Stress: It'll kill ya.

Stress. Our bodies natural response to emotional experiences. Stress can be good or bad, but most people agree that when the bodies natural fight-or-flight response is prevented, it can cause some problems – including but not limited to: headaches, heart attacks, strokes, IBS, stomach ulcers and over-eating. It’s important to remember that the Human Being is still an animal – a clever, emotional, complex animal yes, but most of our responses are still rooted in the animal.

You’d think that post apocalypse this animal reaction to stress would be great, right? Fight or flight? You’re going to be doing that a lot, and surely the nasty sides of stress won’t be such an issue any more.

Well, read on, my minions. Read on.

The problem with that theory is that while we are still animals, we are also still thinking human beings. Stress and trauma can be longer lasting for us, for a start. Even if the horrific expereinces don’t seem to have made a mark on your friend yet, that’s no guarantee they won’t be curled up, catatonic, in the fetal position in the next hour, week, month, year or decade. Add our huge, complex brains to the post-apocalyptic stress equation, and you have some serious problems.

And obviously, those more immediate problems come to mind – such as the heart attacks and strokes – after all, if one of your top fighters suddenly conks out in training, you’ve lost a great resource as well as a much loved member of your team. But it’s the more subtle stress problems that could be tearing your group apart from the inside. Thing like:

 

Emotional instability: which could lead to infighting, irrational thinking and even murders or suicides

Lack of sleep: Which could lead to guard missing something vital

‘Foggy thinking’ : which could lead to injury or death of the suffererand any people relying on them.

 

So, what it there to do? After all, you’re going to be extrememly lucky to have a trained therapist in your team, and the other options to deal with stress (yoga, healthy diets, etc) are going to be seriously premium.

Well, I suggest violence. Allow the stressed people to BEAT things and drink too much. It worked for the middle ages – and it’s not as if they were a time period where whole continents were ripped apart by civil and religious war while battling city states slaughtered men, women, and children… oh.

 

Well, just do the best you can.

 

2 thoughts on “Stress: It'll kill ya.

  1. Maybe it should be rephrased as “Stress: It’ll kill everyone but you, depending on how you deal with it” 🙂

    I think maintaining a single aspect of the world that came before is important to keeping you from breaking down. Painting, writing, collecting nuts, whatever you did before it hit the fan that made you happy, keep doing it. It’ll stop you turning on eachother.

    1. All this is a good idea, but will probably have to wait till the community is fairly safe and secure.

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