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Why does your brain flood itself with endorphins before you die

it lowers your chance of survival, but you feel less pain and less anxiety. But from a evolutionary point of view what purpose does it serve?

Reply 1

samina58

[video="youtube;YYxzRYMrcVc"]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYxzRYMrcVc[/video]

She badder than bad

Well, your brain might realize that it is going to die anyway, so it decides to alleviate pain instead of trying to survive.

Reply 4

MidnightDream

I guess at that point you're going to die anyway so it might as well be less painful

Reply 5

King Hotpie

It might indeed make death less painful, which is nice. But evolution isn't interested in what's nice, it's interested in what helps you survive and reproduce, and giving you a happier death doesn't really do much for that. I'm quite interested in the answer to OP's question actually, I haven't got a clue.

Reply 6

Per

Dying is supposed to actually feel great, as it's comparable to an orgasm where blood flows away from a point where it's concentrated, in the last moment of death there is the sensation of losing all sensation. The lead up to it supposed to be quite painful though, even if during sleep contrary to popular belief.

Not sure about endorphines though, maybe it takes energy to contain them somewhere and when relaxed in death they get realeased?

Reply 7

BeanofJelly

We aren't adapted to maximise our chances of survival in a medically advanced setting, but one where there is no or minimal assistance.

Hence, many of the things which the body does when badly injured or in its dying phases is unhelpful medically, now - but reflects mechanisms that might have helped, some of the time, in a situation where you either get away (and survive) or simply die on your own.

The kind of major injuries and illnesses we survive now, would never have been survivable in millenia past - hence it is understandable that the body has poor adaptation to them (it could not possibly convey an advantage if death is inevitable).

The endorphins released in death/dying, may be a reflection of adrenaline etc rushing around the body in this state (the body's only way to try to survive without help). Endorphins are useful in the presence of adrenaline, as they give the psychological energy to accompany physical energy ("runner's high" "fight or flight"). Their presence may convey an advantage in dangerous injury/situations that the individual may have a chance of surviving on their own.

OR, their release may just be a form of brain dysfunction in death. Cells release their contents in death.

These are just things that would make sense - I haven't looked at any sources, so it's not a specific answer I'm afraid. Just a general one to "why does the body do stuff which is medically unhelpful?". The answer: it's not adapted to be medically helpful, because for millenia there has been no medicine.

(edited 10 years ago)

Reply 8

flyyoufools

If you've reached that point your brain/body has probably accepted you're dying so why not make it less painful? My mum had a really bad hemorrhage once and got to that point and she said it was just like she'd accepted it, stopped being scared and felt completely fine.

Reply 9

GottaLovePhysics! :)

Original post by MidnightDream

I guess at that point you're going to die anyway so it might as well be less painful

But if it lowers your chances of survival (not sure why thats the case...) then surly its not beneficial to feel that rush? You would think those who released less endorphins had a greater chance of survival ergo by natural selection they would remain (ie us)

Reply 10

justanotherposter

Original post by GottaLovePhysics! :)

I might be wrong but I think it lowers your chances only because of medical techniques we now have, so the brain essentually kills you when you could have been saved by emergency surgery. Since this is a relatively new thing in the past it would have made no difference, when you were close to death there would have been no surgery to save you and so the endorphins would have made no difference to your survival chances, in another 10000 years we may adapt so we don't release endorphins when we still have a chance of survival.

Reply 11

justanotherposter

Sorry I meant the brain would evolve to be able to prevent endorphins from being released just before you die, I didn't mean they would block endorphins altogether.