Stress Makes You Stupid (The Neuroscience of Survival)

After every emergency, mass murder, or questionable use of force by police, all the armchair quarterbacks come out. From the comfort of their living room or their parents’ basement, they second-guess the people involved, and always ask, “Why’d he do this? Why didn’t she do that?”

The short answer is: because stress makes you STUPID! And if you think that being in a life or death situation won’t make YOU stupid, you’re probably wrong. Here’s why.

We all know about stress, and how bad it is. Dealing with lousy traffic, or not being able to pay your bills, or having relationship issues definitely sucks. But, normally, they are not matters of SURVIVAL.

This is a simplified diagram of your brain. Normally, we live in the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer. It’s basically the part that allows us to think, talk, and make snarky comments on the internet.

That outer layer is wrapped around deeper structures in your brain. Several of those are grouped together into what’s sometimes called the Limbic System. This is the part of our brain that’s responsible for keeping us alive.

What armchair quarterbacks don’t realize is that in a survival situation — a true survival situation — your body pumps out hormones that take the resources that you normally use…