Why do we jump when we get scared?
Moment Of Um
Lemonada Media
4.4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 14 March 2024
⏱️ 4 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you’ve ever jumped right out of your seat when watching a scary movie, you know that sometimes your body has a reaction to being surprised or frightened. One of our listeners wanted to know why that happens, and we asked neurologist Sarah Benish to help us understand.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the brains behind brains on, this is the moment of, um. |
| 0:04.0 | Answering those questions that make you go, |
| 0:08.0 | um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, um, The moment of on comes to you from 8 PM Studios. I'm Rosie DuPont. |
| 0:27.0 | Imagine this. You're curled up with your family on the couch watching a movie. |
| 0:33.0 | Everybody has a cozy blanket and you're sharing a big bowl of freshly made popcorn. |
| 0:38.0 | Relaxing, right? |
| 0:40.0 | But then, in the movie, one of the characters jumps out from behind a door and yells |
| 0:44.3 | Boom! Everybody screams and jumps. Popcorn goes flying! The dog stands up and looks |
| 0:51.1 | at you like your bonkers. |
| 0:53.4 | It's just a movie. |
| 0:54.2 | So why did everybody jump? |
| 0:57.0 | My name is Shifra. |
| 0:58.3 | I am 10 years old and I live in Sydney Australia. |
| 1:01.4 | My question is, why do people jump when they're scared? |
| 1:05.0 | The simple answer is that it's a reflex reaction that our brain has learned. |
| 1:15.0 | My name is Sarah Venish. |
| 1:17.0 | I'm a neurologist, which is a doctor that takes care of brain conditions |
| 1:22.0 | and spinal cord conditions, and I work at the University of |
| 1:24.8 | Minnesota. There is a response that we call the fight or flight response. |
| 1:30.3 | This goes back to the very kind of origins of humans and we have to be able to |
| 1:39.3 | survive all threats. When you're watching something scary or something scary is around, your brain reacts to that |
| 1:49.0 | by getting this surge of energy that makes your muscles want to move and run away to safety or move and fight for your safety. |
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