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Heart Palpitations Forum >> Symptoms and other concerns >> Can you die from fear?
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Message started by Nat2012 on Mar 20^th, 2013, 3:13am

Title: Can you die from fear?
Post by Nat2012 on Mar 20^th, 2013, 3:13am

As the thread title says.

Someone posted a picture on facebook before, a silly "10 facts about the human body" thing, one fact stated "You can die from fear as the body could release too much adrenaline stunning the heart"

NOT what I wanted to see!!! Googling (bad idea!) there are mixed opinions - some say you must have a pre-disposing condition i.e. already have heart problems that are exacerbated by stress.

But then someone was saying that the body's parasympathetic nervous system can sometimes drop the heart rate/blood pressure and "play dead" in order to put a predator off, but in some cases the BP doesn't recover and that individuals can die!!!

argh. Would love some straight talking facts as panic certainly makes you feel that the above may be true!...

Title: Re: Can you die from fear?
Post by beadbabe on Mar 20^th, 2013, 6:44am

Don't visit Dr Google!

Im not a doctor either but I hope I can offer some thoughts to get you through this worry...

People don't really 'die from fear', because everyone gets frightened and do you hear about any kind of epidemic of people dying just because they were frightened or they had a panic attack. In rare instances where people are bandying about this idea, it would be the underlying medical condition that killed someone. It's the kind of phrase tabloids like to latch on to in order to sell newspapers.

Fear just produces a hit of adrenaline. You get adrenaline from doing sport, running, enjoyment of life, all sorts of things. All things you are meant to do :)

If you're healthy the body is well equipped to deal with adrenaline - it might feel like you're going to die if you have panic attacks, but you definitely won't. :)

Title: Re: Can you die from fear?
Post by George on Mar 20^th, 2013, 6:12pm

I have read this before, but unless you're being told this information from a medical professional or someone with verifiable authority in the field, it's probably best to ignore it, especially if it came from Facebook of all places. By any chance was your second statement about the parasympathetic nervous system from Yahoo! answers? ;)

Besides that, the two statements you posted are somewhat contradictory. The first says the adrenaline release stuns the heart and the second says it's actually the parasympathetic nervous system rebounding to the spike in fear causing the heart rate and blood pressure to drop. I don't know enough to tell you otherwise, but adrenaline is there to protect you from danger, not kill you. In the past I've had severe panic attacks where my heart rate has been maintained at rates of 200+ for prolonged periods and nothing ever happened. It certainly didn't shock or stun my heart to the point of failure and no rebound calming effect took place in response to my extreme fear.

I know there are some animals that play dead, but actually I don't remember ever seeing a scared person do this. Do humans play dead to ward off predators? How does playing dead even work anyway, when a hungry lion is chasing you down on the planes? I'm off the impression that most of the predators (big cats/bears/wild dogs/etc.) humans are vulnerable to are going to eat you dead or alive, so what good is it for humans to have a "play dead" mechanism? I think that idea is wrong.

http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/weird-true-and-freaky/videos/fainting-goats.htm (http://animal.discovery.com/tv-shows/weird-true-and-freaky/videos/fainting-goats.htm)

Title: Re: Can you die from fear?
Post by Nat2012 on Mar 21^st, 2013, 8:17am

thankyou very much for both your replies beadbabe and George! ;D

You both make very good points and I feel a lot better now.

George, I didn't realise that indeed those two statements are contradictorary!! haha.

I agree about the ''play dead'' thing - isn't that what the predator WANTS?! If it does exist, I imagine it's more the bodys way of having a calmer death - ie making the victim unconscious to feel no pain

Title: Re: Can you die from fear?
Post by bayroot on Mar 21^st, 2013, 4:37pm

You don't have heart problems, do you? I mean, have you ever been given a diagnosis of a heart problem?

If not, then you don't need to be worrying about this. I think we will end up killing ourselves with stress if we don't get our anxiety under control ;). But other than that, no.