What’s it Take to Actually Scare Someone to Death?

This might do it for me:

There was a hated college assistant at a University that the students kidnapped. They decided to do a mock execution of the assistant as a prank. He was bound and his eyes were bandaged. His head placed on a chopping block. Someone nearby swung axe down onto wood at the exact moment another student dropped a warm washcloth onto the back of his neck. He died instantly. – Paraphrased; Physician George Engel, in a 1971 review in Annals of Internal Medicine

The term being “scared to death” is an integral part of our culture as a means of expressing extreme fear. Fear strong enough to kill you. But what does that actually mean?

When your body feels fear or senses danger, a chemical process occurs. This is called a fight or flight response. What it does:

• Acceleration of heart and lung action
• Inhibition of stomach and intestinal action
• Constriction of blood vessels in many parts of the body
• Liberation of nutrients for muscular action
• Dilation of blood vessels for muscles
• Inhibition of tear glands and salivation
• Dilation of pupil
• Relaxation of bladder
• Inhibition of erection

All of these are usually a good thing if you’re about to have to defend yourself or run away. Except for maybe the bladder relaxation…
All of this is caused by a cascade of chemicals coming from your body as directed by your brain when it perceives “novel stimuli”. This could be an immediate threat to your physical well-being, such as an impending car wreck or the mock execution above. This can also come from a perceived threat to your mental state, such as when you get stage fright. Even thinking about the above situations can add enough anxiety to trigger this response in some people. For instance, Kenneth Lay recently died of heart-attack while awaiting sentencing for his participation in the ENRON scandal.

But this is a defense mechanism, not a self-destruct system. So what goes wrong? Martin A. Samuels, a neurologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston has dedicated his life to studying sudden deaths. He explains in an ABC News Article:

That rush can set off a life-threatening process: Pupils dilate, muscles prepare for action, and the heart is flooded with chemicals from the nervous system.

For most, the process ends there without injury.

“This chemical goes back into the bloodstream. The heart goes back to normal, and we walk away,” Samuels said.

But the neurologist believes that for a very rare few, if they’re scared enough and feel there is no escape route, that jolt of chemicals can physically damage the heart.

In extreme cases, it can cause sudden death.

You’re much more vulnerable to this sympathetic back-fire if you have a pre-existing heart condition or your body is already under considerable physical stress, such as a woman during pregnancy. That’s why those people can’t ride roller-coasters or go to haunted houses.

If you’re healthy, this chemical cocktail will help you deal with a situation in which you’re required to go above and beyond what may be normal physical activity. But if you’re body isn’t able to handle the kick-start, you might just shut down completely. I can see this becoming a bigger problem as our society continues to travel a road populated with drive-thrus and value menus.

It’s also a factor that we rarely encounter emergencies that require the extreme physical effort this process prepares us for. We may find our stress response activated in situations where physical action is inappropriate, illegal or self-detructive.

Prolonged or repeated stress can also suppress your immune system and your ability to do important things like ejaculate or go to the bathroom, as well as invoke post-traumatic stress disorder (shell shock). All of these are problems that induce more stress and anxiety amongst our peer groups and have all kinds of psychological and physical effects on our body. It can be a vicious circle that leads up to a camel’s-back-breaking straw of a scare.

So, it’s not likely to kill you, if you’re somewhat healthy. But it’s definitely not an urban legend. It’s one of those things that’s really freakish and – BOO!

Still with me? Good.

[tags] fear, scared to death, fight, flight, adrenaline [/tags]