Sullenberger Redux

I was in the thick of writing Extreme Fear when Chesley Sullenberger ditched his Airbus A320 in New York City’s East River. I was instantly struck by how perfectly his feat embodied the central paradox of the book: how is that certain people can respond creatively to intense, life-threatening crisis? I wound up exploring his story in Chapter 12, “Mastery,” in which I  recreated the incident in some detail. This recently released computer simulation, however, gives a far more vivid sense of what Sullenberger was going through.

Kudos to Kas Osterbuhr, the engineer at K3 Resources who created the video, and to Jason Paur at Wired.com for his posting it.

Chesley Burnett “Sully” Sullenberger

Everything’s Normal, Then It’s Not

We don’t expect to have our lives upended suddenly and unexpectedly, but that’s how fear often intrudes in our daily lives.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJOhYebMj9c]
This footage shows a rockslide in Polk County, TN, that was captured by a local news crew filming the cleanup of a previous rockslide. Watching the torrent of boulders and trees reminds me of the avalanche that struck Dave Boon when he was driving with his wife on a highway near Denver. One minute he was chatting with his wife, the next he was hurtling end-over-end down the side of a mountain. Time and again, survivors of disasters report thinking to themselves: “This can’t be real.” Looking at this footage, it’s easy to relate to that sense of disbelief.

Can Handwashing Save Us?

flu particlesThe nation is suffering from a shortage of swine flu vaccine, leaving millions at risk of infection from a potentially deadly pandemic. Fortunately, the experts agree that there’s a simple and effective precaution that we can all take to help keep us healthy: wash our hands. Here, for instance, is an excerpt from USA Today’s article “Stay safe from swine flu with 3 simple steps.”

Studies prove that hand-washing dramatically reduces the spread of infection and is even a lifesaver. Even before the outbreak of swine flu, the World Health Organization reported that regular hand-washing — after using the toilet and before eating — could save more lives than any other medical intervention…

The Centers for Disease Control seconds the motion on its swine-flu advice page:

Wash your hands often with soap and water. If soap and water are not available, use an alcohol-based hand rub.

Here’s the medical-advice web site Suite 101:

Handwashing is the single most important measure to prevent the spread of infections, including swine flu.

And so on. There’s just one problem, however. There’s no scientific evidence that this advice has any scientific foundation. In fact, a recent Canadian study found that handwashing did nothing to prevent flu transmission. “Most transmissions of flu virus are through respiratory secretions — coughing and sneezing,” says my brother-in-law John Emy, who practices internal medicine here in New York. Essentially, clouds of fine particles laden with virus waft thru the air, get inhaled, and infect a new host. The hands have nothing to do with it.

Why, then do medical authorities continue to recommend handwashing as a preventative measure?

Well, one could argue that when it comes to swine flu, handwashing is at worst harmless. And it has indeed been demonstrated to help prevent transmission of other diseases, so it’s a worthwhile habit to get into. And in the short term it will at least give healthy worried folks something to do. As I write in Chapter 11 of Extreme Fear, taking constructive action in the face of danger helps to reduce fear. So if the public believes that washing their hands will help them survive the coming flu season, perhaps that’s a good thing in itself.

Let’s not get lulled into complacency, however. As the New Scientist points out in its excellent article on the topic, handwashing is just one of several ineffective measures that the general public believes can keep them safe. Getting plenty of rest, drinking lots of fluids, and eating organic foods are all things that will, in fact, do nothing to prevent swine flu transmission. They’re just comfort blankets, and the downside of comfort blankets is that they can demotivate you from taking constructive action. The reality is that only vaccination offers demonstrated protection the flu. As soon as you can, get that shot.

Subwaytrackophobia

That’s the scientific term for the irrational fear of winding up on a viral video about pitching over the edge of the platform into the path of an oncoming train, and it’s becoming increasingly common lately, or so I imagine. Here’s the latest evidence:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdlupO1bkHA]
For those keeping score at home, that’s two since I started this blog; one more makes an official trend. Perhaps we need another hero?

A Drug for Forgetting Fear?

PillsThe human brain is very good at forgetting, a fact that I was recently reminded of when my bank asked me to choose from a series of “security questions” as part of an account upgrade. What was the name of my third-grade teacher? What was the name of the street my school was on? What city was my mother born in? I was astonished at how little of this kind of thing remained in my memory bank.

Forgetting this kind of explicit memory comes easily, but there’s another kind of memory we’re not so good at erasing. Memories of fearful experiences seem to stay with us forever. To the extent that their impact fades over time, it’s not because we forget them, but that our brains gradually suppress them. They’re forgotten, but not gone. And they can cause problems for people suffering from emotional trauma, when buried memories come roaring back to inflict pain all over again.

It would be better if the brain were able to forget some kinds of fearful memories just it can things like names and phone numbers – and a recently published paper presents evidence that might just be possible. Researcher Nadine Gogolla and colleagues demonstrated that as the brain of a baby mouse matures, its ability to form permanent fear memories develops at the same time as a net-like structure forms in the amygdala, where emotions are processed and fear-related memories are stored. Made of proteins called chondroitin sulfate proteoglycans, this “neural net” structures seem to prevent memories from being erased. When they’re disrupted by a drug, mice are more likely to lose those memories.

The finding points the way to a possible therapy for human fears: a drug that would alter the formation or functioning of the “neural net” and thereby allow people to shed troubling and disturbing memories. It’s still a long way off, but the research indicates that it could at least be possible.

Love vs Fear

One of the most powerful anxiolytics — that is, compounds which reduce fear and anxiety –is oxytocin, the hormone of mammalian bonding. Social acts like hugging, touching, and having sex all increase our levels of oxytocin; people who have recently had penetrative sexual intercourse have been found to exhibit less fear in social settings.

Of course, the ultimate oxytocin-generating experience is giving birth to and nursing an infant, and nothing is more fearless than a mother protecting her child. Having become a father a year ago, I can understand what the woman on this train platform must have been going through as she realized what was about to happen.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQm25nW6aZw&feature=fvsr]

I wonder if oxytocin might take its effect, at least in part, by somehow affecting the way that our brains process “self” and “other” — bringing those we love and feel affection over the boundary and making them, in effect, part of ourselves. About six years ago I remember being repulsed by the sight of my sister casually picking a piece of half-chewed banana off her baby daughter’s bib and popping it into her mouth.  Since my son was born, I find myself doing this sort of thing all the time. Eating my son’s half-eaten food isn’t like eating someone else’s chewed-up,  spit-covered gunk, it’s like eating my own.

The only problem with my theory is that watching your baby roll under a train wouldn’t be as bad as going under a train yourself; it would be worse.

The Agony of Social Fear

Being looked at by strangers is a primal trigger of anxiety and stress. The essence of courage is persevering in the face of intense fear. Therefore, this young man deserves the Medal of Honor.

Unless you’ve been living in a cave — or using dialup, or both — you’ve probably already seen this clip. But I post it again to pose the philosophical question: how can watching someone in the grip of intense terror be so damned funny?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W45DRy7M1no]

Can Your iPhone Conquer Fear?

CNBC today reports that Virgin Atlantic is launching an iPhone “panic button” app that will assuage the 33 percent of passengers who, they say, suffer from fear of flying.

“Our first iPhone app will bring the benefits of our successful Flying Without Fear course to millions of people around the world who are now using mobile technology to make their lives better,” Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, said in a statement. “The app will put many travelers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight.”

The airline developed the app with Mental Workout, a company developing software to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance.

As I discuss in Chapter 5 of Extreme Fear, panic attacks are a pernicious manifestation of the brain’s fear response. They can be overwhelming and extremely disruptive to a sufferer’s life.  So my first reaction was to be skeptical about the idea that they can be conquered as easily as loading an electronic doo-dad onto your cell phone. In fact, name of the app’s developer, Mental Workout, sounds suspiciously like the “Brain Gym” program so effectively (and entertainingly) demolished by Ben Goldacre in his book Bad Science.

However…

It could be that my reaction is too hasty. After all, the vicious cycle that causes panic attacks is itself a result of conscious focus on a person’s symptoms of anxiety. If a little electronic distraction can take your mind off your pounding heart, tingling fingers, and heaving chest, then perhaps it will do some good. What’s more, breathing exercises, described as a component of the “panic button” app, have also been shown to have a soothing effect.

On the other hand…

There’s evidence that just having a “panic button” might aggravate psychological distress in some people. Recently, Vaughn at MindHacks recalled a study from1964, in which subjects were put in a sensory deprivation chamber.

One group was met by researchers in white coats, given a medical examination and told to press a ‘panic button’ if they wanted out. The other was met by researchers in causal clothes, weren’t given medical checks, and told to knock on the window if they wanted the experiment to stop. The actual sensory deprivation part was the same, but the group with the panic button reported many more hallucinations, likely owing to ‘demand characteristics’, or, in other words, their expectations of what might happen. We also know that an increase in anxiety also increases the likelihood of hallucinations, and having a ‘panic button’ during an experiment, I suspect, is likely put most people a little more on edge.

For a certain number of people, their awareness that they’re carrying a panic button might be enough to trigger the self-reinforcing spiral of a panic attack. Perhaps Virgin should study the anxiety-soothing effects of a good backrub?

“Our first iPhone app will bring the benefits of our successful Flying Without Fear course to millions of people around the world who are now using mobile technology to make their lives better,” Richard Branson, president of Virgin Atlantic, said in a statement. “The app will put many travelers at ease and enable them to prepare for their first Virgin Atlantic flight.”

The airline developed the app with Mental Workout, a company developing software to help people resolve issues and increase mental performance.