Nerves / adrenaline? Psychological? Advice please

[red_coyote]

Hi,

Whenever I get into a confrontation (eg. scumbags, drunken folk, road ragers, whatever), I end up feeling a bit physically weak and slightly shaky.

It's not due to fear, or anger, so I guess it's either too much adrenaline or a psychological reaction to violence (or the possibility of).

Is this common?
Is there a simple way of overcoming it? It's not a good state to be in when there's a bad situation brewing.

 

[Nomad]

Adrenaline is very common, and can easily produce the feeling you're describing as your body gets prepared for either violence or the necessity to flee from it. Similar physiological responses frequently come after the danger passes as well, as the body gets rid of the adrenaline by releasing cortisol.

It has nothing to do with fear or being cowardly, but is your body's natural response (trained over millennia from the point of view of both predator and prey) to danger that is not controlled by your conscious brain any more than your heart rate is.

The extent of the response varies from person to person, and from situation to situation. It is possible to lessen the effects over time by deliberately placing yourself in positions that trigger the effect to some degree (for some, this could be sparring, for others, it might be giving a speech in front of an audience!). In other words, by inoculating yourself somewhat to the stimulus that causes the response (preferably while keeping yourself in an otherwise safe environment).

 

[zDom]

Hi,

Whenever I get into a confrontation (eg. scumbags, drunken folk, road ragers, whatever), I end up feeling a bit physically weak and slightly shaky.

Me too. At least the shaky part.

It's not due to fear, or anger, so I guess it's either too much adrenaline or a psychological reaction to violence (or the possibility of).

Correct. I once received a syringe shot of adrenaline: it was an enlightening moment to feel the effects of adrenaline while knowing without a doubt what I was feeling was purely chemical and had nothing to do at that moment with fear or anger.

Is this common?
Is there a simple way of overcoming it? It's not a good state to be in when there's a bad situation brewing.

Common? I'd say so, yea.

And it IS a good state to be in — if you learn how to channel that additional speed and power.

IMO, this is the value of competition and testing: if you can make it stressful enough that you get charged up with adrenaline, then you can learn to perform under those conditions and get experience and familiarity performing under those conditions.

 

[Explorer]

It's at least a natural state to be in. Whether it's good or not depends on how you use it. If you can keep thinking clearly ... you can use adrenal stress response to your best advantage ... if you can't think ... well, good luck ....

Randori and free fighting can help with the physical side ... the psychological side is another story. I've been training all my life to handle the non-physical side of confrontations better. I've learned a couple of things ...

1. Conflict is not the enemy. Conflict is an opportunity to make positive change.

2. Begin with the end in mind. <bow to Stephen Covey> As the confrontation unfolds you need to consider how you would like things to turn out and act accordingly.

3. If the attack does come ... welcome it. View it as yet another opportunity to make positive change.

Now, if I could only get myself into that headspace when someone flips me off on the highway.

Best Wishes,

Explorer

 

[Aiki Lee]

Seems like a common response to me. The weakness may come as a result of crash after your body dumps all the sugar into the bloodstream, but hey I'm not a doctor. I just play one on tv.

 

[Kyosanim]

Hi,

Whenever I get into a confrontation (eg. scumbags, drunken folk, road ragers, whatever), I end up feeling a bit physically weak and slightly shaky.

It's not due to fear, or anger, so I guess it's either too much adrenaline or a psychological reaction to violence (or the possibility of).

Is this common?
Is there a simple way of overcoming it? It's not a good state to be in when there's a bad situation brewing.

I have experienced this before myself. Keep in mind that despite feeling weak it can be an advantage. Once in a car accident I had it happen, and the whole thing was in slow motion because the adrenaline can speed up your perceptions. Just don't see red. One other time my friend and I were sparring with wooden weapons. I had a sword, he had spear, and we were really going at it. I just could not get past the reach of the spear and we kept going harder and harder. His movements were just so quick I could not block all the shots with sideways movements. Finally I managed to drop the blade and block one of his thrusts with the tsuba or guard of my sword and move in for the win. After words we were really tired, and everyone who was watching said we were moving so fast they had a hard time tracking our movements.
Point being there is no way I could have blocked that spear with the guard without the rush, or moved that fast. Just don't lose your head.

 

[sgtmac_46]

Hi,

Whenever I get into a confrontation (eg. scumbags, drunken folk, road ragers, whatever), I end up feeling a bit physically weak and slightly shaky.

It's not due to fear, or anger, so I guess it's either too much adrenaline or a psychological reaction to violence (or the possibility of).

Is this common?
Is there a simple way of overcoming it? It's not a good state to be in when there's a bad situation brewing.

Fight/Flight/Posture/Submit

It's our bodies evolved adrenal response preparation to deal with physical conflict. Elevated heart rate, vasoconstriction, tunnel vision, etc.

It's as bad a state as you might think.........the key is adrenal training where you can learn to train while in that state.

What you experience as discomfort in that state is it's unfamiliar nature. If you train in that state you become more comfortable in it. It actually helps you once you understand it and learn to control it.


As a police officer i've been in that adrenal state quite a few times. You learn after a while that it makes your reflexes sharper, it speeds up your response time, and actually gives you extra strength and pain resistence. But you have to learn not to freeze up, which many folks do because it's an uncomfortable state to be in. Adrenal training is key.

 

[Bruno@MT]

As a police officer i've been in that adrenal state quite a few times. You learn after a while that it makes your reflexes sharper, it speeds up your response time, and actually gives you extra strength and pain resistence. But you have to learn not to freeze up, which many folks do because it's an uncomfortable state to be in. Adrenal training is key.

It also inhibits the complex reasoning skills. It's hard making conscious decisions when the adrenalin hits. Almost everything you do will be the result of instinct and ingrained training.

 

[Chris Parker]

We are constantly reminding our students that in a real situation they will experience an adrenal dump (as well as the endorphin release that comes along afterwards), and that that adrenal dump will have a number of effects. In short, we usually say that it will make you "stronger, faster, feel less pain". The point we also make to them is that the opponent will also have an adrenal dump... making them stronger, faster, feel less pain.

There are other effects, though, which we also go through, such as tunnel-vision (leaving you open to wide strikes and other attackers), a loss of higher brain functions (including the ability to form sentences), a loss of fine motor skills (such as intricate locks and holds, and fine targeting). In regard to the OP, another aspect is that it triggers your fine-twitch fibres, in preparation for whatever action is needed (specifically flight or fight). This doesn't mean that you're scared (as can be misinterpreted), just that you're getting ready for movement.

When it comes to the fight/flight/freeze responce (as well as posture and submit), there are a few factors to determine what will happen. The first thing is that you get an adrenal dump. Okay, we're there already. The next major factor is often distance. You (or the opponent) will be more likely to fight in a close distance (within about 6 feet), and more disposed towards flight from a greater distance (over 10 feet). Between those can be a grey area, and will come down to previous experience more than anything else. Freeze is what happens when you are within the "fight" distance, but have no prior experience or confidence in your fighting ability (in other words, there is no strong "fight" responce loaded into your unconscious responces, or you have a value system that does not include fighting ability, either you have unconscious programming that you shouldn't fight, or you don't truly believe that your training will work, etc). When it comes to posture or submit, they are animalistic responces (hard-wired into the subconscious on a genetic level), and are simple survival actions. Both simply seek to avoid danger and violence, the posturing to appear too dangerous to attack, and the submitting by appearing to not be a threat.

As a result, I feel that it is vital to not only train with adrenal-stress training, but also to understand the why's and wherefore's of such training. The majority of your training (if you are being realistic) should always have at least some component of adrenaline training involved. But you can't just train with adrenaline and hope that'll be enough. You need to train with the adrenaline, and then focus on pushing past the limitations as much as possible. For example to overcome the effect of having your vision tunnel, get yourself adrenalised, then focus on your peripheral vision. This way you will gradually limit how much your vision tunnels.

 

[TigerLove]

Maybe you want to read my post / thread about this..hope will help you someway!

http://martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=84288

 

[Chris Parker]

Sorry TigerLove, was that to me or the OP?

 

[TigerLove]

No, to red_coyote, but when you mentioned, it would be glad for me to hear opinnion on my thread from you!

 

[Chris Parker]

Had a quick read through, there's little I could add honestly.

Oh, and I hope red_coyote does come back to read it as well, although I'm not holding out a lot of hope. He made this (his only ) post the day he joined, came back the next day, and hasn't been back since.

 

[TigerLove]

Well he knows what is the best for him. Hope he found a way to deal with stress!

 

[sgtmac_46]

It also inhibits the complex reasoning skills. It's hard making conscious decisions when the adrenalin hits. Almost everything you do will be the result of instinct and ingrained training.

Absolutely. The mid-brain takes over. You only accomplish physically what you've trained enough to have installed as a conditioned response.

In the adrenal state you'll default to your highest level of mastered physical skills.


As for complex reason, it doesn't just inhibit complex reasoning...........it removes the reasoning part of the brain as the one who is in the driver's seat. The monkey is running the works in the adrenal state, while the complex reasoning brain is conducting a running mental commentary mostly devoid of any control over the body........or at least that's been my personal experience.

In the crisis adrenal situations i've been involved in, I felt like an outside observer watching what was going on. The result if you're trained properly is that the monkey does the job. The result for those who haven't trained properly is freezing up.

 

[Mark Jordan]

It's a natural reaction. Are you training in martial arts? A boost in self-confidence can counteract that.

 

[Laus]

Very normal, and can be an advantage if you know how to recognize it and work with it. Early in my training the thought of performing in front of people and being tested freaked me out, so that stress became helpful in learning how to control it.

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

I've been in fight where I feel all that and I have been in them and felt pretty much nothing other than the contact of engaement.

At 13 I had the worst dump ever (to me) and I almost froze. I had been in a nasty fight a month or so before and I think we both had an effect on each other (We were later friends and had a talk about this, he had the same response in his next fight).

Anyways I get confronted by this big bastard and I flet the dump, i felt weak and I froze in place. Lucky for me he did not engage me.

Later I flet like a coward, it really screwd me up, I thought I had lost it, I had been in many fights and up untill the aforementioned fight, I actually liked to fight, injuries and all I loved to take it to someone trying to intimadate or harm myself or mine. Man I thought I had a gift for fighting up till then.

I talked to 2 people, my TKD Instructor and an Uncle of mine who had been a pretty well known hardass in his time.

My uncle helped the most. "I feel the same thing everytime there is a build up, man I want to puke, ****, piss and fall out all at once, so I learned that is the time to go for it and then you forget all about it, time slows down and you focus on beating him down and dont feel his fist unless he gets you square."

So the next time soneone made me feel like that I went right for them and ended up knocking out 2 of his teeth, breaking 2 ribs, bruised his balls and stomped on him as he rolled on the ground and begged me to stop.
He went from acting like a stereotypical Ghetto thug, telling me how he was going to bust my face and sodomize me to becomeing a broken punk.

It is a gift, it's just those who are not used to it wont see it as so because it can be so sickening and debilitating.

The downside was for a long time, if you made me scared, I hurt you quick. Not good in polite society but very valuable in the crap Hood I lived in and the Hellhole of a school I went to.

I can control it now, rather well but for a couple of years I just went with it.

I am a beleiver in scenario training for this reason, to get people used to it as much as they can and to ID what is happening to you.

Even someone like me or someone like JKS, who has to be brave as a matter of proffession still need this kind of training, you can lose it.

 

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

Weird how you talk about something and then latter that day or week you come up against it.

Last night I had a situation on my front lawn.

Long story short it started with some punk peeling out and skidding out and driving fast right in front of my home. I have a 7 a 4 and a 1 year old and I care about my neighbors kids as well, lot's of kids on the street.

Anyways I was outside when this happend, I wont get into to much more of the buildup but long story short one of his friends jumpd up in my lawn and came for me.

I enterd in on him, we clinched up and he put his face against mine.
I bit something, drove my hand upward on his chin untill his head was half back and as he pushed his head forward I put my finger into the inside corner of his eyesocket and pushed back as I enveloped and then locked up his arm in what we call Tiger lock as my right hand grabbed his windpipe and clamped down. I then gave him a headbutt at about half power and shoved him back.

He was dumb enough to be calling the cops as my Lady was calling the cops.

Im not an any trouble, neither is he, both of us did not press charges.

I had no big adreinal dump before we engaged, but I was angry, controlled anger but angry non the less. I got adrenaline durring and after but no sickness, nervousness, non of it. 2 hours later I was still bouncing off the walls though.

Another thing, I have been in fights where you kind of have a 2 minds thing going, one is focused on the phisical (like heated sparring) and the other on the surroundings and yes I have made weird observations, noticed irrelevent things while fighting and it all feels slowed down.

The weird thing about last night is I had both of those, I was focusing on what was happening and what I was doing, the other part was worried that his friends werre going to jump in and hoping they don't, not out of fear of harm but more for fear of how I will have to escalate and not wanting them to make me kill one or all (I had the means on me and around me, I was armed and their were tools around me as I am fixing a truck.) The weird thing is I had another mind going as well, that part was agggression and vile meanness.

I train hard, I train for nasty situations, we train as if we are going to war in our Dojo. We understand aggression and the emotions that come with it.
All that I know and I don't want to change but I still felt very bad about it afterwards. I would do it again but I still felt bad for the kid (he's 20) when it was over and a bit disgusted with a part of myself that has served me well and kept me around, but non the less, I felt pity and remorse and I think I shoved him back insted of crushing his throat,taking him down or throwing him out of mercy.

As much as I train, I dont want to fight any more, I have more than enough of that in the past. I train to protect me and mine.

I kind of hope the guy learned a lesson about going at a man who is at his home.

 

[Thesemindz]

We are constantly reminding our students that in a real situation they will experience an adrenal dump (as well as the endorphin release that comes along afterwards), and that that adrenal dump will have a number of effects. In short, we usually say that it will make you "stronger, faster, feel less pain". The point we also make to them is that the opponent will also have an adrenal dump... making them stronger, faster, feel less pain.

That's interesting. I always teach my students that the adrenal dump will make them dumber, slower, and less capable.

I'm not saying you're wrong, it will make them more dangerous in other ways, which is of course the evolutionary purpose of the complex chemical reactions we're discussing, and you touch on some of that later in your post, I just think it's an interesting contrast of positions.


-Rob