Adversity and Human Physiology

John Creighton · 2004-05-06 11:07:33

Often people justify their behavior on there past behavior, but what does adversity, stress, depression, anger do to the physiology of a human. What percentage of people will snap under extreme conditions? We can relate this to being trapped in a spaceship to mars or we could relate this to a war here on earth. Aside from the physical causalities of war, what is its toll in terms of mental health? What does sending people to war do to the survivors?

clark · 2004-05-06 11:24:00

Basically, we're all crazy to begin with. We developing coping techniques to deal with stressful situations and environments. You see this with people who are in complete denial about a situation, even when confronted with factual information, to the other extreme where people lose themselves within the information as a means to escape the actual environment or situation.

The mind is inherently lazy, looking to keep the body going. When it can't, due to extreme stress (like war or death of loved ones) it cracks. It's like your mind is drowning in information overload or emotional overload and it dosen't know how to find a stable point to latch onto.

This is how neurosis or nervous habits start to develop- it works as a mechanism to relieve the stress within the body and maintain the ego. So you see people wash their hands, check the locks repeadtly, drink, whatever- it's a form of escaping the stress of the environment.

In a situation like space, which is nothing but stress, we will probably see a greater degree of neuroses develop- people will be a bit eccentric or odd from our "normal" perspective).

I dunno, kind of a general question you posed, so this is a bit of a general answer.

John Creighton · 2004-05-07 12:07:37

Good answer. I know next to nothing about Psychology but expect it an interesting topic. When possessing such a question I thought I might open up a Pandora’s box. That is, maybe there may be some posts about how war brings out the worst in people. But who knows, maybe most people retain most of their moral principles in such a stressful environment. I’d like to know some statistics. But then again I don’t even know if such statistics would be possible to gather. One thing I question in your answer is when you use the statement “were all”. Psychologically are we really all that similar? Maybe we could say that around 90% of people, but I question such broad generalizations. Another interesting question is what are the psychological consequences of training soldiers. We train people to suppress what holds them back from killing. What are the social consequences of these actions.

clark · 2004-05-07 12:31:10

One thing I question in your answer is when you use the statement “were all”. Psychologically are we really all that similar?

More or less, yes. However, people vary in their ability to deal with certain situations. It all goes back to ego maintenance, or why you do the things you do.

Military training is all about teaching an individual to be able to cope and function within the stressful environments found in the military, and in war. Repeated exsposure to probable stress environments allows the individual to develop and learn how to operate effectively within it. So, for example, we teach our troops to fire guns with live ammo, and run them through obstacle courses that are as similar to the "real" thing as possible. All of this is to routinize the experience.

An everyday example: Ever travel? Generally, when we travel to new locations, it is a stressful experience. Why? because our mind is forced to deal with new sensory input. It can't take a break becuase it's trying to process and understand all of the new smells, sounds, and interactions into a coherent whole. We don't feel tired at home, and generally we are more relaxed at home, or in areas that reduce the sensory input. Our mind can take a break, it dosen't have to work as hard to try and understand what is going on.

Now, we can all deal with a stressfull environment from time to time, but we get tired. So we rest, our mind takes a break, and then we can go back into the thick of it. However, what happens when we can't take a break? That's when we start pushing the limits of what we can cope with. Once we pass the point where we can cope with the stressful environment, two things can either happen: we shut down (which is seen in comotose reactions, or veterns who kind of stare off into the distance, or start absuing drugs). This in effect is the way the mind tries to save the body, it shuts down and refuses to process the sensory input. Basically, the ego shuts down.

If we don't shut down, then we usually develop some "coping" technique to de-stress. This can take the form of playing cards in the middle of battle, to cutting off the ears of our enemies. It's the minds way of dealing with the stressfull environment and maintaing our ego- who we are. Now there is a wide range of how our behaviour might come across in dealing with the stressful environment in this situation, not all of them bad. Generally, what we try to do, is develop positive coping techniques- these are things that don't destroy us or remove us from the environment too much. So perhaps writing poetry for some is it, or playing cards, chess, etc. Negative coping techniques are things that remove you from the environment or make you worse off. Things like raping and killing innocent people, abusing drugs or going off to start your own little army in the jungle. Generally, these are bad things.

. Another interesting question is what are the psychological consequences of training soldiers. We train people to suppress what holds them back from killing. What are the social consequences of these actions.

It's usually not in people to kill. Most have to be taught to do it. Of course there is the sociopath (someone who knows it is wrong, but has no moral guidance to control the compulsion). Once you teach someone to kill, that dosen't in itself make them any more dangerous- they have a moral compass of some sort (save the sociopaths) that allows them to not kill. All we are doing by teaching them to kill is how to do it right, making them more effective when they employ the ability (we all have this ability afterall, it's just most of us never actually act on it). When someone does kill though, well, it's iffy in my opinion. Killing is crossing a line, and once you've done it one time, the lines between more killing is rather fuzzy. It's gets fuzzy too becuase killing a person is about one of the hardest things just about anyone might do (generally speaking), and killing is a pretty stressfull experience, so people react to the experience differently. Some deal with it well, some poorly, which all goes back to how the experience affects them individualy and how they end up coping with it.

John Creighton · 2004-05-07 12:38:56

Just Curious. Have you studied much physiology before Clark? You seem well versed in it.

clark · 2004-05-07 12:45:13

Physiology? No. But I know a bit about psychology. :;):

John Creighton · 2004-05-07 22:27:03

It has been suggested to me that maybe the people committing the prisoner abuses were not in a particular stressful situation. I wonder what brought the people to do such things. Are soldiers taught, that all prisoners deserve basic dignity and human rights regardless of how some may judge the prisoners?

John Creighton · 2004-05-07 22:38:42

I wonder how effective drugs are at relieving peoples stress? Alcohol can help people escape a situation but is hard on the hart. Thus its either stress or alcohol putting stress on the hart. Majahawna makes people worry less about stuff but people start to loose ambition to work or learn. I also wonder what it may do to brain chemistries.

In another metal problem depression, antidepressants can be effective for people at first but I believe over time people become immune to them and they don’t work. I think drugs should be used as a last resort. I think it may be beneficial to teach young people more about common psychological problems such as stress, anxiety and depression. If drugs such as alcohol can lead to these problems young people should be taught more about these issues. I remember in school people talking about how drugs kill brain cells. But there are many smart people that drink, smoke, and possibly use some other substances. However, if someone is chronically depressed they cannot think regardless of how many brain cells they have.

John Creighton · 2004-05-07 22:47:28

It is interesting what you said that eccentric behavior is a coping strategy. That could explain why so many really smart people are eccentric. The drive to be the smartest form most people must involve a fair amount of mental stress.

Byron · 2004-05-08 06:02:35

Interesting topic. Hopefully we'll get some more people weighing in on this

Getting back to the people-in-space issue, I think the best place to start is reading accounts of people who have served on "winterover" crews down at the South Pole, and the stresses of living for months in extreme isolation in extreme conditions. For one thing, depression is a serious issue that has to be constantly monitored by a doctor...there was one case I read where a maintance engineer at a remote outpost got so depressed that he neglected the building's power generator, nearly killing them all. Not to mention the time in which the only doctor at the South Pole had cancer and had to resort to self-treatment before they could airlift her out of there...talk about dealing with a stressful situation!

Personally, in regards to going on a 3-year long space mission, the ego is the one thing that *has* to be left behind on Earth, otherwise they'll be going after each other's throats, and probably sooner rather than later. As how to do this, I'll leave that up to the pros...LOL... Maybe they'll have a "psych" computer on board that would keep an eye out for behavioral troubles before they explode out into the open, although you'd probably have to have full-blown A.I. to have something like this. A more practical approach (in my humble view, of course..lol) to dealing with the stresses of such a long voyage is the practice of meditative techniques and the pyschological "bonding" of the crew with each other; i.e., essentially operating as a single, harmonious unit instead of 4 different minds (and egos) competing with each other, which would be a huge no-no inside a rotating tin can 100,000,000 kilometers from home. Again, I'll have to let the professionals chew on that as well..lol.

B

clark · 2004-05-10 09:36:27

It has been suggested to me that maybe the people committing the prisoner abuses were not in a particular stressful situation. I wonder what brought the people to do such things. Are soldiers taught, that all prisoners deserve basic dignity and human rights regardless of how some may judge the prisoners?

I was taught to look both ways before crossing the street. I don't always do it.

Soldiers are taught many things, but all people are taught to do hate others. To be able to hate others. The men and women who carried out the abuse did not see these actions as inhumane, because they didn't see the people they were doing this to as human. As regular people.

You don't hate a "criminal", you hate the "rapist" the "child-molestor" the "murder" the "traitor" the "sociopath". We create new lables for people and things to rationalize our behavior, to justify our actions within ourself. It goes back to ego mainteance. beating on people that you identify as yourself is stressful. Beating on the animal" that kills your friends is easy because you don't see this person as a person anymore. It's a coping technique. Just like, "I was doing my job, following orders." This is a way to live with the actions you make (kind of like, "it was war, and I had to kill the women and children.")

I wonder how effective drugs are at relieving peoples stress?

Depends. Usually people fall into two catagories here: The ones who need constant medication because of hormonal and neurological imbalances that precludes them from ever attaining a "normal" balance. This is a fancy way of saying that you're wired wrong, so it's not your fault. It's like being too short or too tall. The other side are those who don't need it, but require medication to bring them to a state where they can start to learn how to deal with there problems and stress on a consious level. This kind of process involves getting people out of stress via medication so that way they can learn positive ways to deal with it on their own, so they don't get stressed out to begin with.

Abusing drugs (like booze or other types of addiction) is a way of escaping the stress- it's avoidance, and never solves anything. It merely makes the stress go away for a little while. but the problem is that nothing ever gets better. Nothing is dealt with to reduce the stress in the future.

So say you have problems at school because of some teacher- drinking dosen't make the teacher go away. Dealing with the underlying reasons for your problems (say like studying mroe or discussing your fears with the teacher) are not solved by drinking. Indeed, it only compounds the issue.

But there are many smart people that drink, smoke, and possibly use some other substances.

All true, and what does that tell us? That taking drugs is not neccessarily a bad thing, it just seems that a great many who do take them suffer some kind of problems. The drugs aren't bad, the same way aspirin isn't bad. It just depends on how they are being used, under what circumstances, and for what effect.

Generally though, using drugs just tend to lead to abuse- some people take longer than others though for it to be seen.

bolbuyk · 2004-05-11 12:03:51

The physiological reactions to stress, depression, anxiety, and so on are well-known, even described by statistics. Persons differ really in that respect. Biological factors contribute to these differences, but also the earliest experiences in life.

Astronauts should be selected on such criteria to dangerous situations. When somebody is 40 years old it's quite simple to check his history to know he is more likely to react strongly in psychologic terms.

On the other hand, psychological risk-factors should not made more difficult than is necessary. That's one of the reasons I prefer to make an opposition-class mission to limit the time in interplanatary space. The amount of stress this will bring is hard to predict. For further missions we can learn from this and design conjunction-class missions.

bolbuyk · 2004-05-11 12:06:47

I don't prefer continuous administration of drugs: Always they have side-effects.

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Re: Adversity and Human Physiology

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