Why is Fight-or-Flight Still a Thing?

Brain Yapping

Why is Fight-or-Flight still a thing? Our brain’s unhelpful primitive reactions to modern stresses. As a listener points out, a lot of the stress we experience in modern times, and the subsequent harm this does to our mental health, can be pinned on our brain’s fight-or-flight response, reacting to things unnecessarily. But if we now live in a world where physical threats don’t lurk around every corner, and fighting or flying are rarely any use, why do we still have this reaction at all? Dean and Rachel get into how the brain really evolves, and the time scales it requires, as well as unpicking the way modern lockdown life sets off our brain’s stress systems, in the second episode of Brain Yapping: Battle Damaged. Support the podcast, and the Cosmic Shambles Network by subscribing at patreon.com/cosmicshambles