The Adrenal System is trying to help us face the “threat” the Primal and Cerebral Cortex “Brains” perceive and interpret in space-time.

It is the “Sabre-Tooth Tiger” response – the most ancient part of our brain’s survival function and its emotional response may not be useful or helpful.

It only asks two questions – “Do we kill it?” Or “Do we run away from it?”

It will ask, “Where have we ever felt this before and what was needed at the time, and ancestral memory is likely involved here also – may not be accurate!

To achieve either result the adrenals are mobilized – to pump Adrenalin for “Flight” (Panic Attack so called), or Cortisol for “Fight” which tightens muscles in neck, shoulders, lower back and jaw to help us hit harder.

Anger or Irritability is the body’s ancient way of making us “scary” to frighten the attacker away next time, but sadly it tends to be focused on family….

Energy is also held back for survival reasons – 20% held back for legs to be able to run faster, 20% for the fighting muscles, and sometimes 20% for the Immune System in case we are “wounded” again. (Discovered and proved only after my Christchurch earthquakes work over three years with the engineers – Cambridge University doing research now after my report to the International Trauma Conference in Melbourne October 2013 – lots more to learn here).

Remember – careful and not-so careful surgeons (especially in emergency departments) are operating on “battlefield” principles and so will take actions that are not in the “gentle care” area…. Your system will perceive all surgery, even the most careful as, “a tiger tried to kill me and slashed me there…. It might come back so let’s be ready…”.

Result = we are way more tired than ever before as the system is saving energy to Fight/Fly or Rest and Recover…. More “grumpy” or depressed also as the Cortisol tightens muscles and gets us ready to fight or run if we can. Watch for tension build up in stress areas – release by exercises/Osteopathy.

Strategies have shifted over recent years as we recognized the Primal Brain response in the Christchurch earthquake years. We saw that Sport’s Psych needed to be the “lead philosophy” for recovery from the repeated trauma exposure.

Sports Psychology has educated Clinical Psychology = Fool the Primal Brain into relaxing more, baffle it into calm…
Use “Smile” reflex to relax facial muscles.
Use tension pulling exercises to relax other “fighting” muscles(neck, shoulders and core/pivot muscles for fighting power.
ONLY then can we use the CBT tool to baffle and “con” the primal brain and cerebral cortex into shifting the survival response to a more successful 21st Century Plan and push/bat aside emotions that may not be helpful.

CBT has a long pedigree, going back to the 1970s (and I was there to engage with it then) as RET, then RBT, then CBT, and then DBT was developed from it and now BAT, and CBT-R….etc

My present label (all we do is simply “work in progress”) is “CBT-PLUS” reflecting the need to relax the Primal Response muscle tension first, before we engage the Cerebral Cortex with thought and emotionality we can control.

© 7 January 2026 Dr John C McEwan PhD. www.drstress.co.nz

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