By David Rock, Image: Busa Photography/Getty Images, Harvard Business Review, February 7, 2022
I was a few minutes into a run when it happened. Moving fast along the grassy edge of a backwoods road, my left foot found the edge of a pothole, and my ankle rolled.
The intense pain put me into shock, a sequence of metabolic phenomena that starts with a burst of adrenaline. A remnant of our evolutionary past, when a burst of energy may have helped us outrun a predator, adrenaline has multiple other effects. It stops us from feeling pain, so we can get out of danger in the moment. It also spurs intense alertness to help us make better split-second decisions.
Of course, these kinds of shocks can be caused by psychological trauma, as well as physical injury. Think back to the early days of the pandemic, when the world as we knew it changed in what felt like an instant.
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