Nervousness just makes us fall to pieces and cause a partial mental shutdown. We get physically weak and our brain fills with goo.
What possible evolutionary advantage can come from being nervous about something? Surely the nervous human is the worst possible human to cope with that which he has become nervous about than the completely relaxed human?
I’m thinking it’s the adrenaline rush effect. Although many worrisome situations in the modern world require a relaxed, “thinking” response, I would guess that most situations to worry about in the wild would have required more of an immediate physical response than calm consideration.
Ohhh nervousness has a long history in our collective unconsciouse mind - evolutionarily I would say it kept many a cave man from walking into an unexplored cave too quickly, nervous there would be a cave bear in there ready to eat him.
If you are refering to anxiety turning us less fortunates into mush over seemingly little things, I’d say it’s probably only going to get worse…
just kidding.
Back in the old days, our stressors were not bosses and deadlines, they were sabertoothed tigers and wild aurachs. These dangers were a little more tangible.
What were the only real coping strategies that we had for these things? Kill it or run away really fast. Fight or flight. It’s the sympathetic nervous system in action, and it’s very old. It resides right down inside our lizard brains.
In modern times, it’s (usually) not appropriate to either kill your boss or run away from her. But your primative lizard brain doesn’t know that. So there’s a sort of mental conflict, and that nervous mental energy doesn’t dissapate in a natural way.
Exercise is a great destressor, as it gives your lizard brain just what it’s looking for.
Just because a phenomenon is observable and persistent, doesn’t mean that it conveys an advantage, or ever did. Ketones are a waste product of fat metabolism and quite toxic in large quantities. They don’t confer any advantage, they’re just the best that our bodies can do with what they have. Our brains and minds were cobbled up one piece on top of the last without ever being able to reboot or reintegrate and things don’t always work smoothly, they just have to work smooth enough to keep us ahead of our competitors
Until recently, I’ve wondered why the heck we get so nervous around someone of the opposite sex that we really like. Then I heard a similar cave man theory about this one too.
Back in caveman days, you’d see maybe 3-5 eligible people to mate with over the course of your life. The rest would be too young or old to reproduce, already taken, etc. If you messed up badly enough with all of them, you would not have sex, not reproduce, and your genes would be unapologetically weeded out of existence. To make things worse, these 3-5 often lived together and talked amongst themselves.
Thank God this isn’t a problem anymore. In modern society, we pass dozens of potential mates every day. But the hard-wiring in our brains - the scarcity mentality if you will - is still there. And it’s something that we’re stuck with. :smack:
Mostly I think it’s fear of failure
It’s the same as pain having an evolutionary advantage: it makes you avoid dangerous situations, which might kill you or damage you.
Just to add a ray of sunshine to this…
If you messed up with one of them, you stood far less of a chance with the rest of them. And if you hit on one that turned out to be claimed by the tribal leader, he’d get his five best friends to pick up some big rocks and knock you dead. Or excommunicate you to the wilderness where your only friends would be big hungry cats.
Have a safe and happy holiday, everyone!
Surely, in that case, getting nervous and turning into Mr Bean in the presence of a potential mate would be even more counterproductive in “caveman days”?
What woman would want to pass on Mr. Bean’s genes* when she can mate with the tribal leader, who clearly has superior genetic material?
*Not to be confused with Mr. Green Jeans.