Short Stuff: Fainting At The Sight Of Blood

entire gigantic body. Wo So anyway, um, if because I can do that, I clearly don't have chuck particular phobia about feigning at the side of blood. And that's really what the whole thing is coming down to is we'll see but feigning itself in this particular kind of fainting. And this is a thing like people actually do this. It's not like some movie or TV trope. Yes, but when you feign to the side of blood, there's a

specific physiological faint that's going on. There's different kinds of fainting, and this one in particular is what's called the vaso vegel syncope and vasile refers to your like your blood vessels. Vegel refers to the vegas nerve, which was played a huge starring role in our episode on what happens in

the brain during an orgasm. The reason the vegas nerve gets a shout out in this this name for this um, this type of fainting is because it has it plays a role in controlling the speed and rhythm of your heart. And then syncope is just another word for fainting, for loss of consciousness. That's right. Uh, we know some things and don't know other things. We know that it is a legit phobia. It's about three to fifteen percent of people have this where they faint at the side of blood.

And we also know that it's not just the side of blood. It can be an injury that you witness even like I think you pointed out here, like someone slaying their hand in a car. Or it can be needle centric, like if someone's coming at you to give you a shot, you can pass out. So the technical name for the phobia is b I I blood injury

injection phobia, right, um. And it is a phobia because there's there's no real danger or anything to truly be feared from a you know, hypodermic needle or something like that, even though there is plenty of danger from it, that's

still considered interrational fear, you know what I'm saying. Sure you're not in a horror movie and they're not gonna put it in your eyeball, so right, And so with phobias, um B I I is actually a peculiar type because with um vaso vagel syncope, you're fainting because your your heart has slowed down enough that your blood pressure drops, which robs your brain of the very important blood it needs to function correctly, and you lose consciousness until your heart,

you know, reins in northern normal rhythm again, which it does on its own. And that means that B I I is its own kind of phobia, because with most phobias, that's not how this goes down at all. No, Uh, with most phobias, you're gonna like have a spike in your heart rate initially, and then that'll probably lead to like a fight or flight type of thing. It will

really ramp everything up. And we be I I. You do have that initial, very brief spike in your heart rate, but then it just goes boo, and everything slows down and you hit the bricks. Basically, Yeah, so that makes it very strange. As far as they know, there's no other phobia that produces this effect, um, except for the

blood injury injection phobia. But they after digging a little deeper into this this um kind of odd malady frankly um, they found that not only is it like is there a fear component like in other phobias, there's also a disgust component, and that people who have blood injury injection phobia are experiencing levels of disgust that are even higher than their levels of fear. So it's just a really strange phobia all around. And it does seem to be

its own type. Yeah, and it does. It does. It's not funny, but it does make for funny moments in movies and TV shows when someone comes running into a room and see something awful and they go, oh my god, and that's the initial spike. And then because it does kind of follow it scientifically and then they just go oh and and hit the deck And it is a

trope for a reason. But it is interesting and that like, scientifically that's kind of exactly what happens right, So you want to take a break and then come back and talk more about b I I phobias. La la do I. Okay, So one one explanation for blood injury injection phobias is that there's it's a gene. It's it comes from some gene or mutation that's passed down. We don't know very

much about it. But if you consider that, um, that it is conferred genetically, that suggests that there's like an evolutionary aspect to this, that that somehow it made sense through natural selection. But it seems like the opposite of

what would make sense through natural selection. Like if you're if you're approached with danger or injury or something like that, you see someone else being injured, you would think you'd probably be in danger too, and so um, running away really fast, fighting back like you would think those would increase your odds of spreading your genes rather than fainting dead away. But there's actually a theory that says, like, no, it kind of makes sense if you look at it

this way. Yeah, and it's a theory, but the theory goes that, like let's say you're in a battle with Took, Took in the gang and Took Took gets clubbed on the head and blood squirts out everywhere and you go uh and you pass out and hit the rocks. Then the other invading I don't even know what error we are with Took Took anymore, what would they be? Took Took existed about ten thousand years before UTSI, So I'm gonna say he existed about eighteen thousand years ago, prior

to the advent of agriculture. All right, but what like, what were they called? Those weren't Neanderthals, were they? No, they were modern humans. They just hadn't given themselves a

name as far as we know yet. All right, So the other modern humans, the invading modern humans, they they run up at Took Took and Took Took or I'm sorry, Took Took's friend who is now passed out on the ground, and they just think he's dead, and they'd walk right by him like it's the old play dead during battle thing, right, Which is okay, that makes sense if you stuff and

think of it. Yeah. Um. The other thing is if if it was Tuk Took himself who had been injured, um and fainted at the sight of his own blood because of that drop in blood pressure, he would be less likely to bleed out from that wound, or would bleed out more slowly, which could in fact also save

his life too. So no, it also kinda is depending, you know, but it's one of the one of the few we've got because we just don't understand it, Like we we understand the physiological component about what happens with vaso vegel syncope. It's how the sight of blood or somebody shutting their hand in the car door or hypodermic needle triggers that. It just that's where we kind of

lose our grasp on that UM. And one of the one of the reasons why did what would you say, like three to fifteen percent of the population, is it? That's a really wide estimate too, Yeah, is definitely significant, But three to that's a that's a big gap between, you know, those two numbers, and it's a big gap

in our understanding. And one of the reasons why we understand it so little is because UM, by its very nature, that condition prevent people from going to the places where they could be treated and have their conditions documented and have estimates be a lot more accurate, which are like

doctors offices and clinics and things like that. They avoid those places like the plague because those are the places where people get stuck with needles and have blood drawn and go when they have their a huge gash in their forehead. Like, they don't want to go anywhere near those places because you go into that room and they say, well,

let's see what's going on with you. Let me draw some blood after I slam my hand in this drawer looking for the needle, and it's coming at you from all directions, So you're not going to go in there. You might even uh it can be tied to something called medical proceduring anxiety, which sort of speaks for itself. Uh, so you're not going into any hospital. So it's really

hard to get great information about this. But our old friend, uh, Cognitive behavioral therapy can help you out, according to web md, and there's a Swedish psychologist name Lars gerin Oost who apparently is the best in the business. And it is

like with a lot of CBT, it's self exposure. But what you do is, and this sort of makes sense, what they do is they tell you too whenever you think of anything like this, and they I think they start out by even saying, like, just think of driving to a blood donation center and put that in your brain, and you really want to tense up your muscles all once, everything in your body because that'll just get your heart rate going higher than it normally would be uh to

get elevated, and that's a way to combat. And then they just make it worse from there until they are

basically playing doctor dress up and coming in with the needle. Yeah, so teach you how to stave off fainting as step one, right, and then after that when they're exposing you, it goes from making you imagine you're going to to get blood drawn to actually showing you videos of people getting blood drawn, to like you said, your therapist coming in like he's a a phlebotomist with a syringe in a tourniquet and actually putting the tourniquet on your arm, and the whole

time you're just tensing your core so hard, trying to keep from passing out. And it sounds awful, and exposure therapy is awful when you step back and look at it, but it actually does work. And what um what they say is that possibly in his few as like three to five sessions of learning applied tension and then use and then doing exposure therapy, you might actually be able to look at blood and not faint, which is really something pretty good. I think if I was the therapist,

I would dress up like nurse Ratchet. I would go full bore and then you know, the person afterwards say like what are you wearing that wig? Why are you dressed like that? And say, I don't know. I think it just increases the anxiety, is what I've found. I would dress up like the main character at the end of promising young woman. That's what I'd come at you like, wow, wow, yeah, scary pink wig, rubber nurse. Yeah, yeah, that's trying to picture you like, that's stop that. I don't give you

permission to picture me. Well, there's a million people picturing that right now. So one other thing, chuck. The reason why, aside from like it's dangerous to just faint dead away like that. You can hit your head and you can break an arm. All sorts of bad things can happen

to you. But one other reason why it's important to get treatment if you do have a blood injury injection phobia is because um, Like you said, there's that medical UM procedure anxiety that keeps you from going into the doctor's office, and that means that you're not going in for like vaccines or cancer screenings or you know, wellness checkups UM because you're avoiding the doctor's office. So there's a lot of actual negative effects that it can have

on your life. So if you do have that, maybe go check into getting treated because apparently they've got it figured out and you can not faint at the sight of blood or a needle anymore. That's right. Do you got anything else? I have nothing else or well then uh, that's it for short stuff. It's short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.