Science Say Yes, People Can Be Scared To Death

We’ve kicked this around before but with Halloween just a few days away and a number of “scary” movies playing on Yakima’s theater screens it never hurts to remind that Science says, absolutely yes, you can literally be scared to death!

According to LiveScience.com, fear triggers the fight-or-flight response which turns on a host of chemicals in the body, among them adrenaline.  The adrenaline kick is biologically intended to give you the strength and endurance to out run a saber toothed tiger or the mainstream media or if cornered, turn, face and overpower a cave bear or a D.C. swamp creature!

All that adrenaline pushes calcium into heart cells, raising the heart rate and pumping much needed oxygen carrying blood to the muscles.

And that's good but it can be bad.

Sure it makes you superman for the moment but too much for too long can damage the heart resulting in ventricular fibrillation and possibly a sudden drop in blood pressure, passing out... or worse.

And here’s the deal for you “can’t-scare-me” types. If the flight-or-fight response is massive enough, even healthy folks can be scared to death.