Stunned by Science

My friend, Ruchiccio, shared this with me and I'm posting it here with her permission.

Here is an amazing lesson in niflaos haborei that she learned while playing a computer game! (Not that these games are in any way encouraged, you should only play with complete consent and guidance from your local orthodox rabbi - kidding!! but you can take a lesson from everything.)

Lugaru is an action game where you play the role of Turner, a rabbit. A traitor in your camp gets Turner's whole family killed out. To avenge their deaths, he sets out to find those killers and bring them to justice.

I just finished Lugaru, which means that I was finished with all the levels. However, I discovered another treasure trove of CHALLENGE levels! I zipped through levels 1-10 really fast. But level 11 was a killer of a level. I must have tried about 30 times. I never even made it close to the end!

Tonight I decided to try an experiment:
I brought a blood pressure machine (a sphygmomanometer, if you want to get technical) to my computer desk. I attached the cuff to my arm and checked my blood pressure. We'll give this baseline rate a value of "X". I then played 12 minutes of heavy Lugaru in Level 11 and rechecked my blood pressure. It jumped to about 2x for the systolic (the top number) and the diastolic (bottom number) remained the same as before. I was clearly able to see the effects of stress on my heart processes! After 20 more minutes of playing, I checked it a third time and it was back to normal.

It's amazing the way Hashem makes our bodies adapt to stress so easily and proficiently. When you need more energy to fight (even though this was virtual fighting, it still is fighting!), your body accommodates by increasing blood pressure, heart rate, dilating the pupils, releasing more carbon dioxide etc etc. These are just some of the many changes that happen during a stress response - manifestations of the sympathetic nervous system.

What's even MORE amazing is that Hashem fashioned us with a parasympathetic nervous system which brings us back to normal after the stressful incident passes. Imagine what would happen if we never returned to "normal" mode!

Just had to share this bit of Niflaos Haborei and science!

Oh, and I managed to overcome Level 11 - WOOOHOOO!!!!