RUNNING WITH SQUIRRELS

Today in the morning, showing some spectacular willpower, I joined the hordes of runners. Everyday, at lunch time, you can see people running for their lives. It’s as if lions were chasing them. They use the lunch break for running instead of eating something and taking a break. They run for that life style which will save them from a lot of diseases. But honestly, that thing of going to run it’s really tough. It demands a huge physical effort and willpower. Probably that’s why after a while (hardly 5 minutes running) a squirrel crossed in front of me and that was a good excuse to stop and chase it. Squirrels are so cute! I just wanted to caress it and snuggle it. Why didn’t it realize that I didn’t mean to harm it? As the squirrel knows I’m a ferocious predator. If I managed to catch it, it would be very likely that I would tear it apart in seconds and eat it. How many times could this have happened to a squirrel in the history? So the squirrel climbed up a tree and then it stood up to me: tense claws and legs, arched body, stiff tail over its head jerking it sharply. That’s something very funny they do. So cute! Although its intention was to scare me pretending a ferocious look. Surely its respiration and heart rate were accelerated. That’s exactly stress. Then I realised I was stressing and terrifying the poor squirrel. I left it alone.

That's the squirrel in question

Again a couple of runners pass me by, running of course. But what are they escaping from? Are they stressed? At least their heartbeat and breathing are accelerated and their muscles on tension. The same as the squirrel threatened by a giant predator, namely myself. That running thing is difficult. It requires a big effort, even for our own organism which needs a great display of resources and many natural rhythm changes. Whoever has tried to run regularly has unlikely succeeded, for sure. How do regular runners do it? I’ve been observing them. I don’t envy them. There is an explanation for their superhuman willpower. They are stressed. They really run for their lives although there is no predator threatening them. Luckily we have climbed to the top of the food chain. We live in completely safe places and away from any natural threats –leaving out the danger that people themselves can be to us-. However that survival mechanism, stress, is still there. It’s animal instinct.

In his book ‘Why zebras don’t get ulcers’ Robert Sapolsky talks at length about stress. About how stress represents a great blot in our current society. As it is related to cardiovascular diseases, digestive problems, diabetes, infertility, growth problems, it’s almost an endless list. Also anxiety, insomnia, depression, etc, of course. Well, Sapolsky explains that it is has produced a little technical error. Stress works, proof of that is our success as a species. It happens that stress has only an On and an OFF mode. Nothing else. Danger! Stress ON. No danger… stress OFF. The only thing our brain does is put stress on whenever it feels any danger. Any means. It can be a lion or simply the gas bill, but your body reacts in the same way. Therefore the only way to control that is not perceiving like a danger something which is not. It is not a danger because you’re not going to lose your life because of it. That’s very easy to say but very difficult to achieve. It’s all because of the powerful human imagination. Squirrels or zebras don’t have such an imagination. We can imagine the lion and get afraid. If they don’t see it they’re not afraid.

The predator in question

There the runners are, running for their life because they must have so many ‘predators’ behind them, such their bosses, the mortgage, the trade market, their children’s marks, college fees, a job interview, those extra pounds that make her looks less attractive, the girlfriend who could be cheating on him, and so on. Nothing of that represents a real risk for our lives. However, our heart accelerates and our muscles get tense anyway. If it’s like this, at least let’s give to our bodies what they are ready for: run! Running when they should be resting. How bad must their work be that running represents a rest for them. Something that makes it more bearable.

But what does the squirrel think when it sees somebody running? Well, it thinks that some predator is coming, so better to climb up a tree just in case. But don’t believe that what happens to the squirrel is the same as what happens to the runners. Squirrel has neither insomnia, nor panic attacks, nor depression, nor ulcers, nor cardiac problems. It is very good because its stress is unusual and healthy. The fright that the squirrel has some times makes it get fit, because as soon as the danger is gone the squirrel relaxes and carries on with its life as usual. So we needn’t be afraid of stress, it’s not as evil as it looks. If one day you have to run because you’re losing your flight that’s an unusual and good stress. Practice a sport is an unusual stress already. As we don’t have to run because a lion is chasing us, we can get stressed for those uncommon things which make our heart and organism get fit. Like a kind of maintenance which is definitely not harmful to us. Why? Because it’s a one-time event. Problem –stress –problem ends –relax. It should be always like this because there is nothing in our current life that can kill us. Only when the stress becomes chronic and the relax period never comes is when we are f***** up.