Heart Rate Matters

There have been lots of studies done on human bodily reactions to an increased heart rate.

Specifically, if your heart rate reaches about 100 bpm you start to lose your reasoning skills. At 140 bpm, you lose motor skills. Which is funny when you think about arguments.

A lot of times, when people are in an argument, their heart rate increases. The result of this is often a reduction in the ability to use reason, which is why emotional arguments are so hard to bring to a helpful solution.

We were talking about this in class tonight. We were trying to become aware of what kinds of things people say or do that we can start to feel our heart rate increase. It takes a lot of training to be able to function normally with an increased heart rate.

Two areas excel in this. Military and law enforcement training. We train people to do tasks (like put a gun together) just after their heart rate has been increased. We focus on giving people the ability to kill, and kill precisely and quickly with a high heart rate. When it comes to law enforcement, we hope to train officers to not just use motor skills, but to be able to reason well in situations where their heart rate is high.

The second area is sports. I've been trained how to do specific tasks and skills necessary in the game of soccer when my heart rate would want most motor skills to shut down. We are trained this way by intentionally bringing our heart rate to this point, and drilling repeatedly on how to do these skills in this state.

It is interesting really, that people are often trained to play, or kill in times of increased heart rate, but few of us have been trained with the ability to think and reason in times of great anxiety. How do we learn this skill? Should i get my heart rate up (by anxiety or by physical exercise) and then play Tetris (a game where i highly and quickly use reasoning)? Should I read scripture with a high heart rate so that it becomes habit to dwell on those words at those key times?

Why have we put such an importance on the need to kill and/or play, but have not trained all people to deal more rationally (at least use some reason) when we are having emotionally charged conflicts?

Can you notice things that get your heart rate rising? Hell? Abortion? Pre-marital sex? Homosexuality? Atheism? Traffic? Racism?

What can you learn by identifying these things?