Surely it has ever happened to you. Being in the middle of an exam and suddenly feel a mental block that prevents you from remembering a single piece of everything that you had memorized and internalized. So much so, that there have been cases where you can not even remember your own name. Extreme situations of the known phenomenon of "staying blank", which has a scientific explanation that is worth knowing.
Help, I have remained blank ...!
Being in a room full of people, a group of people waiting patiently for your speech. That you have prepared so well and that you have executed perfectly at home. You arrive at the rostrum, you look up, and you are only able to articulate a slight babble. You have left blank. Drowning in the most absolute nothingness and the most distressing ridicule. You blush, you search your papers for support and you may, little by little, get out of trouble more or less successfully.
But calm, as it has happened to you once, the rest of the planet is also known this sensation. The one to stay blank. But why does it happen? Well, the culprit of all this personal, emotional and psychological mess is, of course, a hormone. You know, those little biochemicals capable of altering our behavior. This one in particular is called corticosterone, complex name to indicate only that it is produced in the cortex of the adrenal gland . It is an element that people segregate only when we suffer from a high level of anxiety, stress or fear.
So what comes to say this? That would be so to speak, a rule of three of biology that is met only when we go through moments of extreme nervousness. When faced with an exam or a situation that causes us high anxiety, our brain needs to disconnect to find relief, to rest and get rid of that agonizing fear. And how does it do it? Well, releasing this hormone. Corticosterone Something that actually, far from giving us relief, comes to complicate things even more.
It is very common for example in the case of actors and actresses, if they have not previously worked these situations of stress and anxiety, it is very possible that they end up forgetting their roles. It is what we commonly know as stage fright. An oral exam, reading a thesis, and even a job interview ... all these situations make a corticosterone segregation that causes us a sudden loss of memory about what we should say. And the curious thing about all this is that we not only forget data, information or memorized materials , in the most extreme cases we can forget our names, the place where we live and even the place where we are.
This distressing situation does not end until we relax, until that moment when our mind takes a breath and finds relief again. These are complicated situations, but what our brain needs is precisely to remain blank to avoid so much contained anxiety saturating its functions. So you know, to avoid staying blank, control your stress and your nervousness.