Nerve
cells communicate with one another through messages - messages in the
form of amino acids and complex chains of amino acids called
peptides. Amino acid messages are simple, on the order of yes/no, an
on/off switch; a peptide, like a complex sentence, may contain whole
strings of information. Either way, the messaging process is
remarkable. In the words of Dr. Murray Saffran, "The message
must leave the cell of origin, pass into the blood, attach itself to
a specific blood protein, which then carries it to a specified organ,
where the message leaves the blood protein, attaches to a particular
cell, and tells that cell to start to manufacture a certain product."
To
make the process even more ornate, the amino acid or peptide
messenger can deliver its message only by entering the cell. Nerve
cells are designed like locked boxes: entry is via chemical doors, or
receptor sites, and only the correct chemical key will unlock a
particular receptor site: adrenaline must enter through the
adrenaline site, serotonin through the serotonin, etc. The body's
response to stress situations, the kind one finds in the hardest of
games, is orchestrated by a whole complex set of chemical messages
between the nerve cells, keys in locks, calls and responses.
Initially
a hormone biochemists call Big ACTH (for adrenocorticotropic hormone)
is released; as it breaks down, it gives birth to a wide spectrum of
potent substances,
each of which does something or things to mobilize the body and mind.
Beta-endorphin seems to be the prime mover in the stress biochemistry
equation: "It stands right at the center of the control
network," according to biologist Derek Smyth, "able to
produce analgesia or even catatonia, to lower blood sugar, to
modulate by inhibition the brain's established neurotransmitters, and to
stimulate the release of a host of pituitary hormones that in
themselves play critical roles in behavior."
The
story behind the discovery of endorphin is a particularly interesting
one, a real piece of scientific detective work. Neurobiologists
researching narcotics addiction found receptor sites on nerve cells
that fit exogenous (that is, from outside the human body) opiates
like opium, morphine, and heroin. How, they asked, could such sites
have evolved when man has only used opiates for the past three or
four thousand years? (The opium poppy, Palaver somniferum, was
probably first used, medicinally and/or recreationally, on the
eastern shores of the Mediterranean during the Neolithic.)
There
must be endogenous substances, secreted by the human body itself,
that fit into those same receptor sites, similar in form and function
to the opiates. And there were, the neurobiologists found:
beta-endorphin, and similar, somewhat less potent peptides called
enkephalins.
Getting
back to the stress response, beta-endorphin's most dramatic role is
as a painkiller; tests have shown it to have a hundred times the
analgesic power of morphine. Enkephalins, on the other hand, in
addition to being analgesics, help modulate the mood-altering
chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine (noradrenaline),
and epinephrine (adrenaline): you could say that they help
reestablish and maintain emotional equilibrium.
Interestingly,
beta-endorphin can be split into two Jekyll and Hyde component
chemicals, alpha-endorphin and gamma-endorphin. It is the former that
produces the euphoria and analgesia, the bliss and the lack of pain;
gamma-endorphin has been shown, in tests on laboratory animals, to
induce quite the opposite effects: irritability, excitability,
increased sensitivity to pain.
In
stress and survival situations, the two complement one another:
enough alpha to deal with the pain and fear, and enough gamma to keep
you in touch with the realities of the situation so that you can
react correctly.
But
there is more to the biochemical stress equation than just endorphins
and enkephalin. Big ACTH also contains a kind of "small"
ACTH that acts as a trigger for stimulating chemicals like
epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine (noradrenaline),
whose effects include increased mental awareness, muscle rigidity,
heightened senses.
And
there is also MSH (melanocyte-stimulating hormone) in the Big ACTH
catalogue, a substance that has been found to hype alertness and
accelerate the learning process in laboratory animals. This last
probably explains the tales so many disaster survivors tell of their
lives flashing before them like a speeded-up film: the biocomputer of
the brain is doing an accelerated search through its memory banks,
looking for the bit of information that will provide a way out of the
fix.
And
more... when the body goes into oxygen debt, as it does after heavy
exertion, the carbon dioxide levels rise; carbon dioxide breaks down
into lactic acid, a known cause of altered states of consciousness.
Dehydration, plummeting blood sugar levels - the range of chemical
stress consequences is practically endless.
What
does all this mean in terms of searching for peak performances and
experiences in sports, or anything else that pushes the human animal
to the limit? Practically everything.
It
seems as if the two, biochemistry and performance, are directly
linked': when the biochemistry is good, the performance and the
experience are good; when it is bad, they are bad.
For
instance, Big ACTH can decompose in a great many ways, producing more
or less of this or that chemical. Say you get too much adrenaline and
noradrenaline, and not enough of the ameliorating, nonstimulating
chemicals: the results can be panic, hysteria.
On the
other hand, too much beta-endorphin and not enough of the rest can
put you into a zombie-like trance, shock, a junkie's nod, like the
surrendered gazelle that turns its throat up to the ravenous lion.
Sometimes,
though, the chemistry is right. More often it is less than completely
right but still not bad, and sometimes it is an utter, dysfunctional
disaster. The stress response can manifest itself in all kinds of
negative ways. Distance runners, for instance, actually seem to get
hooked on the endorphin-rich biochemical response kindled by their
sport. "Not only do marathon runners get high
off endorphins, they become dependent on them," says Dr. Andrew
Weil. "It is an addiction. I've seen a number of such runners
who, when they are prevented from running for a day or two, become
really unpleasant to be around."
Indeed,
statistical studies show that upwards of 20 percent of competitive
runners are forced to seek professional psychiatric help,
occasionally to the point of being institutionalized, when injuries
interrupt their running activities for significant
periods of time.
The
same kind of addiction to stress biochemistry, though I suspect in
this case the prime addictive agent is adrenaline rather than
endorphin, seems to afflict the risk-taking athletes - the speed
skiers, hang-glider flyers, big-wave surfers, and the rest; and it
explains the crazed, incessant, febrile atmosphere that clings to
these athletic scenes.
Certain
Shoshoni Indians, when they want a real, insensate high, have what
they call dynamite parties; they take turns lying in a hole in the
ground, and having dynamite charges set off a few feet away; the
blast blows them right out of the hole, and they come down,
sprawling, in some kind of weird state of ekstasis.
The
extreme sports scene has a lot more in common with dynamite parties
than it does with shamanistic initiation or Zen meditation or any of
the other disciplines that aim at controlling and texturing one's own
responses to the stresses of the world. Mind-blown pleasure is a
long, long way from reacting perfectly, inevitably, to everything the
universe throws at you, an easy waltz with danger or death itself.
Back
to the subject at hand. Is it unreasonable to suggest that shamans
actually control their own biochemical responses to stress and can
invoke the precisely right endocrinal mix at will? Canadian
psychologist Dr. Raymond Prince suggests just this possibility in a
1980 paper tided "Shamans and Endorphins: Exogenous and
Endogenous Factors in Psychotherapy." He writes of an optimum
physical / psychological state that springs out of what he calls the
"omnipotence maneuver," a feeling of being in absolute,
perfect control of a dangerous situation, and indeed, all situations.
Prince believes that the body's endocrinal response to stress is at
the root of this feeling.
Do
shamans leam to trigger this response in themselves and then to pass
it on to their disciples via ritualized stress situations, carefully
engineered crises? Dr. Prince writes: "in a situation of life
stress ... a state of hyper-arousal occurs which generates
appropriate endorphins or other neuro-endocrines in such quantities
that an unprecedented feeling of cosmic peace and tranquility is
experienced."
Certainly
that state of mind (and body) is the kind that produces great
performances; when you feel totally relaxed yet absolutely involved
in the task at hand, your actions and reactions are at their absolute
best. And if someone could put himself or herself into that state at
will (which shamans and their ilk seem to be capable of doing), they
would appear to the rest of us as supermen and superwomen.
Human
beings can actually hit that same perfect pitch sometimes through
simple practice, practice, practice, controlling the normally
uncontrollable.
Another,
peripheral idea: do shaman types somehow become biochemically
different, superior, after a time; do they in effect evolve
themselves into physically different beings? This would account for a
whole host of beliefs found around the world.
Experiments
with biofeedback over the past few years have shown that everyday,
average, modern human beings can learn to control some of the same
functions of the autonomic nervous system that yogis and shamans can.
(The autonomic nervous system regulates, among other things, the
cardiovascular, respiratory, and endocrine systems. In the words of
Dr. Weil, "it carries out its functions without our being aware
of it. Moreover, if we try to will an autonomic response ... in the
same way that we will a movement of our arm, we do not have much success."
Take
blood pressure, for instance... If blood pressure is made visible via
an oscilloscope or graph, subjects quickly learn to control it;
perhaps they don't really understand how they are controlling it, but
they are; by "thinking the right thoughts,"
putting themselves in the proper frame of mind, they can lower their
blood pressure far more effectively naturally than by any of the
blood pressure drugs currently on the market.
In
another set of experiments, most notably by Berkeley brain researcher
Joe Kamiya in San Francisco, subjects were taught to control their
own brain wave patterns, producing at will more alpha rhythms (the
electrical rhythm associated with meditation, relaxation, etc.). When
alpha rhythms were being produced, a bell or tone sounded; subjects
tried to keep the tone going, thereby gaining more and more control
over their own mental functioning. In other, later experiments, test
subjects learned to control the beta and theta electrical activity of
their brains also.
So far
experiments on self-control of biochemistry have not reached such
levels of sophistication; the amounts of the various endocrinal
components in the stress chemistry equation are very small, and
difficult to quantify. The promise is there, however. We already know
that certain kinds of exertion produce certain biochemical reactions;
mountain runners, tested before and after a trail run, showed a 200
percent average increase in their base beta-endorphin levels.
What
we are discovering in our games, and what shamans, yogis, and lamas
seem to have known intuitively for thousands of years, will
undoubtedly become the stuff of laboratory experiments.
In the
meantime, the combined information I had put together on shamanism
and biochemistry was encouraging, to say the least: it seemed to
confirm that there was an actual bodily process going on, and one
that could perhaps be controlled.
by
Rob Schultheis from Bone Games, pp.101-112
