Why Do I Faint?
This article mentions fainting and has medical content. If you notice faintness or lightheadedness, try Applied Tension and get into a safe position immediately.
Fight, flight…flop?
To faint is to be human.
With our big, oxygen-hungry brains atop our upright, bipedal frames, we were born to faint. No other animal does it. How’s that as a fun fact for the next dinner party?
Fainting, otherwise known as syncope, is something that can occur across various human activities. Pilots, for example, have been studied for losing consciousness due to g-force.
It’s theorized that some fainting episodes are mainly due to the blood pressure falling while the heart only slows a little. Some are due to the heart slows down steeply. Many episodes are mixed with both the heart rate and blood pressure decreasing at the same time.
While other animals may have freeze responses and even slowing of the heart due to stress and threat, the actual losing of consciousness appears to be purely human. It may be due to how we are built – it is challenging at the best of times to get our large brains as much oxygenated blood as they would like, so with the added reflex of lower blood pressure, slowed heart rate, or pooling blood, we take a tumble.
Why do I faint with blood or needles?
It’s not entirely understood. However, the fainting response may not be evidence that you are "overreacting” to the sight of blood or a needle. The fact that we faint may represent a very old defensive reflex that humans inherited over millennia.
It’s pretty smart that our system senses someone coming at us with something sharp and does something about it. It is admittedly perplexing that the “something” is collapsing on the floor, but the body may be trying to protect itself from blood loss, or attempting to “freeze” at the sight of danger. The faint may be caused by a combination of how our body is positioned, how we are breathing, how our heart and blood vessels are responding, and how we are feeling emotionally.
If the millions of years of animal evolution were represented by a three-and-a-half-minute song, the era of modern medicine would be about 35 millionths of a second long – an inaudible ‘click’. Our nervous systems did not evolve to understand injections, blood tests, MRI machines, or surgical consent forms. Our nervous systems evolved in an environment where we needed to survive predators, injuries, and disease as best as we could.
This is not to say that fainting (and medical anxieties in general) is inevitable – but it certainly is understandable that it happens.
Keep reading to understand why fainting is like a bit like potato chips - once you drop, you might not be able to stop.
References:
Alboni, P., & Alboni, M. (2014). Vasovagal Syncope As A Manifestation Of An Evolutionary Selected Trait. Journal of atrial fibrillation, 7(2), 1035. https://doi.org/10.4022/jafib.1035
Blanc, J.-J., Alboni, P., & Benditt, D. G. (2015). Vasovagal syncope in humans and protective reactions in animals. EP Europace, 17(3), 345–349. https://doi.org/10.1093/europace/euu367
Gerlach, A., Spellmeyer, G., Vögele, C., Huster, R., Stevens, S., Hetzel, G., & Deckert, J. (2006). Blood-Injury Phobia With and Without a History of Fainting: Disgust Sensitivity Does Not Explain the Fainting Response. Psychosomatic Medicine, 68(2), 331–339. https://doi.org/10.1097/01.psy.0000203284.53066.4b
