The first step we have to take when choosing equipment vital to our survival, is making certain it works with our biology. This is beguilingly simple but often overlooked. When it is done, it isn’t uncommon for it to be considered in a way that doesn’t account for the changes that occur to our senses and cognition… when exposed to deep stress.

The Effects of Stress

When we face these moments, we are almost unrecognizable to ourselves. Our abilities associated with creative thinking are diminished to a fraction of what we’re accustomed to. This is a crushing blow to a system that is normally operated by a lucid and almost limitless computer. Under normal circumstances, our brain navigates with an ease that makes us the envy of the natural world.

Add significant stress and all of that high end thinking goes away in a blur of soundless and reduced perception… and with good reason.

Keep it Simple

Our brain understands that the more options that we have in the moment, the less likely we are to make a good decision. It will also take us much longer to arrive at that decision, however bad that decision may be.

We have evolved to avoid being eaten… so; quick decisions were a priority to ancient man. So was very high order thinking (read that: extravagant). You see the dilemma. In order to maintain the capacity to be the ascendant species on the planet, we had to find a way to speed decision making when the big predators came calling. To fail in this, had the potential to knock us off the survival bus.  

It was accomplished by simplifying the path of information (perceptive narrowing) and reducing the capacity of our front brain in response to significant stress. It worked, and it’s still working.

We need to understand this about ourselves and not work against what we’ve developed over the length of time we’ve been here. We become simple so that we can survive. Our tools need to echo this attribute. If they don’t, we are asking ourselves to adjust…in the moment…to their complexities. This is a recipe for disaster and works directly in opposition to our design.

Start with your biology when choosing tools or tactics for that matter. Simple and unfailing. That, is what you are designed for.

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