How Adrenaline Makes a Person Stronger and More Powerful in Stressful Situations

In “The Science of Adrenaline” by Life Noggin, narrator Pat Graziosi explains through minimalist animation, how the adrenal gland sets into motion a series of automatic responses in the body that causes a person to act most efficiently, quickly and powerfully when encountering stressful “fight or flight” situations.

In this kind of situation sensory information of the fuzzy threat in front of you eventually reaches your brain’s hypothalamus. From here the body sympathetic nervous system is activated. This causes you to tense up speed up and become much more alert. At the same time a signal is sent to your 2 adrenal glands triggering them to release epinephrine or adrenaline into the bloodstream along with norepinephrine and cortisol the stress warmer. So now your body is ready for anything. Your heart rate and blood pressure increases, your pupils dilate to take in more light, more blood is sent to your muscles and your muscles tense up. Basically what I’m saying is that you are the Hulk right now.

Lori Dorn
Lori Dorn

Lori is a Laughing Squid Contributing Editor based in New York City who has been writing blog posts for over a decade. She also enjoys making jewelry, playing guitar, taking photos and mixing craft cocktails.

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