Mastering Fear

CHAPTER 5Staying Healthy

We have inherited our miraculous bodies from our great, great ancestors, the hunter-gatherers. As we mentioned earlier, the amygdala was absolutely essential for our survival early in our history because it alerted our bodies to the many environmental threats of the time, such as charging lions and hostile spears. Although it is not impossible to encounter such challenges these days, civilization has now protected most of us from these frequent, life-threatening emergencies. There are exceptions of course. We have all, at some point or another, found ourselves suddenly jamming on our brakes to prevent running into the car in front of us, or reaching out desperately to catch some precious object that has just slipped through ...