Proper parenting insists that we build and nourish confidence within our children. So, sometime you challenge and praise the children so they build on their courageous attempts. But, what really makes someone brave? What compels some people to turn toward danger and others to run away? Moreover, can bravery be learned, or is it a quality with which you are born? Bravery taps the mind, brain, and heart. It issues from instinct, training, and empathy. Today, neurologists, psychologists, and other researchers are studying bravery, trying to unravel the mystery.
The Brain on Fear
Basic biology tells us that bravery emerges from a primal struggle between the brain’s decision-making hub, the prefrontal cortex, and the focal point of fear, the amygdala. When we find ourselves in an unexpected and dangerous situation, the amygdala sends a signal to the prefrontal cortex that interferes with our ability to reason clearly. In extreme cases, that “can be paralyzing,” says Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York.
But the brave don’t succumb to fear. In some cases, they’re strengthened by the muscle memory that comes from intense training. Armies of every nation have understood this principle for thousands of years. Boot camps the world over deeply embed the fundamentals of combat into a recruit’s brain through relentless repetition. That way, when intense fear shuts down a soldier’s rational brain, he or she will still be able to function on autopilot.
The Friendship Factor
Equally powerful but more inherent quality that can drive courage: instinct. Military psychologists say that the instinct to protect those we love is one of the most powerful forces motivating bravery in combat: soldiers who don’t do it for the medals but simply to defend their buddies.
Bravery on the battlefield or elsewhere may come from the release of oxytocin, the hormone that helps cement social ties, including the bond between nursing mothers and their babies. Several experiments have found that oxytocin also seems to reduce feelings of fear. Researcher Peter Kirsch placed test subjects in a brain-scanning machine and showed them fear-arousing images like faces with angry expressions and guns. When he also gave subjects whiffs of oxytocin, their amygdalas showed significantly less activation. So substantial is the hormone’s effect that experts are investigating how to turn oxytocin into a medication, a bravery pill, if you will.
Out-of-Body Experience
A state of intense fear can actually facilitate extraordinary acts of bravery because circuitry within the brain triggers the release of the hormone and neurotransmitter noradrenaline, which mimics the effects of amphetamines. Under its influence, a person’s attention focuses, and time seems to slow down. Compounds similar to the active ingredient in codeine dull pain, preventing some people in extreme danger from realizing they’ve broken bones. And cortisol released into the bloodstream spurs the body to mobilize its energy stores so that it can move with otherwise unfeasible speed and strength in the face of danger.
Knowledge is Power
Understanding your surroundings and the task at hand may also figure into the ability to act bravely. Psychologists have found that fear subsides when people believe that they understand a threat. A Harvard sociologist and former wildland firefighter, Matthew Desmond says, “Courage is based on the idea that you recognize the danger in the thing you see”. For experienced firefighters, a sense of mastery erodes the perception of danger and with it the feeling of fear. “When you start, you’re in awe,” he says. “But once you’ve seen a hundred fires, the adrenaline goes away.”
Source: http://www.rd.com/culture/what-makes-people-brave/
Writer: Aulia Nurdini
Editor: Michael R. Clarke
