Just Leave the Light On!
Ever wondered what stress actually does to you? Imagine you are walking down a road in the jungle of Sumatra. This is the only place in the world, where tigers, rhinos, orangutans, and elephants live together in the wild. Since you are by yourself, you are slightly nervous. There are lots of noises in the jungle. Suddenly you hear rustling branches behind you. As you turn around to look, you see a Sunda tiger jumping out on the road and running towards you.
You look at it and you wonder whether the animal might be hostile… No way! If you did that, you would certainly be killed. Mother nature in cooperation with Charles Darwin actually has programmed our brains to assist in a situation like this. Rather than losing precious lime analyzing the life-threatening situation, the thinking part of your brain shuts down completely, meaning that all synapses connecting the different areas of the brain with your nervous system in your body disconnect. The non-conscious part of your brain, autonomous nervous system that usually regulates heart rate, respiration, digestion, and sexual arousal takes over. You now only have access to one of three possible emergency programs available for immediate use: Fight, flight, or play dead.
Why a person chooses one over the other is a huge topic for neuroscience and behavioral sciences. Depending on the stress level and on how much of your brain has shut down, certain personality preference types choose flight over fight. You guessed right. The conflict shy personalities like the farmer and the scientist are more likely to choose flight, while the hunter prefers the fight. However, it is much more complicated than this. If there is a way out of a life-threatening situation, most people tend to choose flight. People who are cornered tend to fight. The third emergency program, play dead, only occurs in situations when the fight or flight mechanism has failed. Playing dead is our last defense.
Let’s go back to the tiger attack in the jungle. You don’t pause and ponder whether the tiger might hurt you. If you have no weapon, most likely you will run as fast as you can. And that is a point of interest. You will be able to run faster than you have ever run before. Why? Thanks to your emergency programming, your adrenal system outfits you with chemicals that create superhuman strength. A cocktail of hormones, ACTH, epinephrine, and cortisol flood the body. They message the liver to produce glucose and the muscles to turn all available fat into immediate energy. A hefty dose of adrenaline increases blood pressure and breathing to prepare the muscles for utmost exertion. You now can run as you have never before. If you have a weapon or your survival instinct tells you to fight, you have access to the same superhuman strength.
The downside to experiencing stress in a negotiation is that you are reacting from your animal brain. Not good! Stay fully connected, employ strategies to tamp down stress, so you can observe, interpret, and react!