Learned Helplessness is when an animal believes it can’t escape from a stressful situation, and it’s heart slows down instead of accelerating.
Usually in a stressful situation, the heart rate would race – but in a trapped situation, over a period of time, it will slow down.
Given too much stress, it would actually stop.
However, if the animal in the stressful situation believes escape is possible, it will fight for days on end.
Without hope, it gives up.
When we consider ourselves to be “trapped” in our situation, work overload, deadlines, dark weather, lack of quality movement, many people give up.
There is little effort to change the situation. People give into the situation.
However, this is largely an intellectual switch. What we need then is the realisation that a different reality is actually possible.
An enriched environment, learning, movement, social interaction, metabolic foods… are all ways that we can stimulate growth of the hippocampus – and are all ways that we can put an end to learned helplessness.
This could be a holiday, a retreat, a trip to a new beach, a mentor, a new friend or a powerful, positive and stable peer group. If the switch can be turned, the animal (or human) can very quickly restore a natural response.
