Comments on: Your Brain on Courage

By: Chuckfrey

Chuckfrey — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 18:24:00 +0000

You speak so much mumbo jumbo it grieves me. You have no professional qualifications from what you have stated and do brain science great injustice. I wish we could meet cause I would love to take you out in court. You need to be behind bars for a while.

By: Bosuntom

Bosuntom — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 16:40:13 +0000

fearlessness is not courage. It can often just be foolishness. True courage is conquering fear; or that is what I have been telling people over twenty years of tall-ship sailtraining.
Within a week I was always able to convince the most timid that they could survive working aloft more than 100 feet above the deck. I never tried to banish their rational fear of falling from a great height, just conquer that terror into a manageable fear. Most eventually fairly comfortable aloft. Those who didn't still managed to combat their terror and grew immeasurably in confidence to take on other challenges. This new found cofidence, I have often been assured, was later reflected in many other aspects of their lives.

Ironically, after a lifetime of derring-do adventure, mad escapades, barroom brawling and taking on all comers (especially if bigger than me) I myself learned what terror is. I went back to university to study philosophy and had to work very hard to keep abreast of the intense workload the young students took in their stride.
The exams became a source of terror for me. My mind would regularly go blank when I sat in the exam hall and was confronted with a paper that I knew I had the answers to. My memory would just freeze. I found the answer in Dutch Courage. I would drink a quarter pint of good navy rum just before going into the exam hall and that would dull my fears and, more relaxed, the knowlege I had studied so hard for would surface. If the exam was a long one, say three hours, I was in trouble as the rum induced euphoria would wear off. To combat this when I first sat down to write I would quickly scan the questions and scribble aide-memoirs on the back page of each answer paper. I had to do this for four years, and it was my greatest challenge, certainly intellectually, in my long, wild and feckless life. Running right on the horns of the bulls in Pamplona, which I did for some years, was not as scarey.
Exams taught me that adrenaline has both colour and smell.

Which part of my feeble brain malfunctioned I am curious to know when I, regarded by those who know me as fearless but under no physical threat, could fold before a piece of paper covered in questions I believed I knew the answers to.
But I had to show more balls in the exam hall than I ever did when fighting a flogging topsail in a severe gale one hundred plus feet above a wild sea.

By: June

June — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 05:01:42 +0000

I am a many modality therapist and about 4 years ago I began research on the Amygdala gland. I label it the “glue that holds the memories in place”. I work energetically between the brainstem and a point on the eyebrow to access the gland. It works best on someone who has had a traumatic event in their lives that continually triggers a fear response. I think this is undoing the cellular memory.

By: Miss Demeanour

Miss Demeanour — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 06:20:46 +0000

That may be one particular form of 'courage' but it's not the one I'm familiar with. That seems to be more to do with a love of adrenalin rushes. I'm always told I have courage and I definitely would have pressed for the snake to be further away. My courage is in confronting injustice, in standing up to people who are bullies even though I feel very scared. I always stood up to my bullying adoptive father even though it meant I'd be hit or locked up and he was very scary. I stood up to the police when they arrested me on false charges and I'll stand up to the person who made those false charges even though he may try to have me arrested again. I even stood up to my vicar and told him that what he was preaching was wrong and oppressive to women. Quite a few people thanked me afterwards and hugged me for having the courage to do it.

By: Rick

Rick — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:56:58 +0000

As a practicing hypnotherapist, I have seen people significantly reduce or eliminate their fear or anxiety through a process of 1) Becoming aware of the physical symptoms fear produces in their body, 2) realizing that, while uncomfortable, those physical symptoms won't kill them and teaching them that therefore they can actually choose to “strengthen” the physical symptoms – welcoming them, daring them to get stronger, taunting them “you can't really hurt me, go ahead heart beat faster, go ahead hands sweat even more,” etc.. (This step may be firing off the ” sgACC courage center?), and 3) A greater sense of self control returns and the fear or anxiety diminishes. Without the fear to feed them, the physical symptoms collapse. Using this process in conjunction with hypnosis has been highly effective for many of my clients and I have often felt that they were exercising a kind of courage.

By: Joanna

Joanna — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 20:34:27 +0000

I feel very little fear for which I am grateful. I liked this article because I didn't know any of this before. Thank you

By: Joline

Joline — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:08:50 +0000

I need some deep brain stimulation then, I am scared of everything. This was interesting and kind of weird.

By: Radel

Radel — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:06:36 +0000

Thanks for sharing this. Very interesting stuff.