things have stuck around through zillions of years of evolution.”
The first rule of fear is that it is primitive. Consider the fact that our hair stands on end in a terrifying situation. What purpose could that possibly serve? Well, none—for us. But scientists believe it may be related to the flashing of feathers in birds or fin extensions in fish—all of which aid in the survival of those creatures. Over the long arc of history, fear has served us very well, and it still does, with some exceptions.
Here is how fear moved through Asencio’s body: first, an unexpected sound registering 90 decibels or louder sets off an instinctive alarm in human beings. A rifle shot registers around 120 to 155 decibels. As soon as Asencio’s ears detected the booming gunshots, before he even realized what they were or that he was afraid, a signal traveled to his brain by way of the auditory nerve. When the signal reached his brainstem, neurons passed along the information to his amygdala, an ancient, almond-shaped mass of nuclei located deep within his brain’s temporal lobes that is central to the human fear circuit. In response, the amygdala set off a cascading series of changes throughout his body. In a flash, Asencio transformed into survival mode—without any conscious decision making on his part.
If Asencio responded like most people, the chemistry of his blood literally changed so that it would be able to coagulate more easily. At the same time, his blood vessels constricted so that he would bleed less if he got hurt. His blood pressure and his heart rate shot up. And a slew of hormones—in particular cortisol and adrenaline—surged through his system, giving his gross-motor muscles a sort of bionic boost. (The hormones are so powerful that, after a life-or-death situation, many people report having an odd, chemical taste in their mouths.)
But the next rule of fear is that for every gift it gives us, it takes one away. Like a country under attack, the human body has limited resources. The brain must decide what to prioritize and what to neglect. Our muscles become taut and ready. Our body creates its own natural painkillers. But our abilities to reason and perceive our surroundings deteriorate. Cortisol interferes with the part of the brain that handles complex thinking. We suddenly have trouble solving problems, even simple ones—like how to put on a life jacket