Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself....
...and now, we don't even have to fear that.One of my very favorite magazines is “The Week”. I am not a fan of watching the local news because it just makes me sad and angry. With “The Week”, I can get all my news from around the world, albeit sometimes belated, in one sitting. It’s also perfect for my ever declining attention span. One of my favorite sections in “The Week” is Health and Science. It just fascinates me to no end.
This week, there was an article about a simple hormone treatment that can cure severe phobias. According to the article, a surge of the hormone cortisol dulls mental functioning and memory retrieval, making it easier for phobic people to cope with their fears. Since most people avoid the object or situation that terrifies them, when they are suddenly exposed to it, they have a panic attack before any cortisol can be released. Through several sessions of treatment with test subjects, their phobias decreased considerably…by the final round, the subjects didn’t even need the pill to face their fears. Admittedly, more clinical testing is needed.
What I keep wondering, however, is to what degree this pill could work. If you think about it from an extremist standpoint, which I am apt to do with ideas like this, this might not be such a good thing. Fear can be good and it’s normal. Granted, they are talking about phobias, which is not the same as “fight or flight” thinking, but how will they control the difference? I WANT to be afraid of jumping off a building. And I WANT to be afraid of a gun being pointed at me. These are not situations I am faced with every day, so how would the pill know to separate that from my phobia of, for instance, being trapped? I think irrational fears and phobias are okay.
If there is a drug that (again, we are in ExtremeLand) can make me feel safe and secure when, say, taken in increased doses, how will I know the difference between feeling safe and feeling appropriately afraid? Can it somehow affect the fight or flight instincts that we all have….aren’t they all, somehow, tied to chemicals and hormones in the body? It’s a little creepy.
Don’t get me wrong, I can see the positive affects of this…for the people with debilitating fears such as leaving the house…or walking….or people (which is not that irrational when you think about some of the people out there). I can see how this could change someone’s life in a million good ways. But will it also get to a point where it can affect a person’s life in as many bad ways? Is this a social drug of the future? One which teenagers will buy and take to see how far they can push themselves in the face of fear?
The other article that caught my eye was about Red Bull cocktails…or any energy drink cocktail. Apparently, the problem with these drinks is that it makes the person drinking it think they are not impaired at all. When given to some young, healthy volunteers, it was found that the people who consumed the Red Bull cocktail were just as impaired as their friends who drank alcohol alone. The difference? The people who drank the Red Bull cocktails thought they were just fine. Being a huge fan of Jaeger Bombs, I’m now a little scared to drink them, since I’ve always felt perfectly fine afterwards.
Well, nothing a dose of cortisol won’t cure. A round of Jaeger Bombs on the house, with a cortisol chaser!
posted by Cherry Indigo (Cindy) @ 4/11/2006 06:55:00 AM
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