Lecture: Human abilities
General characteristics of human abilities
Usually abilities are understood as such individual characteristics that are the conditions for the successful implementation of any one or more activities. However, the term "abilities", despite its long and widespread use in psychology, is interpreted by many authors ambiguously. If we sum up all possible variants of currently existing approaches to the study of abilities, then they can be reduced to three main types. In the first case abilities are understood as the totality of various mental processes and states. This is the broadest and oldest interpretation of the term "ability". From the point of view of the second approach abilities are understood as a high level of development of general and special knowledge, skills and abilities that ensure the successful performance of various types of activities by a person. This definition appeared and was adopted in the psychology of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. and is fairly common today. Third Approach based on the assertion that abilities - this is something that does not come down to knowledge, skills and abilities, but ensures their rapid acquisition, consolidation and effective use in practice.
In domestic psychology, experimental studies of abilities are most often built on the basis of the latter approach. The greatest contribution to its development was made by the well-known domestic scientist B. M. Teplov. He singled out the following three main features of the concept of “ability”.
First, abilities are understood as individual psychological characteristics that distinguish one person from another; no one will talk about abilities where we are talking about properties in respect of which all people are equal.
Secondly, abilities are not called any individual characteristics in general, but only those that are related to the success of performing an activity or many activities.
Thirdly, the concept of "ability" is not limited to the knowledge, skills or abilities that a given person has already developed.
Abilities can be classified into:
Natural (or natural) abilities, basically biologically determined, associated with innate inclinations, formed on their basis in the presence of elementary life experience through learning mechanisms such as conditioned reflex connections (for example, such elementary abilities are perception, memory, the ability to elementary communication);
Specific human abilities which have a socio-historical origin and ensure life and development in the social environment. Specific human abilities, in turn, are divided into:
A) general which determine the success of a person in a variety of activities and communication (mental abilities, developed memory and speech, accuracy and subtlety of hand movements, etc.), and special that determine the success of a person in certain types of activity and communication, where a special kind of inclinations and their development are needed (mathematical, technical, literary and linguistic, artistic and creative, sports, etc.).
B) theoretical, determining a person's propensity for abstract-logical thinking, and practical, underlying propensity for concrete-practical actions. The combination of these abilities is characteristic only of versatile gifted people;
B) educational which influence the success of pedagogical influence, the assimilation of knowledge, skills, skills, the formation of personality traits, and creative associated with success in creating works of material and spiritual culture, new ideas, discoveries, inventions;
D) the ability to communicate, interact with people and subject-activity abilities, associated with the interaction of people with nature, technology, symbolic information, artistic images, etc.
Ability Development Levels and Individual Differences
In psychology, the following classification of levels of development of abilities is most often found: ability, giftedness, talent, genius.
All abilities in the process of their development go through a series of stages, and in order for some ability to rise in its development to a higher level, it is necessary that it was already sufficiently formed at the previous level. But for the development of abilities, there must initially be a certain basis, which is makings. The inclinations are understood as the anatomical and physiological features of the nervous system, which constitute the natural basis for the development of abilities. For example, the features of the development of various analyzers can act as innate inclinations. Thus, certain characteristics of auditory perception can act as the basis for the development of musical abilities.
It should be noted that the innate anatomical and physiological features of the structure of the brain, sensory organs and movement, or innate inclinations, determine the natural basis of individual differences between people. According to IP Pavlov, the basis of individual differences is determined by the predominant type of higher nervous activity and the peculiarities of the correlation of signal systems. Based on these criteria, three typological groups of people can be distinguished: the artistic type (the predominance of the first signal system), the mental type (the predominance of the second signal system) and the average type (equal representation).
The typological groups identified by Pavlov suggest the presence of various innate inclinations in representatives of a particular group. Thus, the main differences between the artistic type and the mental type are manifested in the sphere of perception, where the "artist" is characterized by a holistic perception, and for the "thinker" - its fragmentation into separate parts; in the sphere of imagination and thinking, “artists” have a predominance of figurative thinking and imagination, while “thinkers” are more characterized by abstract, theoretical thinking; in the emotional sphere, persons of the artistic type are distinguished by increased emotionality, and for representatives of the thinking type, rational, intellectual reactions to events are more characteristic.
It should be emphasized that the presence of certain inclinations in a person does not mean that he will develop certain abilities. For example, an essential prerequisite for the development of musical abilities is a keen ear. But the structure of the peripheral (auditory) and central nervous apparatus is only a prerequisite for the development of musical abilities. The structure of the brain does not provide for what professions and specialties related to musical ear may arise in human society. It is also not foreseen what area of activity a person will choose for himself and what opportunities will be provided to him for the development of his inclinations. Consequently, to what extent a person's inclinations will be developed depends on the conditions of his individual development.
Thus, the development of inclinations is a socially conditioned process that is associated with the conditions of education and the characteristics of the development of society. Inclinations develop and transform into abilities, provided that there is a need in society for certain professions, in particular, where a keen ear for music is needed. The second significant factor in the development of inclinations are the features of education.
The assignments are non-specific. The fact that a person has the inclinations of a certain type does not mean that on their basis, under favorable conditions, some specific ability must necessarily develop. Based on the same inclinations, different abilities can develop depending on the nature of the requirements imposed by the activity. Thus, a person with a good ear and a sense of rhythm can become a musical performer, conductor, dancer, singer, music critic, teacher, composer, etc. At the same time, one cannot assume that inclinations do not affect the nature of future abilities. So, the features of the auditory analyzer will affect precisely those abilities that require a special level of development of this analyzer.
The next level of development is abilities. These are individual psychological characteristics of a person that ensure success in activities, in communication and ease of mastering them.
Abilities are largely social and are formed in the process of specific human activity. Depending on whether there are or are not conditions for the development of abilities, they can be potential and relevant.
Potential abilities are understood as those that are not realized in a particular type of activity, but are able to be updated when the relevant social conditions change. Actual abilities, as a rule, include those that are needed at the moment and are implemented in a particular type of activity. Potential and actual abilities are an indirect indicator of the nature of the social conditions in which a person's abilities develop. It is the nature of social conditions that hinders or promotes the development of potential abilities, ensures or does not ensure their transformation into actual ones.
It should be noted that no single ability alone can ensure the successful performance of an activity. The success of any activity always depends on a number of abilities. Observation alone, no matter how perfect, is not enough to become a good writer. For a writer, observation, figurative memory, a number of qualities of thinking, abilities associated with written speech, the ability to concentrate and a number of other abilities are of paramount importance.
On the other hand, the structure of any particular ability includes universal or general qualities that meet the requirements of various types of activity, and special qualities that ensure success in only one type of activity. For example, studying mathematical abilities, V. A. Krutetsky found that for the successful implementation of mathematical activity, it is necessary:
1) an active, positive attitude towards the subject, a tendency to engage in it, turning into a passionate enthusiasm at a high level of development;
2) a number of character traits, primarily diligence, organization, independence, purposefulness, perseverance, as well as stable intellectual feelings;
3) the presence during the activity of mental states favorable for its implementation;
4) a certain fund of knowledge, skills and abilities in the relevant field;
5) individual psychological characteristics in the sensory and mental spheres that meet the requirements of this activity.
While the first four categories of listed properties should be considered as general properties necessary for any activity, and not be considered as components of abilities, since otherwise the components of abilities should be considered interests and aptitudes, character traits, mental states, as well as skills and abilities.
The next level of ability development is giftedness. Giftedness is a kind of combination of abilities that provides a person with the opportunity to successfully perform any activity.
In this definition, it is necessary to emphasize that it is not the successful performance of an activity that depends on giftedness, but only the possibility of such successful performance. Successful performance of any activity requires not only the presence of an appropriate combination of abilities, but also the acquisition of the necessary knowledge and skills. No matter how phenomenal mathematical talent a person has, if he has never studied mathematics, he will not be able to successfully perform the functions of the most ordinary specialist in this field. Giftedness determines only the possibility of achieving success in a particular activity, while the realization of this opportunity is determined by the extent to which the corresponding abilities will be developed and what knowledge and skills will be acquired.
Individual differences of gifted people are found mainly in the direction of interests. Some people, for example, dwell on mathematics, others on history, and still others on social work. Further development of abilities occurs in a specific activity.
It should be noted that two groups of components can be distinguished in the structure of abilities. Some occupy a leading position, while others are auxiliary. So, in the structure of visual abilities, the leading properties will be the high natural sensitivity of the visual analyzer - a sense of line, proportion, shape, chiaroscuro, color, rhythm, as well as the sensorimotor qualities of the artist’s hand, highly developed figurative memory, etc. The auxiliary qualities include properties artistic imagination, emotional mood, emotional attitude to the depicted, etc.
The leading and auxiliary components of the abilities form a unity that ensures the success of the activity. However, the ability structure is a highly flexible entity. The ratio of leading and auxiliary qualities in a particular ability varies from person to person. Depending on which quality is the leading one in a person, the formation of auxiliary qualities necessary for the performance of an activity takes place. Moreover, even within the same activity, people can have a different combination of qualities that will allow them to equally successfully perform this activity, compensating for shortcomings.
It should be noted that the lack of abilities does not mean that a person is unsuitable for performing a particular activity, since there are psychological mechanisms for compensating for missing abilities. Often, not only those who have the ability for it, but also those who do not have them, have to engage in activity. If a person is forced to continue engaging in this activity, he will consciously or unconsciously compensate for the lack of abilities, relying on the strengths of his personality. According to E. P. Ilyin, compensation can be carried out through acquired knowledge or skills, or through the formation of an individual-typical style of activity, or through another, more developed ability. The possibility of a wide compensation of some properties by others leads to the fact that the relative weakness of any one ability does not at all exclude the possibility of successful performance of the activity most closely related to this ability. The missing ability can be compensated within a very wide range by others that are highly developed in a given person. Probably, this is what ensures the possibility of successful human activity in various fields.
Characterizing the abilities of a person, they often single out such a level of their development as skill, i.e. excellence in a particular activity. When people talk about the skill of a person, they first of all mean his ability to successfully engage in productive activities. However, it does not follow from this that mastery is expressed in the corresponding sum of ready-made skills and abilities. Mastery in any profession implies a psychological readiness for creative solutions to emerging problems. No wonder they say: “Skill is when “what” and “how” come at the same time”, emphasizing that for a master there is no gap between the awareness of a creative task and finding ways to solve it.
The next level of development of human abilities - talent. The word "talent" is found in the Bible, where it means a measure of silver that a lazy slave received from the master during his absence and preferred to bury it in the ground, instead of putting it into circulation and making a profit (hence the saying "bury your talent in the ground" ). At present, talent is understood as a high level of development of special abilities (musical, literary, etc.). Just like abilities, talent manifests itself and develops in activity. The activity of a talented person is distinguished by a fundamental novelty, originality of approach.
The awakening of talent, as well as abilities in general, is socially conditioned. What talents will receive the most favorable conditions for full-fledged development depends on the needs of the era and the characteristics of the specific tasks that the given society faces.
It should be noted that talent is a certain combination of abilities, their totality. A single isolated ability, even a very highly developed one, cannot be called a talent. For example, among outstanding talents one can find many people with both good and bad memories. This is related to , that in the creative activity of a person, memory is only one of the factors on which its success depends. But the results will not be achieved by the inflexibility of the mind, rich imagination, strong will, deep interest.
The highest level of ability development is called genius. O Genius is said to be when a person's creative achievements constitute an entire epoch in the life of society, in the development of culture. There are very few brilliant people. It is generally accepted that in the entire five thousandth history of civilization there were no more than 400 of them. A high level of giftedness, which characterizes a genius, is inevitably associated with originality in various fields of activity. Among the geniuses who have achieved such universalism, one can name Aristotle, Leonardo da Vinci, R. Descartes, G. V. Leibniz, M. V. Lomonosov. For example, M. V. Lomonosov achieved outstanding results in various fields of knowledge: chemistry, astronomy, mathematics, and at the same time was an artist, writer, linguist, and knew poetry perfectly. However, this does not mean that all the individual qualities of a genius are developed to the same degree. Genius, as a rule, has its own "profile", some side dominates in it, some abilities are more pronounced.
One of the most interesting research programs in the field of transpersonal psychology is the Esalen Institute's Reserve Capabilities Research Project, launched in 1976. The essence of the project is to collect, catalog with the help of computers and study all the manifestations of human reserve capabilities recorded in the world literature. Project leader M. Murphy analyzes the collected data in a voluminous book, The Future of the Body: Exploring the Further Possibilities of Human Evolution (Murphy, 1992). He asks what the phenomenon of human reserve capabilities is talking about, why, for example, in sports there is a constant increase in records? The point is not only that humanity is now in a state of global stress due to the deep structural restructuring of the entire social fabric, as well as due to the increased threat of its destruction, but also that we are on the verge of a new species leap. The global changes that have taken place have awakened some new opportunities necessary for humanity to adapt to new conditions. And the phenomenon of reserve opportunities speaks, first of all, about the transition to this new level of existence and is, in fact, the threshold of an evolutionary leap. According to Murphy, in the near future, perhaps at the beginning of the 21st century, there will be a large-scale development of control over any body functions. What is now available to a few individuals who have gone through a complex yogic school will become a fact of mass culture. A similar Protean mythology of the coming omnipotence of the body over the spirit is being developed by cyberpunk culture and the beginning of the development of "virtual reality".
According to Murphy, transformative practices can destroy our integrity by emphasizing certain virtues at the expense of others. Thus, if one considers the world as maya, or illusion, one can become completely alien to this world. If you evaluate personal integration as the highest goal, which is worth striving for with all your might, then you can suppress your ability to transcend. That is why it is so important to follow integral methods that maintain balance, collect and express the many facets of human nature.
There is a need to develop integrating and transformative methods that address various aspects of human nature: somatic, affective, cognitive, volitional and transpersonal. Creating an integrating practice in the modern world is like putting together a mosaic, a puzzle picture, but only scattered pieces are collected here from all over the world. Messages about such a holistic approach to man are among the Greek philosophers and their followers of the Renaissance. We find the idea of wholeness in Zen Buddhism and in the Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, where the seeker of spirituality first acquires ethical virtue and then disciplines the body, vital energies and mental processes before embarking on a meditative practice leading to union with God.
Drawing on time-tested methods like yoga, Zen Buddhism, or Judeo-Christian mysticism, we should not be limited by the achievements of the past. Combining the personal and transpersonal dimensions of life, we can draw on the data of modern and transpersonal psychology, such as psychosynthesis. Adding to this the methods and insights of martial arts and modern somatic and sports research, we will be able to build human-transforming disciplines that are consonant with our era.
Indeed, traditional spiritual programs blindly transferred to our culture do not convey the true spirit of learning. In an age of great religious transformation, insight and wisdom are needed to synthesize the best of the old and the new and create modern yoga.
Every method and every teacher develops some virtues while overlooking or suppressing others. For example, ascetic contemplative practice usually does not take into account the body's ability to transform, the value of interpersonal relationships, and the need for individualization and creativity (which are often interpreted as self-affirmation of the "I"). Transformative therapies lose a lot because of the one-sidedness that reflects the predilections of their founders. For example, Gestalt therapy focuses heavily on openness, honesty, courage, and risk-taking, but underestimates empathy and kindness. Some martial arts(such as aikido), which are close to integrative practice, pay the most attention to the physical and meditative side, but lose sight of interpersonal relationships.
Murphy selects a set of transformative programs through personal experimentation, guided by the wisdom of the past, but inspired by the spirit of exploration. So you can try to combine various physical methods - martial arts, tai chi, hatha yoga, morning running or sports - with any interpersonal or transpersonal methods that are regularly practiced. If a person meditates daily, then it is useful for him to provide some form exercise, which will strengthen his muscles and nervous system. If he is in psychotherapy or psychosynthesis, he will benefit from bringing a somatic component into his therapy in order to anchor intellectual insights and emotional release in his body (Ways Beyond the Ego, 1996).
Our metanormal abilities will be more likely to grow if integrating methods get institutional support. Wherever public life includes a transformative lifestyle (such as in Hasidism, where religious rituals cover all aspects of life), the practice expands and deepens. Therefore, we must create social structures that would support our transformative practice.
Research by Murphy and his colleagues at the Esalen Institute convincingly shows that if we focus on inner development and use the power of our extraordinary abilities, we can learn to live more harmoniously on earth, conserving the world's precious resources and finding understanding and pleasure in an inwardly oriented, more compassionate approach. to life.
In the summer of 2002, during a scientific-practical seminar on the shores of the magnificent beauty of the Altai lake Altan-Kol, one of the authors (V. Kozlov) decided to form a research program, which he called the “Consciousness Project”.
Over the next ten years, he is going to direct his efforts to the study of the nature of consciousness - basic states, mechanisms of emergence and functioning, linguistic environments of existence and, most importantly, in our opinion, resource, creative states of consciousness.
One of the research programs of this project was the research program of the so-called stream states of consciousness (FCS). Until now, the topic has been little studied, despite the relevance of its problems. Similar studies have not been conducted in Russia and the CIS countries, and therefore the phenomenology of the “flow” state has not been theoretically analyzed from a psychophysiological and mental point of view, its influence on the socio-psychological patterns of personality functioning has not been considered.
The theoretical significance of the choice of research topic lies in the fact that when studying the internal mechanisms, content and phenomenology of the flow state of consciousness, the impact of this state on the psyche and personality is revealed. The practical significance of the work is that based on its results, it becomes possible to introduce the PSS phenomenon into everyday activities in order to increase the effectiveness of its results.
As we have repeatedly noted, at present there is no generally accepted classification of states of consciousness in the European psychological tradition. The definitions of states of consciousness are extremely vague and do not allow one to distinguish a qualitative difference between them. This is observed not only in the continuum of "unusual" states of ordinary (normal) consciousness, but also in its dual components, which are healthy and pathological states of consciousness.
For the above reasons, I would like, if possible, to designate the concept of an expanded state of consciousness (ESC), to which we attribute the phenomenon of ECS.
Expanded state of consciousness (ECC) is a special state of altered consciousness that occurs during connected breathing. RSS is characterized by the maximum mobilization of the reserve capabilities of the human psyche, when a person, with the help of complete relaxation and conscious connected breathing, receives expanded opportunities to control the central and peripheral nervous systems, work with unconscious material, the body as a whole, personal, interpersonal and transpersonal levels of mental functioning.
The expanded state of consciousness that occurs in the process of connected breathing is qualitatively different from the states that arise during deep hypnosis, trance, meditation, and other ways to achieve altered states of consciousness. RSS is a qualitatively special psychological and psychophysiological state, which differs from sleep, wakefulness, pathological disorders of consciousness, disorders of consciousness when taking alcohol, drugs and psychedelic drugs.
The process of connected breathing as a way and means of achieving a flow state of consciousness as a kind of RSS has such qualities as awareness, controllability, controllability, the presence of will, intentions and the ability to return to the normal state of consciousness (OSS) at any time.
The most striking example of how much joy, raising feelings, deep satisfaction brings the very performance of actions, and not their result, is a game. There is, however, a whole range of various forms of labor activity that are primarily focused on the process, and not on the result: artists, sculptors, poets, composers often spend days and nights at work, not noticing anything around them; but, having completed the work, they may immediately lose all interest in it. The process of creation attracts and absorbs them so much that for its own sake they are ready to sacrifice a lot: not to sleep, to starve, not to have a guarantee in the mandatory recognition of their product, or in a material organization. The pages of art history are replete with examples of a truly tragic fate and characters. The same can be said about the work of scientists, architects, directors, production managers and representatives of other professions, tirelessly struggling to solve the set tasks; about actors, athletes and dancers who act primarily for the sake of the process itself and deeply experience it.
To clarify the psychophysiological mechanisms that cause PSS, we conducted experimental studies in which 42 operators aged 24 to 45 years took part (Bubeev, Kozlov, 1996). The attention of the subjects was not focused on the goals of the experiment.
The studies were carried out as part of the assessment of professional qualities, which ensured a high level of motivation of the subjects.
For about one hour, they performed their usual operator activities, modeling individual aircraft control elements and representing the solution of typical model tasks for collecting and processing visual information, requiring the implementation of its visual-figurative and verbal-logical transformation.
The results of the survey of the subjects made it possible to identify among them a group of four people in whom it was most clearly possible to identify the main elements of the PSS. An analysis of the test results showed that all the subjects in this group were among those who showed significantly better results than the rest. The level of their professional training allowed them to quite easily cope with the proposed tests, however, the unusual conditions of the test and competition with other subjects required the maintenance of continuous attention, a high level of concentration and mobilization.
As the results of the study of physiological parameters showed, in the course of the experiment, all subjects underwent pronounced changes in the activity of a number of physiological systems, which confirms the numerous data available in the literature on labor physiology. There was an increase in heart rate, increased blood pressure. An increase in myocardial oxygen consumption is evidenced by an increase in the Robinson index by 2-2.8 times. Significant neuro-emotional stress accompanying the testing process led to a decrease in the variation range of rhythmocardiograms to 0.1 s. Oxygen consumption increased by 2-3 times. The respiratory rate and minute ventilation of the lungs increased drastically. The occurrence of signs of hyperventilation is evidenced by the occurrence of an imbalance between oxygen consumption and carbon dioxide release, which averaged 510 ± 67 ml for the group during the study.
A feature of persons who had signs of a state of "flow" consisted in a much lower physiological cost of activity.
But the most significant difference was the significantly greater CO2 deficiency during the study, which was significantly higher than the average values for the group and amounted to 1250 ± 83 ml. There was also a decrease in CO 2 tension in the blood, as evidenced by a significant decrease in PET CO 2 (from 41 ± 2 to 30 ± 3 mm Hg).
An analysis of the results of assessing the parameters of external respiration showed that the cause of severe hypocapnia in the subjects was relatively little pronounced hyperventilation during the performance of operator activities. Comparison with other subjects did not reveal significant differences in the value of minute ventilation of the lungs. A more detailed analysis of the parameters of external respiration showed the presence of clear signs of an increase in the efficiency of gas exchange in the lungs. The alveolar ventilation increased, the dead space ventilation decreased, and the oxygen utilization coefficient increased.
The reason for this paradox became clear when studying the rhythm and temporal characteristics of the phases of the respiratory cycle. It turned out that the nature of breathing in the selected group of persons had signs of "connectivity", which can be concluded from the values of the respiratory rhythm variability, which was more than 2 times lower, and the duration of exhalation, which was 65-90% higher, with practically previous breathing rate.
Interesting patterns were revealed by us in the analysis of the electrical activity of the brain. After a period of suppression of the alpha rhythm, the appearance of signs of desynchronization and high-frequency activity that occurred in all subjects, individuals in the “flow” state showed an increase in slow-wave activity, paradoxical for a situation of active operator activity.
It is known that in a state of relaxed wakefulness in most healthy adults, a regular alpha rhythm of maximum amplitude is recorded on the EEG. This rhythm can occasionally be interrupted, apparently in connection with the activation reaction due to the internal mental activity of the subject.
When a person engages in any type of activity that causes increased emotional stress or requires a high degree of attention, a condition called desynchronization occurs on the EEG. The notion of a relationship between EEG “flattening” and an increase in activation and an increase in the amplitude of the alpha rhythm with a decrease in the level of functional activity is in good agreement with the data of studies of the dependence of the EEG on mental processes. It has been shown that under mental load, visual tracking, learning, i.e. in situations requiring increased mental activity, the EEG amplitude naturally decreases and its frequency increases.
It is believed that the presence of slow-wave activity under normal conditions is an indicator of the pathological mode of operation of the brain systems, and even with individual periods of high-amplitude discharges of delta and theta waves, a decrease in the level of attention, wakefulness and tracking accuracy is noted. Contrary to the literature data presented above, in our studies there was a pronounced slow-wave activity with a high quality of activity and its lower physiological cost, which increased by 15–30 min of the study in parallel with an increase in CO2 deficiency and the degree of hypocapnia.
According to its encephalographic picture, activity in a state of high concentration and concentration on the task being performed, i.e. in the "flow", has a very strong resemblance to shallow meditative states. In the context of this problem, the ongoing conquest of the Western market by electronic devices for biofeedback and subthreshold programming should be noted. The background of the question is this. After a cycle of studies of meditation by Zen monks, it was found that in the “Za-Zen” state, the intensity of the alpha rhythm sharply increases and the frequencies of the biorhythms of the brain of both hemispheres are synchronized (usually these frequencies are somewhat different). Shortly after these studies, in line with the ideas of biofeedback, portable devices were developed that stimulate the brain through electrical sensors, headphones, and LEDs. It turned out to be possible to impose on the human brain rhythms characteristic of different states of consciousness. For example, a low beta rhythm of 15 Hz intensifies the normal state of waking consciousness. A high beta rhythm with a frequency of 30 Hz causes a state similar to that which occurs after the use of cocaine. The alpha rhythm with a frequency of 10.5 Hz induces a state of deep relaxation. According to a number of preliminary data in this state, the brain produces a large number of neuropeptides that increase immunity. Theta rhythm with a frequency of 7.5 Hz contributes to the emergence of a state characteristic of deep meditation. At a low theta rhythm with a frequency of 4 Hz, there is sometimes an experience that has received the name “journey out of the body” in the literature. At frequencies below 4 Hz, there is a strong desire to fall asleep, the difficulty of maintaining waking consciousness. With today's handheld devices, the state of "overlearning" or subthreshold programming is easily induced. It turns out that in this state a person is extremely receptive to remembering new information. There are thousands of different types of audio cassettes on the market today for subliminal programming (for learning languages, weaning from smoking, relieving stress, getting rid of excess weight, settings for various life situations).
Thus, using the terminology of neurolinguistic programming, we can say that connected breathing serves to “anchor” the state of “flow”, and often, judging by numerous observations at trainings on intensive integrative psychotechnologies, the basic trigger of these states. Moreover, there is a real opportunity to create physiological and neuropsychological prerequisites for inducing resource, creative states of the individual - the processes of conscious connected breathing.
In addition, a detailed physiological study of this concept on more representative statistical material may require a radical revision of the fundamental provisions of the psychophysiology of labor and, in particular, the normalization of the load, because serious and responsible work in a state of "flow" can bring more enjoyment than any, the most "cool" form of leisure, and fill human life with more meaning. The most important thing is to help the personality to realize itself, to self-actualize with the help of the simplest and most accessible for a person - breathing (Kozlov, 2002).
Despite the fact that when describing the experience of the “flow”, some emphasize its affective dimension (a feeling of deep satisfaction), others emphasize its motivational dimension (how strong the desire to continue it), and still others emphasize its cognitive dimension (the degree and ease of concentration), nevertheless, a number of characteristic properties can be distinguished and signs of this condition.
1. Feeling one with your actions("fusion of the processes of action and awareness"). In this state, a person is so involved, immersed in what he is doing, that he loses awareness of himself as something separate from the actions he performs. Let's remember K. Marx: consciousness is not parallel to the real world, it is a part of it. A phenomenon arises clairvoyance– “hybrid, polysemantic thinking”. In this "stream of consciousness and activity" there is no need for reflection (awareness of one's results) - the result of each action is instantly interpreted, and often at the psychomotor level ("live contemplation"), and only then - at the psychosemantic (intellectual and spiritual) level. The body connects the "I" and the outside world - it becomes a place of interpenetration of spaces, energies, things, movements of the soul. It is known that the consciousness of a “holistic person” reflects the world through a living body and “living movements”. According to A.F. Losev, the body is “the living face of the soul”, and “the fate of the soul is the fate of the body”. To expand the sphere of consciousness, there is no tool more perfect than the human body. Physical "corporeality, felt from within" becomes an instrument of human interaction with the world of things, nature, the world of people. At the same time, it is also an instrument of his “I”, which is improved by the soul and the spirit of the soul. Sheldon (an American scientist who laid the foundations of the theory of the psychology of physicality) considered the human body as a word spoken by the soul. In the semantic world of personality, a genuine polyphony of motor and mental processes arises, a counterpoint of concepts, images, attitudes, dialogic consciousness as a mechanism of a person's ontological attitude to himself and to the world. Every thought and every feeling is involved in the situation of the problem being solved, perceived as the position of the individual in the context of this situation.
2. Full control of the situation(based on the unity of the soul, intellect and activity). “Movements turn out to be smart not because they are guided by an external and higher intellect in relation to them, but by themselves.” Movement coordination, as noted by V.P. Zinchenko, is carried out not from the outside, but by the means of the action itself. This state is experienced by the athlete as “control of the situation”, as an opportunity to fully control their actions, “dissolve” in them, spiritualize them with the soul. Pushkin wrote about such actions: "A flight filled with soul." Note that in such situations, the “I” is the observing principle, the deep “selfhood” of a person is the observed. Climber: “You are so adapted to the rocks that you become part of them. There is a feeling of your complete inclusion in the environment: you are like a snow leopard conquering the rocks. You enter into a dialogue with nature. You completely control the situation of the task, anticipate it and can predict further development».
Thus, two “hypostases” are integrated in the “living movements of a person” - the world that is in man(psychosemantic object world), and the world in which a person lives and acts(objective physical environment). The actor who creates his action leaves the objective space of the environment into his own objective world of personality. The objective world is, in essence, the spiritual core of the diverse culture of the individual, the values and ideals that determine the existence of a person and his activity in solving certain problems and tasks.
It is important to keep in mind that a creative solution has a constructively generative character. It is developed on the basis of the logical-semantic reconstruction of the world, and not as a result of a mechanical enumeration (selection) of means of solution. The latter is typical for complex technical systems, such as "artificial intelligence that makes a decision."
In the activity ontology, the boundary between the object and the subject is leveled, meanwhile, what is, and those what is for the subject. Finding the unity of man and environment was the goal of the ancient Indian philosophers, the followers of Vedanta. The etymology of the word "Universe" emphasizes the primordial and immanent universality of man in the world. The principle of the unity of the individual and the objective world put forward by us earlier reflects not so much the relationship between things as relationship between relationships(soul and spirit, good and evil, etc.). It is quite clear that there cannot be a Creative Spirit without a Receiving Spirit (they can be embodied in one person). Being in the world is a joint being of different people. This is the combination of "I" and "I am different." This is catholicity and co-spiritualization of many people.
Man, as you know, is a creature with many choices. The system of his personal and semantic attitudes forms an “inner vision” that allows you to consider what the movement looks like from the inside (N.A. Bernshtein). From our point of view, to perceive an object means to see what can be done with it or in relation to it. It is legitimate to assert that a person cognizes an object to the extent that he transforms it in accordance with his intentions and designs. But it is also true that the subject is able to transform the object to the extent that he displays, understands and interprets it. To understand something means to build a model of this something for oneself, to give meaning to things and events. Truth, as you know, cannot be known, one must be in it (S. Kierkegaard). The comprehension of truth is, in fact, the process of integrating all objective meanings, meanings, positions and dispositions of a thinking and acting person.
It can be assumed that any athlete organizes the perception of the sphere of his consciousness and thinking in order to organize his activities. The motor task being solved by an athlete reorganizes the world he perceives in terms of actions and his own actions in terms and meanings of the task being solved. It is quite clear that the one who changes his position sees more, the methods of "inner vision". The very subject of thought and the object of cognition, as it were, "turns" to the subject with its new side. Thus, the “world of positions and points of view” of a thinking and acting person is expanding. He begins to see the world more fully and finds more options for self-realization through his motor actions and activities in general.
3. Loss of self-awareness(“feeling of oneself” is lost, as a rule, at the highest point of controlling the situation). The absence of "I" in consciousness does not mean, however, that a person has lost control over his psyche or over his body. His actions become a means of expressing and realizing his "I" as a system of relations to reality. A person, as it were, expands his boundaries, dissolves in nature or in other people, becomes part of an existing system, larger than his individual "I". So the rider merges into a single whole with the horse, the racer with the car. The athlete begins to “think with his whole body”, which indicates the integration of all languages of thinking and sensory reflection into a single cognitive-mental structure of human consciousness. Figuratively speaking, a “thinking fabric of mixed yarn” arises - synthetic ways of knowing and interpreting the world, in which all kinds of sensory-logical experience are involved, where ethos (feeling) and logos (mind) coincide in a single creative act. Here man acts as the subject of his essential forces, and, therefore, mastered and generated to them, the objective environment appears as an adequate, true reflection of these forces, of the person himself, of his measure. Here, a person exists in the objective environment as a demiurge, a creator who both creates it and displays himself in it. At the same time, the objectification of a person in subject-activity forms can have the character alienation associated with the violation of the measure of man, when the objective world generated by man, the objective environment oppose him, are alienated from him (this is not my environment, this is not my world). There are sharp psychological contradictions. Contradictions of the environment turn into contradictions of the world. Thus, an integrative approach should consider activity in three “hypostases”: as a reality “alienated” (from the person who creates it), as a reality “non-alienated” (in the process of creation) and as a reality that “alienates” the person himself from the object of his creation (and therefore also from himself).
4. Anthropomorphization of natural objects and things. It is known that a person can perceive the properties of an object both from the side of the object itself (“cosmic cold”), and from the side of the subject (“chill between the shoulder blades”). A person is able to reincarnate into an inanimate object, to see it as if “from the inside”, to enter into a “dialogue with things”, to interpret their behavior from the point of view of human motives. In other words, human consciousness spontaneously strives for spiritualization, animation of all objects with which it contacts. He endows animals and plants, inanimate objects and abstract (highly abstract) concepts with human properties - consciousness, thoughts, feelings, will (anthropomorphism). So the violinist personifies (personifies) his violin, the programmer - the computer. Medieval knights animate their sword, sailors of the sailing fleet - the ship. There is a religious personification of the world (pantheism, absolute idea, God, Supreme Reason). The phenomenon of anthropomorphization of nature and things created by man (the man-made world, or "second nature") as partners in "communication", apparently has deep roots in the human psyche. N. Humphrey calls this the Pygmalion effect: "... things come to life when communicating." The very ways of perceiving and acting with objects of the external (let's add - and internal) world include the "position of a partner" in communication: "The connections between a person and an object are protosocial in nature." They can be considered as transrational protophenomena of human consciousness, allowing him to carry out with nature a livre ouvert, which in French means “act without preparation”, “read from an open book”, “sing from sight”. Here man acts as a transcendental subject, to whom the truth is given "as in the palm of your hand", and he acts "as if by notes" recorded in the score of nature. In this aspect, we have written a lot about the “original state of consciousness”, in which the personality loses its subjectivity and “dissolves in the spiritualized space” (Kozlov, 1999).
5. Transcendent (inaccessible to knowledge) experiences(a sense of harmony with the environment, a person's "openness" to the outside world, forgetting one's "earthly" problems). As a result of transcending (going beyond the limits of one's "I"), significant changes occur in the value-semantic sphere of the personality, the mechanisms of superconsciousness begin to operate. Here a person experiences distance from other people, immersed in his own intellectual experience. Solitude becomes akin to self-creation, acts as a necessary condition for the "work of the soul." In this aspect, we can recall the thought of A. Maslow about the creative aspect of the state of loneliness and that loneliness is one of the hallmarks of a self-actualizing personality. A person in this state is a kind of body-spiritual continuum. He interprets himself metaphysically.
It is known that the subject of semantics is not only the objective world of nature, but also the area of a priori (according to Kant) representations (including transcendental ones that go beyond the limits of "vulgar materialistic experience"), which is divided in different ways by "cold analytical reason" and "creative imagination of the creators of the language. A person can bring transcendent meaning into external reality and can extract it from there.
6. Metaphorization of human consciousness. The respondents' statements testify to "linguistic nonsense", "semantic oppositions", "paradoxes of thinking and perception of the world". Reality in the PSS acquires signs of ambivalent integrity.
Thinking becomes similar to the poetic, which expresses and forms new semantic images.
In the course of the evolutionary development of man as a kind, thinking, as is well known, preceded language; language(as a means of forming thought) and speech(as a way of formulating and expressing thoughts) arise later. The linguistic world began to exert a certain influence on being and experience the impact of reality on thinking. Language and speech, as the original means of communication between people through the exchange of thoughts, had a double function: ideal (to say something) and real (to say somehow). Here we are discussing the question not of how the language is structured, but rather of how the objective world of man is arranged. It is known that the inner world of a linguistic personality consists primarily of different people, the objective world is dialogue between different subjects of culture, dialogue of the meanings of human existence. A language is built into the “dialogical consciousness” of a person, with the help of which semantic connections, categorical mental structures, and cognitive images of various modalities are fixed. Thus, in the mind of a person (as a native speaker) a value-semantic system (synthesizing "natural", "objective", "social", "existential" components) continuously develops, semantic increments are carried out, generated by the aesthetic functioning of the word, word image, symbol, sign . Language, as you know, is impersonally universal, necessary for people to communicate (by exchanging thoughts) - it is non-personal and objective. Unlike language, human speech is always personal, subjective, often metaphorical and polysemantic.
The main mechanisms for identifying "semantic oppositions" of the world perceived by a person are the following: metaphor(allowing you to make the “familiar unusual”), allegory(allowing "to compare the incommensurable" and "to measure the incommensurable"), analogy(allowing you to make the “unusual familiar”) and catachresis(allowing you to put a new meaning into old words and concepts). Linguistic semantics permeates the entire objective world of a person and is manifested not only in language (metaphorical language), but also in his thinking (metaphorical thinking) and activity (the heuristic nature of a metaphor directs a person’s thought to search for new ways of action). The "dialogue of metaphors" in the mind of a person allows to reconstruct his inner world: to adapt to the objective environment by transforming the objective world of the individual (a person changes his attitude towards objects) or to harmonize inner world with an external way of transforming the environment (a person changes his behavior).
A metaphor is a way of conceptualizing reality, compressed to a prototypical image, with the help of which the human consciousness penetrates into the deep structure of the world. Metaphorical modeling of motor actions in anthropocentric biomechanics is considered as an invasion of meaningful personal experiences into the sphere of meanings and meanings of the elements of the system of movements, sensory-figurative representations into the sphere of concepts and categories, emotions and creative imagination into the sphere of intellect and abstract-formal thinking. In our opinion, it is possible to overcome the boundary between the physical and the mental by using a single language for their description - the language of geometric representations and cognitive-metaphorical modeling of the objective world.
If we analyze this phenomenon more deeply, then we can assume that numerous “channels”, “tunnels” “break through” in the PSS (I would like to apologize for the metaphorical comparisons to readers), between the basic environments for the functioning of consciousness - sensations, emotions, images, symbols and sign systems, which explains the synergistic integrity of the PSS experience itself (Kozlov, 2002).
7. Transpersonal experience. External goals set only the direction of human development or the system of requirements for the result, developed by the intellect. The essence is action for its own sake. The resulting result is a prerequisite for the development of an end-to-end personality. Achieving the goal is important only to outline the next action, in itself it does not satisfy. Actions are preserved and supported not by their results, but by the experience of the process, the feeling of “muscular joy”, and involvement in the activity. This is an ecstatic state, "capturing" a person. The motivational-emotional sphere of thinking dominates here, and not the rational-logical intellect. Spirituality dominates here as an orientation towards higher powers, towards other people and oneself. Human self-consciousness is relevant to the sensation of the demiurge. “The goal of creativity is self-giving, not hype, not success,” the great poet said about obvious self-actualization. Note that in the process of creation, not so much a person creates certain ideas, images, linguo-creative (linguistic) symbols and signs, but productive ideas "make" a person- people who are passionate about their actions are in their power. The acting personality is revealed as causa sui (cause of self). Thus, a person co-creates himself and “o-creates” (opens to another) in moments going beyond oneself(into interpersonal space) and their capabilities(knowledge, skills, abilities), representation of oneself in other people(being of a person in another person) and reproduction of another person in oneself. At the same time, a person does not so much occupy any social cell, but permeates the entire society, has an impact on the entire socio-cultural space.
The true meaning of the PSS is not so much diving into the depths of the infinite (anthropocosmic) in order to find something new for oneself, but comprehension of the depths of the finite (clusters of the “image-I”) in order to find the inexhaustible (to find the spiritual). A person on this path "cultivates" in himself not only the Subject of Activity, but also the Subject of the World.
8. Enjoyment of the process of activity. The feeling of rapture should be distinguished from the feeling of pleasure, which can also bring the process of activity. Pleasure can be experienced without any effort, so it does not lead to growth and development of the individual. The feeling of rapture (for example, "rapture in battle") cannot arise without a full return of strength. The result is not so much a deeper comprehension of the world and oneself, but (through catharsis - spiritual drama) the transformation of the human soul. This is the bliss of human activity. Generally speaking, this is Human Activity. Such activity allows a person to go beyond their programs to higher meanings, allows you to identify and form in yourself new abilities of spiritualization of the reality surrounding it and expediently transformed by it, including your own being.
It is precisely with such human actions (N.A. Bernshtein and V.P. Zinchenko call them “living movements”) that the birth of everything new and beautiful in the world and in man himself is connected, in going beyond the known, beyond the boundaries of the pre-established, extending the subject into new spaces of knowledge, abilities and skills. The subject of activity (the subject of cognition, evaluation and transformation) can be the same for different people, the angles of its vision are complementary, and the ways of personal “ascent” to it, “growing” into it or “cultivating” in oneself are different and individual. In the process of such creasophic activity, a person "creates himself" - not only "forms" (i.e. acquires knowledge, skills), but also "forms the world" himself: creates his understanding, his vision of the world, designs and builds his own life , decides where to go, what to think about, with whom to interact and communicate. Isn't this evidence of personal striving for unlimited and all-round penetration into the world of Nature, the Man-Made World and the World of Another Man? Isn't this the magic of the Spiritual World of a cognizing and acting personality?
But, proving the optimality of the PSS, why do we so rarely experience this state in Everyday life? Why is it familiar to us mainly in the form of so-called leisure: playing chess, climbing, dancing, meditation, religious rituals? Why do we still not have this optimal state when doing daily work? The difficulty lies in the conditions for the emergence of the “flow” state, but this, as a rule, depends solely on the subject himself.
If we analyze the conditions for the occurrence of PSS, then we can isolate the following:
1. Intensive and stable concentration of attention on a limited stimulus field.
Our experiments with partial sensory deprivation and various static and dynamic meditations that are associated with voluntary concentration of attention have shown that this condition is often basic to PSS.
Csikszentmihaly's research is of particular interest to us precisely because the author has identified "external keys" that promote concentration and thus provide a state of "flow". They are certain requirements of activity (“challenges of the situation”) and a certain structure of activity.
2. "Challenges of the situation."
It has been experimentally shown that it is easier to enter the PSS in situations that provide the following opportunities: exploring the unknown and discovering the new, solving problems and making decisions, competition and the emergence of a sense of danger, the emergence of a sense of closeness or loss of ego boundaries. In general, these are situations that contribute to the study by the subject of his capabilities, an attempt to expand them, go beyond the known, creative discoveries and research into the new. In other words, these are situations that satisfy the "central human need" for transcending - for going beyond the known, for extending the subject into new spaces of skills, abilities, and abilities.
3. Structure of activity.
First, entering the “flow” is facilitated by those types of activities where there are clear, consistent goals, precise rules and norms of action to achieve them, and where there is clear (direct, accurate, instantaneous) feedback on the result of the action. These conditions help keep the focus on the process. Full, total inclusion in the activity is impossible if it is not known what needs to be done and how well you are doing it.
Secondly, entry into the PSS is facilitated in activities that continually challenge the subject's abilities. The subject must be able to notice them and respond to them with appropriate skills and abilities. Necessary condition PSS is a balance between the requirements of the activity and the individual abilities of the subject. However, a significant difficulty is created by the fact that this is not a simple correspondence of skills to challenges: only such a balance can give rise to PSS in which both challenges and skills are above a certain level. Each subject has a so-called personal average level, i.e. some balance of skills and challenges. When both skills and challenges are below this level, which is usually for a standard, well-established activity, there is nothing to expect from the experience of the CSP even in a balance. When the opportunities for action are below average, and personal opportunities are underused, a state of apathy and boredom occurs. Conversely, when the task is not provided with appropriate skills, a state of anxiety appears. And only activity, the skills and challenges of which exceed the "personal average level", does not contain points for relaxation and therefore forces the subject to be continuously attentive, requires a high level of concentration from him. Only such activity creates all the conditions for the complete, total inclusion of the subject, which is accompanied by a feeling of deep satisfaction, pleasure.
In other words, PSS happens in such conditions that force the subject to fully reveal his abilities, to fully mobilize himself. When there is a balance, all the subject's attention is focused exclusively on the activity. In order for a person to remain in the PSS as his abilities develop, an increase in challenges is necessary. This does not require a change of activity, it is important to be able to find new challenges in the same activity, to be able to notice them. This is a deeply individual property (W. James called it the property of a genius), but you can also learn it, you can develop it in yourself. It is with this peculiarity of empathizing with the challenges of Existence and pulling yourself up to them that the birth of everything new and beautiful in the world and in man is connected. Thus, creative activity becomes a source of inner growth.
An analysis of the conditions for the spontaneous emergence of the PSS allows us to raise the question of the possibility of its formation in any activity, which, in turn, can deepen and expand our understanding of its role in the development of the subject of labor as a person.
So, the phenomenology of the "stream state of consciousness" shows us that people who experience this state are completely absorbed in their occupation; feel deep satisfaction from what they do, and this feeling brings the process of activity itself, and not its result; they forget personal problems, see their competence, gain experience in full control of the situation; they experience a sense of harmony with the environment, "expansion" of themselves; their skills and abilities develop, their personality grows. As far as these elements of experience are present, the subject gets pleasure from his activity and stops worrying about external evaluation. Naturally, such an experience is optimal for a person. It allows you to streamline the random flow of the subject’s life, gives a basic sense of support: at any given moment, the subject can concentrate all his attention on a consciously chosen “task in his hands” and instantly forget what destroyed him.
Thus, if we talk about the reserve capabilities of a person, in our opinion, the most promising is the study and development of resource, creative, heuristic states of consciousness, which, following Chiksentmihaly, we designated as PSS - flow states of consciousness.
Since ancient times, people have attached great importance to their development and assessment of their own abilities. Centuries ago, there was an opinion according to which a person chose the wrong vector of development. In what sense? Instead of making efforts and engaging in self-development, people do not stop working on what surrounds them. Almost or completely without taking care of himself, a person tries to make the conditions around him as comfortable as possible. On the other hand, not all people have a materialistic mindset. Many people value things that money cannot buy. It is important to realize that the best "investment" is the effort made to improve the spiritual, social and physical capabilities of a person.
Do you have potential?
One well-known philosopher and psychologist, William James, who lived in the 20th century, came to the conclusion that most people do not realize the potential that was originally laid in them. According to him, every baby has such prospects that his parents do not even think about. That is why most people remain at a low level of development of their talents - they do not realize how wide the horizon of their abilities is.
Consider examples of how the development of human capabilities occurs. New social skills are formed quite quickly. If people understood that they could learn something so soon, then their life would be completely different. For example, in order to be able to play well on musical instrument and be considered a master of his craft, the average individual will need about one year. Is it a lot? Not at all! The possibilities are so incredible that even in such a short period of time he can learn something truly beautiful. Therefore, thoughts that you will not reach a certain level of development or a particular goal are often formed on the basis of stereotypes of lazy people. To see how amazing it is, it is enough just to set a goal and pursue it. But what will help to achieve goals and reveal new possibilities of a person?
The Importance of Systematic Effort
Most people never succeed because they don't persevere enough in their endeavors.
Patience and a little effort. This proverb accurately emphasizes the importance of systematic effort. Even if in an effort to develop some kind of talent or quality in oneself, attempts look unconvincing, and the results cannot be called victorious, it is important to continue to break through the road in the intended direction day after day and not give up.
Many people believe that special features are inherent in him from birth.
So, people celebrate talented individuals. In the same way, many justify themselves. Do not think that talented people were born as such. In most cases, we see not so much gifted people as hardworking and purposeful. It is important to make every effort to engage in the development of your personality. Such efforts bring great inner satisfaction.
The physical capabilities of a person develop according to the same principle. In this respect, of course, much does not depend on us. For example, a person whose height is 160 centimeters cannot become a professional basketball player, no matter how hard he tries. However, he is still capable of succeeding in this matter if he persistently strives for the goal.
Concentration
To stimulate the development of human capabilities, it is important to make the right choice and be able to concentrate efforts. Again, remember the proverb: "If you chase two hares, you won't catch one." In order to develop individual abilities and talents, it is important not only to go your own way, no matter what, but also to choose this path correctly, fully concentrating on it.
Let's go back to the example of a short man who is sure that the possibilities of a person are endless. He set himself the goal of becoming a professional basketball player. What is the positive side of this situation? Firstly, the fact that a person is not afraid to set ambitious goals. Secondly, he makes every effort and does not give up, despite the difficulties that he will definitely have to face. However, a person will still not be able to achieve his goal and become a professional basketball player. What's wrong? It's all about the wrong path.
For the best realization of opportunities, people should soberly assess their abilities and circumstances in order to set achievable goals. At the same time, it is important not to be distracted by extraneous tasks, the incidental solution of which can stop development and interfere with the conquest of peaks.
Motivation
Opportunities and can be revealed only if he is able to overcome such qualities of any personality as laziness, inertia. Understanding the value of the task - motivation - will help to cope with such obstacles on the way to the development of one's personality. In sports, people are motivated by the desire to be a winner, to win fame, fame, to have wealth. All this helps them to constantly improve and become more self-confident.
Unusual potential
Most people around are much more interested in seeing social opportunities man, but his unusual talents and abilities of the body. This is because extraordinary mental qualities are not striking, while phenomenal abilities human body everyone will notice.
People are used to believing that they have their limit. According to scientists, it is partly for this reason that a person sometimes cannot overcome some kind of barrier or height, although he has the potential for this. The limit of human capabilities can be tested in stressful situations, when the mental barrier - that which is holding back - ceases to operate in its usual mode. This is proven by many examples. Surely you have heard more than once about people who, out of fear of danger, in seconds overcame a height of more than two meters or showed strength ten times greater than their usual strength. All this suggests that human capabilities are much larger than we used to think. With this in mind, we should not think that we can't do anything.
Consider what human capabilities have been demonstrated in different areas. These real cases confirm that almost everything is achievable.
Being in a cold environment
The time that a person can spend in the water is an hour or an hour and a half. During this short period, death occurs due to shock, respiratory failure, or cardiac arrest. It would seem that the physical capabilities of a person simply do not allow expanding this frontier. But there are other facts.
During the Second World War, a sergeant of the Soviet troops swam 20 kilometers in cold water, thereby completing his combat mission. It took the soldier 9 hours to overcome such a distance! Does this not mean that the world of human possibilities is much greater than we imagine?!
Proves this fact and one British fisherman. Within 10 minutes of being shipwrecked in cold water, all of his comrades died due to hypothermia, but this man lasted about five hours. And after he reached the shore, he walked for another three hours barefoot. Indeed, with regard to the cold environment, human capabilities are much wider than is commonly believed. What about other areas?
Feeling of hunger, or How long can you live without food
There is a general opinion of experts that a person without food will survive for about two weeks. However, physicians in some countries have witnessed amazing records that help to realize the fantastic potential of the human body.
For example, one woman fasted for 119 days. During this period, she received a daily dose of vitamins to keep her internal organs functioning. But such a 119-day hunger strike is not the limit of human capabilities.
In Scotland, two women checked into a clinic and began fasting to lose weight. It's hard to believe, but one of them did not eat for 236, and the second - for 249 days. The second indicator has not yet been surpassed by anyone so far. The resources of our body are really very rich. But if a person can not eat for so long, the question arises of how much he can not drink.
Water is life?
They say that without water a person can last no more than 2-3 days. In fact, this indicator depends on the individual capabilities of a person, his physical activity and ambient temperature. Scientists say that in optimal circumstances, without water, you can only live for a maximum of 9-10 days. Is it so? Is that the limit?
In the fifties, a man was found in the city of Frunze, who received a head injury and lay without help for 20 days in a cold and deserted place. When they found him, he did not move, and his pulse was barely palpable. However, the next day, the 53-year-old man was already able to speak freely.
And another case. In England, during the end of the Second World War, a steamship sank. ship wrecked in the Atlantic Ocean, escaped on a boat and stayed on it for four and a half months!
Other fantastic records
People can achieve far greater results than what is considered the norm, and sometimes even an incredible achievement. It's all about our brain, which on a subconscious level indicates a person to his limit. Such a mechanism, of course, benefits our body. However, understanding how such a system works, we can achieve much greater success in the area in which we decided to develop.
Not to list all the records showing that human capabilities are incredibly great. Such achievements have been made in sports, including in the field of power loads. There are also people who can not breathe for a very long time. Extraordinary abilities testify to the widest possibilities and prospects.
The fact that a person's potential is greater than he thinks is shown by one category of people, which, unfortunately, many do not treat with due respect. These are people with disabilities. How do such individuals confirm that the human body has great potential?
Manifestation of strengths
Many people with disabilities are meritorious in how to pursue their goals and not give up despite great obstacles. The development of a person in such difficult conditions not only gives its results, but also tempers the character. So, among the disabled there is a huge number of excellent writers, poets, artists, musicians, athletes, and so on. All these talents are largely the result of heredity, but it is the character that people with certain characteristics show that makes them professionals in their field.
History knows many great people who have achieved success in various fields of activity, although they were sometimes considered inferior. Here is just one example. Polina Gorenstein was a ballerina. After she fell ill with encephalitis, she became paralyzed. The woman lost her sight. Despite all the troubles that arose in connection with a serious illness, the woman began to engage in artistic modeling. As a result, her few works are still among the exhibits of the Tretyakov Gallery.
Where is the limit of possibilities?
We can reasonably believe that our possibilities are truly limitless, both physically and mentally. Therefore, the level of development at which a person is at a given moment in time depends solely on his desire and efforts. It is important to strive for excellence at all costs, despite the obstacles that arise.
Individual psychological characteristics, which are subjective conditions for the successful implementation of a certain kind of activity. Abilities are not limited to the individual's knowledge, skills and abilities. They are found in the speed, depth and strength of mastering the methods and techniques of activity.
When people in the same circumstances achieve different successes in mastering and performing any activity, they speak of the presence of corresponding abilities in some people and their absence in others. The success of mastering the activity and its implementation also depends on knowledge, skills and abilities. But abilities are not reduced to motives, or to knowledge, or to skills, or to habits. At the same time, they all act as conditions for the realization of abilities.
Human abilities, like any other personal formations, have a dual psychological nature. On the one hand, in any ability there are individual components that make up its biological foundations or prerequisites. They are called assignments. are morphological and functional features of the structure of the brain, sensory organs and movement. Most of them are genetically predetermined. In addition to congenital, a person also has acquired inclinations, which are formed in the process of maturation and development of the child in the first years of life. Such inclinations are called social. By themselves, natural inclinations do not yet determine a successful person, that is, they are not abilities. These are only natural conditions or factors on the basis of which the development of abilities takes place.
Another important condition for their formation is the social environment, whose representatives, represented by parents and teachers, include the child in various activities and communication, equip them with the necessary methods for their implementation, and organize a system of exercises and training. Moreover, the possibilities for developing abilities are largely determined by the potential that is inherent in the inclinations. This potential can be realized under appropriate conditions, but most often it remains unfulfilled due to adverse conditions development of most people.
There are different opinions about the extent to which abilities are determined by heredity, and to what extent by the impact of the surrounding social environment. Numerous facts testify to the dominance of both heredity and social conditions. Confirmation of the fact that heredity has a great influence on the formation of abilities is the facts of the early emergence of abilities in many gifted people.
Ability types. A person's abilities are always associated with the mental functions of a person: memory, attention, emotions, etc. Depending on this, the following types of abilities can be distinguished: psychomotor, sensory-perceptual, mental, imaginative (“imaginative”), mnemonic, attention (“attentive”), emotional-dynamic, speech, volitional. They are included in the structure of professional abilities of different specialists. For example, psychomotor abilities are necessary for a surgeon, watchmaker, ballet dancer, etc. Sensory-perceptual abilities form the basis of the professional skills of a cook, taster, perfumer, etc.
In the social life of a person, there are two sides: objective activity and communication. This division allows us to distinguish two types of abilities: subject and socio-psychological. Subject abilities ensure the success of mastering and performing all kinds of subject activities. Socio-psychological abilities are necessary to communicate with people. Communication is fundamentally different from interaction with objects: it is dialogical in essence and requires an attitude towards another person as an equal and equal subject and person. Communication is based not only on their own interests and capabilities, but also on the interests and capabilities of a partner. Therefore, its success will be determined by whether the subject is able to understand another person, mentally take his place, plan and implement the most reasonable methods of psychological influence, make the right impression, etc. This group of abilities includes character traits that express attitudes towards people. Most socio-psychological abilities are very specific and do not work in the context of objective activity. The same is true for subject abilities. In other words, they almost do not intersect with each other. Therefore, numerous facts are quite understandable, when specialists with a high level of professionalism in some subject area showed complete inconsistency in working with people, and vice versa.
Depending on the level of generalization, general and special abilities are distinguished. General abilities determine the success of performing many types of activities simultaneously. These include, for example, intellectual abilities, developed memory, speech, etc. Special abilities determine success in specific activities. They work only within their respective activities. These include musical, mathematical, literary and other abilities. General and special abilities most often coexist, mutually complementing each other. The success of any specific and specific activity depends not only on special, but also on general abilities. Therefore, in the course of professional training of specialists, one should not be limited to the formation of only special abilities.
Depending on the productivity of activity or communication and the characteristics of the product generated by them, reproductive and creative abilities are distinguished. Reproductive abilities affect the success of mastering activities, the ability to acquire knowledge, skills and abilities, that is, the effectiveness of training. They are necessary for mastering special experience and, consequently, for the development of a person as a subject and as a person. Thanks to them, there is no creation, but only the preservation and recreation in subsequent generations of the accumulated human experience. Creativity determines the creation of objects of material and spiritual culture, the production of new, original ideas, discoveries, inventions, creativity in various areas of human life. They are the ones who drive social progress.
Depending on the level of development of a person's abilities, giftedness, talent and genius are distinguished. The totality of a number of abilities that determine a particularly successful activity of a person in a certain area and distinguish him from other persons performing this activity in the same conditions is called giftedness. A high degree of a person's abilities for a certain activity, manifested in the originality and novelty of the approach, is called talent. Talent is a combination of abilities, their totality. The structure of talent is determined by the nature of the requirements imposed on the individual by activity. Genius is the highest degree of giftedness, it is a combination of abilities that gives a person the opportunity to successfully, independently and originally perform any complex activity. The difference between genius and talent is not so much quantitative as qualitative. Genius creates a whole epoch in the field of his activity. So, Mozart in music, C. Darwin in natural science, I. Newton in physics, etc. can be considered geniuses.
The stronger the abilities are expressed, the fewer people possess them. In terms of the level of development of abilities, most people do not stand out in any way. There are not so many gifted, much less talented, and geniuses can be found in every field about once a century. These are just unique people who make up the heritage of mankind. That is why they require the most careful handling. In reality, talented and, especially, brilliant personalities are rarely recognized by their contemporaries. A true assessment of their creative contribution to social culture is given by subsequent generations.
Formation of abilities. In their genetic essence, abilities are socially developed generalized ways of handling objects, phenomena and people, assimilated by an individual and transformed into stable personal properties, ways of acting (assisting) in various life situations. Therefore, the formation of abilities should be aimed at organizing the necessary types and methods of activity and communication and transforming them into appropriate personal formations. However, it cannot be identified with the methodology for the formation of knowledge, skills and abilities.
The initial natural condition for the development of abilities are inclinations. It is on them that, first of all, depends how successfully a child can master the methods of activity and communication given to him by society. They may favor or hinder this, which must be taken into account when constructing a formative methodology. In the course of the corresponding exercises, they are transformed and integrated with the learned methods of action (assistance). As a result, a kind of fusion of natural and social, individual and personal appears.
Important in the formation of a person's abilities are the age-related timing of the discovery of inclinations and the organization of the process itself. The earlier it starts, the easier and faster it is possible to achieve maximum results. However, one should keep in mind the so-called sensitive periods, during which the most favorable psycho-physiological conditions are created for the formation of certain abilities. For example, the sensitive period for the development of linguistic abilities is early preschool age, artistic - senior preschool age.
All these circumstances are necessary for the transformation of a person as a biological being with innate inclinations into a social being, developing human abilities in himself. The surrounding people, having the necessary abilities and means of learning, ensure the continuous development of the necessary abilities in children. An important role here is played by complexity, that is, the simultaneous improvement of several mutually complementary abilities. The versatility and variety of activities and communication, in which a person is simultaneously included, act as one of the conditions for the development of his abilities. In this regard, developmental activities (communication) should be presented with the following requirements: creative nature, the optimal level of difficulty for the performer, proper motivation and ensuring a positive emotional mood when performing.
An essential factor determining the development of abilities is the stable special interests of the individual in a certain area of social life, which are transformed into a propensity to professionally engage in the relevant activity. Special abilities are formed in the process of mastering professional activities. Cognitive interest stimulates the mastery of effective techniques and methods for its implementation, and the successes achieved, in turn, further increase motivation.
In order to ensure the best fit of a person to a specific type of work activity, it is necessary to assess his professional inclinations, inclinations and abilities of a person. This is carried out in the process of vocational guidance and vocational selection, which makes it possible to identify the qualities necessary for a particular type of labor activity. Based on this assessment, professional suitability is revealed. The fact that a person is suitable for this profession can only be said when his abilities are fully consistent with the nature of this work.
It turns out that a person can run several hundred kilometers without rest, swim in water at an air temperature of -43 degrees, go without food for 49 days, hold his breath for 15 minutes and show other miracles of strength and endurance.
What is the longest distance a person can continuously run? The record in this area belongs to the Indians - representatives of the Tarahumara tribe. "Swift Foot" is the translation of the name of this tribe that lives in the Western Sierra Madre in Mexico. In the book of Yuri Shanin "From the Hellenes to the present day" (M., 1975), a case is described when one nineteen-year-old Tarahumara carried a forty-five-kilogram parcel over a distance of 120 km in 70 hours. His tribesman, carrying an important letter, covered a distance of 600 km in five days. A well-trained messenger is able to run at least a hundred kilometers in 12 hours and can run at this pace for four or even six days.
But the American Stan Cottrell ran 276 km 600 m in 24 hours without rest.
In the 70s. 19 Swiss doctor Felix Schenk set up such an experiment on himself. He didn't sleep for three days in a row. In the daytime, he continuously walked and did gymnastics. For two nights he made 30-kilometer crossings on foot at an average speed of 4 km / h, and one night he lifted a stone weighing 46 kg over his head 200 times. As a result, despite normal nutrition, he lost 2 kg in weight. The results of this experiment were presented by him in 1874 in a study on the effect of muscular work on protein breakdown.
Our contemporary E.M. Yashin preferred to conduct similar experiments every morning in the form of intense continuous physical exercise to the limit - a kind of 25-minute super aerobics. To it is added a Sunday run for 20 - 40 km, a one-time meal (vegetarian), 4 - 5 hours of sleep. Yashin's body weight with a 178-centimeter height is only 67 g. The pulse at rest immediately after waking up is 36 beats per minute.
So what about skiers? In 1980, the Finnish athlete Atti Nevala managed to ski a distance of 280 km 900 m within a day, and his compatriot Onni Savi holds the record of non-stop skiing for 48 hours. In 1966, he covered 305 during this time, 9 km.
More than two centuries ago, the speed skating marathon was born in Holland. In general, in this country, according to local residents, children first begin to skate, and then walk. Participants of the marathon overcome 200 km on skates without a break. In 1985, the 49-year-old Dutchman Jaan Kruitof set a record in this type of competition - 6 hours 5 minutes 17 seconds. Interestingly, in 1983, at the marathon run on the ice of Lake Memphremagon from the USA to Canada, a 200-kilometer distance was successfully run by a veteran of this sport, seventy-six-year-old A. Devries.
A trained person can swim just as long as he can run. For example, forty-three-year-old Argentinean Antonio Albertino swam the English Channel in both directions without stopping. Overcoming strong currents, he actually traveled about 150 km (the width of the strait is 35 km) and was continuously in the water for 43 hours and 4 minutes.
However, this distance was far from the greatest for swimmers. 67-year-old Walter Penisch from the USA managed to swim 167 km from Havana to Florida, and his compatriot New York policeman Ben Haggard obeyed even 221 km - the distance between the USA and the Bahamas. The record for the longest swim in the ocean belongs to the American Stella Taylor - 321 km!
There are also curious examples of a kind of human super-endurance. In 1951, one enthusiast managed to walk 25 km in 4 hours without stopping ... backwards! And in the competition of talkers, a certain Shikhin, originally from Ireland, did not close his mouth for as long as 133 hours.
In our country in 1980, during the World Olympiad, Yuri Shumitsky completed a hiking trip along the route Vladivostok - Moscow. During the year, he walked 12 thousand km. But A.R. Ivanenko, who was disabled at the age of 30, at the age of 64 managed to run the distance from Leningrad to Magadan with a length of 11,783 km in a year!
In 1986, forty-year-old French doctor Jean-Louis Etienne skied alone in less than 2 months over a distance of 1200 km from the coast of Canada to the North Pole. On his way, the brave traveler had to overcome the ice broken from a collision with the shore with a lot of crevices, and a 52-degree cold, and, finally, a feeling of complete loneliness. Twice he fell into ice water, lost 8 kg in weight, but achieved his goal.
There is a known case when a rickshaw drove a man weighing 54 kg in 14.5 hours from Tokyo to the town of Nikko, located in the mountains 100 km from the Japanese capital.
Finally, it is impossible not to mention a special kind of triathlon, known as the "Iron Man". Another such supertournament took place in the Hawaiian Islands. The first step is swimming. The 4 km distance along the Waikiki River consists of two parts: 2 km - downstream, the second half - against. We got out of the water - and immediately into the saddle of a bicycle. 180 km in tropical heat is a serious matter, but there is still the third stage ahead - running the classic marathon distance of 42 km 195 m. It is interesting that the winners of such an unusual triathlon manage to overcome the exhausting track in 9 hours.
In literature, Philippides, the best runner of the ancient Greek army, who ran in 490 BC, is often remembered. distance from Marathon to Athens (42 km 195 m), to report the victory of the Greeks over the Persians, and immediately died. According to other sources, before the battle, Philippides "ran" through a mountain pass to Sparta in order to enlist the help of the allies, and at the same time ran over 200 km in two days. Considering that after such a "jog" the messenger took part in the famous battle on the Marathon Plain, then one can only be surprised at the endurance of this person. Here are some interesting examples demonstrating the huge reserve possibilities for turning a person from a seriously ill person into a marathon runner with the help of running.
Nikolai Ivanovich Zolotov. Born in 1894. In 1945 he retired suffering from heart failure, severe spinal contusion and many other serious ailments. But Zolotov decided that living out his life sitting on a bench is not for him, and began to "create himself anew." Overcoming acute pain in the spine, instead of two or three jumps on poorly bending legs, through systematic training, he learned to do 5,000 jumps on each leg without any tension. Then he began to run regularly, was a participant in many competitions, crosses, races, including a marathon. In the traditional race along the Pushkin - Leningrad track in 1978, he won his fifth gold medal.
47-year-old docker from Petropavlovsk-on-Kamchatka, Valentin Shchelchkov, 5 years after a myocardial infarction and a two-month hospitalization associated with it, ran a marathon distance in 2 hours and 54 minutes at the international peace marathon in Moscow.
In 1983, a 100 km race took place in Odessa. Vitaliy Kovel, a teacher of biology and singing from Terskol, won the race in 6 hours 26 minutes and 26 seconds. There were other winners in the race who defeated themselves: Yu. Berlin, A. Sotnikov, I. Makarov ... They had to run continuously for 10 - 15 hours, but they were already over 60 years old! Two of them had angina pectoris in the past and were overweight from 13 to 20 kg.
In another 100-kilometer race, who suffered from angina pectoris in the past and a whole bunch of vascular diseases and gastrointestinal tract 55-year-old A. Bandrovsky from Kaluga ran this distance in 12.5 hours. It took only 10 hours 5 minutes for 60-year-old N. Golshev from Ulyanovsk to overcome the 100-kilometer distance in continuous running, and in fact in the past he suffered from osteochondrosis with a sharp impaired joint mobility. In addition to jogging, Golshev was helped to get rid of this ailment by training in volitional breath-holding, the transition to a vegetarian diet and hardening of the body, brought to the "winter swimming".
In 1973 in the Hawaiian Islands, a kind of marathon race was organized. Its participants were exclusively persons who had suffered a myocardial infarction in the breach. However, there were no accidents during the race.
A person can run a marathon distance both in childhood and in old age. For example, someone Wesley Paul ran a marathon in 4 hours and 4 minutes at the age of 7, and two years later he improved his result by an hour. G.V. On the day of his 70th birthday, Tchaikovsky spent 3 hours 12 minutes and 40 seconds on the marathon. The age record, excluding time, belongs to the Greek Dimitar Jordanis. At 98, he ran a marathon in 7 hours and 40 minutes.
The once-famous English athlete Joe Deakine, whom journalists have long dubbed the "grandfather of running", in his 90-odd years, ran about 7 km every Sunday.
Even more surprising is the athletic longevity of American Larry Lewis. At 102, he ran 10 km every morning. The distance of 100 yards (91 m) Larry Lewis covered in 17.3 seconds (0.5 seconds faster than in 101 years).
Some fans of marathon running are not hindered even by serious injuries. For example, American runner Dick Traum continued to compete in marathons after surgeons amputated his leg, injured in a car accident, above the knee. He ran after that on a prosthesis. 42-year-old Werner Rachter from Germany, being completely blind, showed an excellent time at the marathon distance - 2 hours 36 minutes 15 seconds.
Cold resistance
The body's resistance to cold largely depends on whether a person regularly engages in cold hardening. This is confirmed by the results of forensic experts who studied the causes and consequences of shipwrecks that occurred in the icy waters of the seas and oceans. Unseasoned passengers, even in the presence of life-saving equipment, died from hypothermia in icy water in the first half hour. At the same time, cases were recorded when individual people struggled for life with the piercing cold of icy waters for several hours.
According to Canadian physiologists who studied the problem of a person in cold water, lethal cooling should occur no earlier than after 60 - 90 minutes. The cause of death may be a kind of cold shock that develops after immersion in water, or respiratory dysfunction caused by massive irritation of cold receptors, or cardiac arrest.
So the pilot Smagin, who catapulted over the White Sea, was in water for 7 hours, the temperature of which was only 6 ° C.
During the Great Patriotic War Soviet sergeant Pyotr Golubev swam 20 km in icy water in 9 hours and successfully completed a combat mission.
On August 9, 1987, the American athlete Lynn Cox swam across the four-kilometer strait separating the Little and Big Diomede Islands in 2 hours and 6 minutes at a water temperature of 6°C.
In 1985, an English fisherman demonstrated an amazing ability to survive in icy water. All his comrades died of hypothermia 10 minutes after the shipwreck. He swam in the icy water for more than 5 hours, and when he reached the ground, he walked barefoot along the frozen lifeless shore for about 3 hours.
A person can swim in icy water even in very severe frost. At one of the winter swimming holidays in Moscow, the hero of the Soviet Union, Lieutenant-General G. E. Alpaidze, who was hosting the parade of its participants, "walruses", said: "I have been experiencing the healing power of cold water for 18 years already. That is how much I constantly swim in winter. In while serving in the North, he did this even at an air temperature of -43 ° C. I am sure that swimming in frosty weather is the highest stage of hardening the body. One cannot but agree with Suvorov, who said that "ice water is good for the body and mind."
In 1986, Nedelya reported on Boris Iosifovich Soskin, a 95-year-old walrus from Evpatoria. Radiculitis pushed him into the hole at the age of 70. After all, properly selected doses of cold can mobilize a person’s reserve capabilities.
More recently, it was believed that if a drowned person is not pulled out of the water within 5-6 minutes, he will inevitably die as a result of irreversible pathological changes in the neurons of the cerebral cortex associated with acute oxygen deficiency *. However, in cold water this time can be much longer. So, for example, in the state of Michigan, a case was recorded when 18-year-old student Brian Cunningham fell through the ice of a frozen lake and was removed from there only after 38 minutes. He was brought back to life by artificial respiration with pure oxygen. Earlier, a similar case was registered in Norway. Five-year-old boy Vegard Slettumuen from the city of Lillestrom fell through the ice of the river. After 40 minutes, the lifeless body was pulled ashore, they began to do artificial respiration and heart massage. Soon there were signs of life. Two days later, consciousness returned to the boy, and he asked: "Where are my glasses?"
Such incidents with children are not such a rarity. In 1984, four-year-old Jimmy Tontlevitz fell through the ice of Lake Michigan. For 20 minutes of being in ice water, his body cooled to 27 ° C. However, after 1.5 hours of resuscitation, the boy was brought back to life. Three years later, seven-year-old Vita Bludnitsky from the Grodno region had to stay under the ice for half an hour. After a thirty-minute heart massage and artificial respiration, the first breath was recorded. Another case. In January 1987, a two-year-old boy and a four-month-old girl, having fallen into the Norwegian fiord to a depth of 10 meters, were also brought back to life after a quarter of an hour of being under water.
In April 1975, 60-year-old American biologist Warren Churchill was counting fish on a lake covered with floating ice. His boat capsized, and he was forced to stay in cold water at a temperature of +5 ° C for 1.5 hours. By the time the doctors arrived, Churchill was no longer breathing, he was all blue. His heart was barely audible, and the temperature of the internal organs dropped to 16°C. However, this man survived.
An important discovery was made in our country by Professor A.S. Konikova. In experiments on rabbits, she found that if the body of an animal is quickly cooled no later than 10 minutes after the onset of death, then after an hour it can be successfully revived. Probably, this is precisely what can explain the amazing cases of reviving people after a long stay in cold water.
In the literature, there are often sensational reports of human survival after a long stay under a block of ice or snow. It is hard to believe in this, but a person is still able to endure a short-term hypothermia.
A good example of this is the case that happened to the famous Soviet traveler G. L. Travin, who in 1928 - 1931. traveled alone on a bicycle along the borders of the Soviet Union (including the ice of the Arctic Ocean). In the early spring of 1930, he settled down for the night as usual, right on the ice, using ordinary snow instead of a sleeping bag. At night, a crack formed in the ice near his lodging for the night, and covered brave traveler the snow turned into ice. Leaving in the ice part of the clothes frozen to him, G.L. Travin, with frozen hair and an "ice hump" on his back, reached the nearest Nenets tent. A few days later he continued his bicycle journey through the ice of the Arctic Ocean.
It has been repeatedly noted that a freezing person can fall into oblivion, during which it seems to him that he found himself in a very heated room, in a hot desert, etc. In a semi-conscious state, he can throw off his felt boots, outerwear and even underwear. There was a case when a criminal case of robbery and murder was initiated regarding a frozen person who was found naked. But the investigator found that the victim undressed himself.
But what an extraordinary story happened in Japan with the driver of the refrigerated car Masaru Saito. On a hot day, he decided to rest in the back of his refrigerator. In the same body were blocks of "dry ice", which are frozen carbon dioxide. The door of the van slammed shut, and the driver was left alone with the cold (-10°C) and the rapidly rising concentration of CO2 as a result of the evaporation of "dry ice". It was not possible to establish the exact time during which the driver was in these conditions. In any case, when he was pulled out of the body, he was already frozen, nevertheless, after a few hours, the victim was revived in the nearest hospital.
At the time of the onset of clinical death of a person from hypothermia, the temperature of his internal organs usually drops to 26 - 24 ° C. But there are known exceptions to this rule.
In February 1951, a 23-year-old black woman was brought to the hospital in the American city of Chicago, who, in very light clothing, lay for 11 hours in the snow with air temperature fluctuating from -18 to -26 ° C. The temperature of her internal organs at the time of admission to the hospital was 18°C. Cooling a person to such a low temperature is very rarely decided even by surgeons during complex operations, because it is considered the limit below which irreversible changes in the cerebral cortex can occur.
First of all, doctors were surprised by the fact that with such a pronounced cooling of the body, the woman was still breathing, although rarely (3-5 breaths per 1 minute). Her pulse was also very rare (12-20 beats per minute), irregular (pauses between heartbeats reached 8 s). The victim managed to save her life. True, her frostbitten feet and fingers were amputated.
Somewhat later, a similar case was registered in our country. On a frosty March morning in 1960, a frozen man was taken to one of the hospitals in the Aktobe region, found by workers at a construction site on the outskirts of the village. During the first medical examination of the victim, the protocol recorded: “A stiff body in icy clothes, without a headdress and shoes. The limbs are bent in the compositions and it is not possible to straighten them. below 0 ° C. The eyes are wide open, the eyelids are covered with an icy edge, the pupils are dilated, cloudy, there is an ice crust on the sclera and iris. Signs of life - heartbeat and respiration - are not determined. Diagnosis was made: general freezing, clinical death. "
It is difficult to say what motivated the doctor P.A. Abrahamyan - either professional intuition, or professional unwillingness to come to terms with death, but he nevertheless placed the victim in a hot bath. When the body was freed from the ice cover, a special complex of resuscitation measures began. After 1.5 hours, weak breathing and a barely perceptible pulse appeared. By the evening of the same day the patient regained consciousness.
Let's take another interesting example. In 1987, in Mongolia, the child of M. Munkhzai lay for 12 hours in a field in 34-degree frost. His body was stiff. However, after half an hour of resuscitation, a barely distinguishable pulse appeared (2 beats per 1 minute). A day later he moved his hands, after two he woke up, and a week later he was discharged with the conclusion: "There are no pathological changes."
At the heart of such an amazing phenomenon lies the ability of the body to respond to cooling without triggering the mechanism of muscle trembling. The fact is that the inclusion of this mechanism, designed to maintain a constant body temperature under cooling conditions at any cost, leads to the "burning" of the main energy materials - fats and carbohydrates. Obviously, it is more beneficial for the body not to fight a few degrees, but to slow down and synchronize the processes of life, to make a temporary retreat to the 30-degree mark - thus, strength is preserved in the subsequent struggle for life.
There are cases when people with a body temperature of 32 - 28 ° C were able to walk and talk. The preservation of consciousness in chilled people at a body temperature of 30 - 26°C and meaningful speech even at 24°C has been registered.
A person can endure martial arts with a 50-degree frost, almost without resorting to warm clothes. It was this possibility that was demonstrated in 1983 by a group of climbers after climbing to the top of Elbrus. Wearing only swimming trunks, socks, mittens and masks, they spent half an hour in a thermal vacuum chamber - in a severe cold and rarefied atmosphere, corresponding to the height of the peak of Communism. The first 1 - 2 minutes of 50-degree frost was quite bearable. Then a strong shiver began to beat from the cold. There was a feeling that the body was covered with an ice shell. In half an hour it cooled almost a degree.
By cooling the fingers due to the narrowing of the capillaries, the thermal insulating properties of the skin can be increased by 6 times. But the capillaries of the skin of the head (with the exception of the front part) do not have the ability to narrow under the influence of cold. Therefore, at a temperature of -4°C, about half of the total heat produced by the body at rest is lost through the cooled head, if it is not covered. But immersing the head in ice water for more than 10 seconds in untrained people can cause a spasm of blood vessels that feed the brain.
All the more surprising is the incident that occurred in the winter of 1980 in the village of Novaya Tura (Tatar ASSR). In 29-degree frost, 11-year-old Vladimir Pavlov without hesitation dived into the wormwood of the lake. He did this in order to save a four-year-old boy who had gone under the ice. And he saved him, although for this he had to dive under the ice three times to a depth of 2 m.
AT last years speed swimming competitions in ice water are gaining more and more popularity. In our country, such competitions are held in two age groups at a distance of 25 and 50 m. For example, 37-year-old Muscovite Evgeny Oreshkin became the winner of one of the competitions of this type, who swam a 25-meter distance in icy water in 12.2 s. In Czechoslovakia winter swimming competitions are held at distances of 100, 250 and 500 m.
"Walruses", of course, are hardened people. But their resistance to cold is far from the limit of human capabilities. The aborigines of the central part of Australia and Tierra del Fuego (South America), as well as the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert (South Africa) have even greater immunity to cold.
The high resistance to cold of the indigenous inhabitants of Tierra del Fuego was observed by Charles Darwin during his journey on the Beagle ship. He was surprised that completely naked women and children did not pay any attention to the thickly falling snow that melted on their bodies.
In 1958 - 1959 American physiologists studied the resistance to cold of the natives of the central part of Australia. It turned out that they sleep quite calmly at an air temperature of 5 - 0 ° C naked on the bare ground between fires, sleep without the slightest sign of trembling and increased gas exchange. At the same time, the body temperature of the Australians remains normal, but the skin temperature drops to 15 ° C on the trunk, and even up to 10 ° C on the limbs. With such a pronounced decrease in skin temperature, ordinary people would experience almost unbearable pain, and Australians sleep peacefully and feel neither pain nor cold.
Doctor L.I. lives in Moscow. Krasov. This man received a severe injury - a fracture in the lumbar region. As a result, atrophy of the gluteal muscles, paralysis of both legs. His surgeon friends patched him up as best they could, but they did not hope that he would survive. And he "in spite of all deaths" restored the damaged spinal cord. The main role, he believes, was played by the combination of cold hardening with dosed starvation. Of course, all this would hardly have helped if this man had not had extraordinary willpower.
What is willpower? In fact, this is not always conscious, but very strong self-hypnosis.
Self-hypnosis also plays an important role in the cold hardening of one of the nationalities living in the mountainous regions of Nepal and Tibet. In 1963, a case of extreme resistance to cold was described by a 35-year-old highlander named Man Bahadur, who spent four days on a high-mountain glacier (5 - 5, 3 thousand m) at an air temperature of minus 13 - 15 ° C barefoot, in a bad clothes, no food. Almost no significant impairments were found in him. Studies have shown that with the help of self-hypnosis, he could increase his energy exchange in the cold by 33 - 50% by "non-contractile" thermogenesis, i.e. without any manifestations of "cold tone" and muscle trembling. This ability saved him from hypothermia and frostbite.
But perhaps the most surprising is the observation of the famous Tibetan researcher Alexandra David-Nel. In her book "Magicians and Mystics of Tibet", she described the competition, which is held near the holes cut into the people of an alpine lake, bare-chested yogis-respas. Frost is below 30°, but steam is pouring from respawns. And no wonder - they compete, how many sheets pulled out of the icy water, each will dry on his own back. To do this, they cause a state in their body when almost all the energy of vital activity is spent on generating heat. Respawns have certain criteria for assessing the degree of control of the thermal energy of their body. The student sits in the lotus position in the snow, slows down his breathing (as a result of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the blood, superficial blood vessels expand and heat transfer from the body increases) and imagines that a flame is flaring up along his spine. At this time, the amount of snow that has melted under the seated person and the radius of melting around him are determined.
Cold can contribute to longevity It is not by chance that the third place in terms of the percentage of centenarians (after Dagestan and Abkhazia) is occupied by the center of longevity in Siberia - the Oymyakon region of Yakutia, where frosts sometimes reach 60 - 70 ° C. Residents of another center of longevity - the Hunza Valley in Pakistan bathe in icy water even in winter at 15-degree frost. They are very frost-resistant and only heat their stoves in order to cook food. The rejuvenating effect of cold against the background of rational nutrition is reflected there primarily on women. At the age of 40, they are considered still young, almost like our girls, at 50-60 years old they retain their slim and graceful figure, at 65 they can give birth to children.
Some nationalities have traditions to accustom the body to the cold from infancy. “The Yakuts,” wrote the Russian academician I.R. Tarkhanov at the end of the 19th century in his book “On the Hardening of the Human Body”, rub their newborns with snow, and the Ostyaks, like the Tungus, immerse babies in the snow, douse them with ice water and then wrap them in deer skins.
What perfection and endurance can be achieved with cold hardening is evidenced by observations during one of the last American-New Zealand expeditions in the Himalayas. Some of the Sherpa guides made a many-kilometer journey along rocky mountain paths, through the zone of eternal snow ... barefoot. And this is in 20-degree frost!
High temperature resistance
Foreign scientists conducted special experiments to determine the highest temperature that the human body can withstand in dry air. An ordinary person can withstand a temperature of 71 ° C for 1 hour, 82 ° C - 49 minutes, 93 ° C - 33 minutes, and 104 ° C - only 26 minutes.
However, seemingly improbable cases are also described in the literature. Back in 1764, the French scientist Tillet reported to the Paris Academy of Sciences that one woman was in an oven at a temperature of 132 ° C for 12 minutes.
In 1828, a case was described of a man staying in a furnace for 14 minutes, where the temperature reached 170°C. The English physicists Blagden and Chantry, as part of an autoexperiment, were in a bakery oven at a temperature of 160°C. In Belgium, in 1958, a case was registered of a person tolerating a 5-minute stay in a heat chamber at a temperature of 200°C.
Studies in a heat chamber conducted in the United States have shown that a person's body temperature during such a test can rise to 40.3 ° C, while the body is dehydrated by 10%. The body temperature of the dogs was brought even up to 42°C. A further increase in the body temperature of animals (up to 42.8 ° C) was already fatal for them ...
However, in infectious diseases accompanied by fever, some people are able to tolerate even higher body temperature. For example, an American student from Brooklyn, Sophia Sapola, had a body temperature of over 43°C during brucellosis.
When a person stays in hot water, the possibility of heat transfer by evaporation of sweat is excluded. Therefore, the tolerance of high temperatures in the aquatic environment is much lower than in dry air. "The record in this area probably belongs to one Turk, who, like Ivan Tsarevich, could plunge headlong into a cauldron of water at a temperature of + 70 ° C. Of course, to achieve such" records "long and constant training is necessary.
Resistance to hunger, thirst and lack of oxygen
During the Great Patriotic War, in July 1942, four Soviet sailors found themselves in a boat far from the coast in the Black Sea without water and food supplies. On the third day of their voyage, they began to taste the sea water. In the Black Sea, the water is 2 times less salty than in the World Ocean. Nevertheless, sailors were able to get used to its use only on the fifth day. Everyone now drank up to two flasks of it a day. So they, it would seem, got out of the situation with water. But they could not solve the problem of food supply. One of them died of starvation on the 19th day, the second on the 24th, and the third on the 30th day. The last of this four is the captain of the medical service P.I. Yeresko - on the 36th day of fasting in a state of obscured consciousness was picked up by a Soviet military vessel. For 36 days of sea wandering without eating, he lost 22 kg in weight, which was 32% of his original weight.
For comparison, let us recall that even with voluntary fasting in a calm environment, even in 50 days, a person, according to various authors, loses from 27 to 30% of weight, i.e. less than in the above example.
In January 1960, a self-propelled barge with four Soviet servicemen (A. Ziganshin, F. Poplavsky, A. Kryuchkovsky, and Fedotov) was blown into the Pacific by a storm. On the second day, the barge ran out of fuel and the radio went out of order. After 37 days, a very meager supply of food ran out. It was replaced by roasted harmonica leather and boots. The daily norm of fresh water was at first 5, and then only 3 sips per person. However, this amount was enough to last 49 days until the moment of salvation.
In 1984, 52-year-old Paulus Normantas had to live alone on a desert island in the Aral Sea for 55 days because his boat had sailed away. It was in March. The food supply was: half a loaf of bread, 15 g of tea, 22 lumps of sugar and 6 onions. Fortunately, spring floods bring a lot of fresh water into the sea, which is lighter than salt water and floats on the surface. Therefore, he was not thirsty. Eggs of seagulls, turtles and even fish (thanks to hunting with an underwater gun), young grasses went to food. When the water in the sea warmed up to +16°C in May, Normantas covered a distance of 20 km in 4 days, resting on 16 intermediate islands, and safely reached the shore without outside help.
Another case of prolonged forced starvation. In the winter of 1963, a private plane crashed in a mountainous desert region in Canada. Its crew consisted of two people: 42-year-old pilot Ralph Florez and 21-year-old student Helena Klaben. The plane landed successfully, but getting to the nearest locality through hundreds of kilometers of snowy desert it was completely unrealistic. All that remained was to wait for help, to wait and fight against the bone-piercing frost and hunger. There was some food on the plane, but it ran out after a week, and after 20 days this couple ate their last "food" - 2 tubes of toothpaste. Melted snow became their only dish for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “For the next weeks,” Helen Klaben later explained, “we lived on the water. We had it in three forms: cold, hot and boiled. The alternation helped brighten up the monotony of the menu of the only “snow dish.” Miss Klaben, who was “pretty fat woman" at the time of the accident, after severe trials, she lost 12 kg in weight. Ralph Florez lost 16 kg. They were rescued on March 25, 1963, 49 days after the accident.
An unusual case of voluntary fasting was registered in Odessa. To the specialized department of unloading and dietary therapy of one of the hospitals, to the doctor V.Ya. An extremely emaciated woman was delivered to Davydov. It turned out that she starved for three months ... with the intent of suicide, losing 60% of her weight during this time. An experienced doctor managed to restore the love of life to the woman and, with the help of a special diet, restore her previous weight.
The fact that a person can go without food for a very long time is also evidenced by the case of a "hunger strike" recorded more than half a century ago in the Irish city of Cork. A group of 11 Irish patriots, led by the mayor of Cork, Lord Terence McSweeney, who are in prison, decided to starve themselves to death in protest against British rule in their country. Day after day, the newspapers carried news from the prison, and on the 20th day they began to claim that the prisoners were dying, that the priest had already been sent for, the relatives of the prisoners had gathered at the gates of the prison. Such messages were transmitted on the 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th and 70th day. In fact, the first prisoner (McSweeney) died on the 74th day, the second - on the 88th day, the remaining nine people on the 94th day gave up hunger, gradually recovered and remained alive.
An even longer fast (119 days) was recorded by American doctors in Los Angeles: they observed obese Elaine Jones, who weighed 143 kg. Every day during fasting, she drank 3 liters of water. In addition, twice a week she was given a vitamin injection. The patient's weight dropped to 81 kg in 17 weeks and she felt great.
Finally, in 1973, the seemingly fantastic periods of fasting for two women, registered in one of the medical institutions in Glasgow, were described. Both of them had a weight of more than 100 kg, and to normalize it, one had to starve for 236 days, and the other as much as 249 days (a world record!)
American dietitian Paul Bragg in 1967 in his book "The Miracle of Fasting" described the pedestrian transition, which he made in old age in California's Death Valley. In the heat of July, for 2 days of fasting, he walked through the desert 30 miles, spent the night in a tent and returned hungry the same way. But the 10 strong young athletes who competed with him these days, who ate and drank whatever they wanted (including chilled drinks and salt tablets), could not go even 25 miles. And no wonder. After all, when everyone went camping, the heat was 40.6, and at noon - even 50.4 ° C.
In 1982 - 1983 Within 8 months, 6 brave northern explorers crossed the Arctic outskirts of our country with a length of 10,000 km. In the last two weeks of this unprecedented trip, two of its participants voluntarily starved (drank only rosehip broth with multivitamins). During the fasting period, they lost 4.5 kg in weight.
In 1984, a group of volunteers led by Genrikh Ryzhavsky and Candidate of Medical Sciences Valery Gurvich made a 15-day "emergency" kayak trip along the Belaya River. They went out without food and did not eat anything but water. They had to work with oars for 6-8 hours a day. All participants successfully passed this test, although the oldest of them was 57 years old. A year earlier, another group of enthusiasts made a similar two-week "hungry" rafting trip across the Caspian Sea.
But the Moscow geologist S. A. Borodin, thanks to training in running against the background of frequent hunger strikes, on the 5th day of fasting, ran a 10-kilometer cross with the same maximum speed as in the "well-fed" period.
Speaking about the "records" of starvation in the animal kingdom, one cannot fail to mention a new type of spider discovered in India. This spider differs from all living creatures in that it can go without food for as long as 18 (!) Years.
And how much and what kind of food can a person eat at one time?
At one of the traditional holidays in Rouen (France), the participants in the glutton competition managed to swallow each in a short time: 1 kg 200 g of boiled chicken, 1 kg 300 g of roast lamb, a head of livaro cheese, an apple cake, two bottles of Alsatian wine, four bottles of cider and two bottles of Burgundy wine.
In 1910, an American from Pennsylvania was considered the first glutton in the world. He ate 144 eggs for breakfast. But his compatriots - the champions of obesity, twin brothers Billy and Benny McGuire - preferred the following daily breakfast: 18 eggs, 2 kg of bacon or ham, a loaf of bread, 1 liter of fruit juice, 16 cups of coffee; for lunch they ate 3 kg of steak, 1 kg of potatoes, a loaf of bread, drank 2 liters of tea; dinner consisted of 3 kg of vegetables and fish, 6 baked potatoes, 5 servings of salad, 2 li teas, 8 cups of coffee. And no wonder that Billy weighed 315 kg, and Benny - as much as 327 kg.
At the age of 32, the fattest man in the world, American Robert Earl Hudges, died of a myocardial infarction. With a height of 180 cm, he had a weight of 483 kg and a waist circumference of 3 m.
Probably the same fate awaited the 250-pound British citizen Rolly McIntrire. However, he disposed of his fate differently: by switching to a vegetarian diet in 1985, he lost 161 kg!
Another way to lose weight was suggested by the famous Greek pop singer Demis Roussos. Using his personal example, he showed that if you give preference to only one product during meals and do not abuse potatoes and flour products, then in one year you can reduce body weight from 148 to 95 kg.
How long can a person go without drinking?
Studies conducted by the American physiologist E.F. Adolf showed that the maximum duration of a person's stay without water largely depends on the ambient temperature and the mode of physical activity. So, for example, being at rest in the shade, at a temperature of 16 - 23 ° C, a person can not drink for 10 days. At an air temperature of 26°C, this period is reduced to 9 days, at 29°C - up to 7, at 33°C - up to 5, at 36°C - up to 3 days. Finally, at an air temperature of 39 ° C at rest, a person can not drink for no more than 2 days.
Of course, with physical work, all these indicators are significantly reduced. It is known from history, for example, that in 525, when crossing the Libyan desert, the fifty-thousandth army of the Persian king Cambyses died of thirst.
After the earthquake in Mexico City in 1985, a 9-year-old boy was found under the rubble of a building, who had not eaten or drunk anything for 13 days and yet survived.
Even earlier, in February 1947, a 53-year-old man was found in the city of Frunze, who, having received a head injury, had been without food and water for 20 days in an abandoned unheated room. At the moment of discovery, he did not show breathing and did not feel a pulse. The only sign indicating the preservation of the life of the victim was a change in the color of the nail bed when pressed. And the next day he could talk.
Is it possible to drink salty sea water without harm to the body? Yes, you can. This was experimentally confirmed by the French physician Alain Bombard, who, crossing the Atlantic Ocean alone in an inflatable rubber boat, did not take fresh water with him. He found that salty sea water can be drunk, but in small portions, no more than 1 liter per day, and no more than 7 - 8 days in a row. When using sea water, up to the tragic denouement, i.e. until the 7th - 8th day, the "scapegoat" is the kidneys, and as long as they are able to do their job of "desalination" of water, the person retains consciousness and efficiency. But during this time you can use fresh rainwater, morning dew or catch fish and quench your thirst with fresh tissue juice. This is exactly what Alain Bombard did on her solitary journey across the Atlantic. Just two days of drinking fresh water is enough for the kidneys to “recover themselves” again and be ready for “desalination” work again if you have to drink sea water again.
In 1986, 45-year-old Norwegian E. Einarsen, remained for four months alone with the Atlantic Ocean, being on an uncontrolled small fishing motorboat. The last three weeks, left without food supplies and drinking water, the sailor ate raw fish and washed it down with rainwater.
Back in 1942, the steward of the English steamer Poon Limy had to face a similar problem. When his ship sank in the Atlantic, the sailor escaped on a boat and spent 4.5 months on the high seas.
How long can a person go without air?
If you tried to hold your breath while inhaling or exhaling, then you probably made sure that you can do without air for two or three minutes at best. True, this time can be increased if, before holding the breath, breathe deeply and often, especially with pure oxygen.
After such a procedure, Californian Robert Foster managed to stay underwater for 13 minutes 42.5 seconds without scuba gear. If you believe the report of the English traveler Gorer Jeffrey, then some divers from the Wolf tribe in Senegal are able to stay under water for up to half an hour. They are even called "water people".
American physiologist E.S. Schneider in 1930 observed two pilots, one of whom, after preliminary breathing with pure oxygen, could hold his breath for 14 minutes 2 seconds, and the other - 15 minutes 13 seconds. The pilots endured the first 5-6 minutes of holding their breath freely. In the following minutes, they experienced an increase in heart rate and a significant increase in blood pressure up to 180/110 - 195/140 mmHg Art., while before holding the breath it was 124/88 - 130/90 mm.
Power tricks
What reserves does the physical strength of the human body have? This can be judged at least on the basis of the achievements of famous strong men - athletes and wrestlers, who shook the imagination of contemporaries with their power tricks. One of them is the champion of Russia in weight lifting.
Ivan Mikhailovich Zaikin (1880-1949), famous Russian athlete, wrestler, one of the first Russian pilots. Zaikin's athletic numbers caused a sensation. Foreign newspapers wrote: "Zaikin is Chaliapin of Russian muscles." In 1908 Zaikin toured in Paris. After the performance of the athlete in front of the circus, on a special platform, the chains torn by Zaikin, an iron beam bent on his shoulders, "bracelets" and "ties" tied by him from strip iron were exhibited. Some of these exhibits were acquired by the Parisian Cabinet of Curiosities and were displayed along with other curiosities.
Zaikin carried a 25-pound anchor on his shoulders, lifted a long barbell on his shoulders, on which ten people sat, and began to rotate it ("live carousel"). He fought, yielding in this area, perhaps to Ivan Poddubny himself.
Multiple world wrestling champion Ivan Poddubny ("champion of champions", 1871 - 1949) had great physical strength. It should be noted that he left the wrestling mat at the age of 70. Without training specifically in athletic numbers, he could, bending his arms lowered along the body, lift 120 kg for biceps!
But even more physical strength, according to his own statement, was possessed by his father, Maxim Poddubny: he easily took two five-pound bags on his shoulders, lifted a whole haystack with a pitchfork, indulging in, stopped any cart, grabbing it by the wheel, knocked it down by the horns of hefty bulls.
The younger brother of Ivan Poddubny Mitrofan was also strong, who somehow pulled an ox weighing 18 pounds from a pit, and once in Tula amused the audience, holding a platform with an orchestra on his shoulders, which played "Many years ...".
Another Russian hero, the athlete Yakub Chekhovskaya, in 1913 in Petrograd carried 6 soldiers in a circle on one arm. A platform was installed on his chest, along which three trucks with the public drove.
For several decades, the name of the Russian athlete Alexander Ivanovich Zass, who performed under the pseudonym Samson, did not leave the circus posters of different countries. What only power numbers were not in his repertoire! With his own weight of no more than 80 kg, he carried a horse weighing up to 400 kg on his shoulders. He lifted with his teeth an iron beam weighing 135 kg, at the ends of which sat two assistants, a total of 265 kg, caught a 90-kg cannonball flying out of a circus cannon from a distance of 8 m, lay bare back on a board studded with nails, holding a stone on his chest (500 kg). For fun, he could lift a taxi and drive the car like a wheelbarrow, broke horseshoes and tore chains. Lifted 20 people on the platform. In the famous attraction "Projectile Man", he caught an assistant who, like an artillery shell, flew out of the muzzle of a circus cannon and described a 12-meter trajectory above the arena. He was run over by a truck. Here's how it was:
It happened in 1938 in the English city of Sheffield. Before the eyes of the assembled crowd, a truck loaded with coal drove over a man sprawled on a cobblestone pavement. People screamed in horror as the front and then the rear ears ran over the body. But in the next second, an exclamation of delight was heard from the crowd: "Hurrah for Samson!", "Glory to the Russian Samson!" And the man to whom this storm of jubilation belonged, getting up from under the wheels, as if nothing had happened, smiling, bowed to the audience.
Here is an excerpt from the poster of Samson, speaking in England: "Samson is offering £25 to the one who knocks him down with a punch to the stomach. Professional boxers are allowed to take part. ... A prize of £5 is given to the one who bends the horseshoe iron rod" . By the way, the famous English boxer Tom Burns, who tried his strength during Samson's performance, broke his hand on his stomach. And the iron rod in question was a square rod approximately 1.3x1.3x26 cm.
In July 1907, the Ukrainian hero, circus wrestler Terenty Koren gave an unusual performance in the circus arena of the American city of Chicago. He calmly entered the cage with the huge lion. The predator quickly rushed at the man. The claws and fangs of the "king of beasts" dug into the athlete's body. But Terenty Root, overcoming inhuman pain, with a powerful jerk lifted the lion over his head and threw it on the sand with great force. A few seconds later, the lion was dead, and Terenty Koren won the only award of its kind: a large gold medal with the inscription "To the winner of the lions."
World record holder Russian athlete Sergey Eliseev took a weight of 61 kg in his right hand, lifted it up, then slowly lowered it to the side on a straight arm and held the hand with the weight in a horizontal position for several seconds. Three times in a row he pulled out two unbound two-pound weights with one hand.
Not only people of a simple class, but also many eminent figures of Russian culture and art - A. Kuprin, F. Chaliapin, A. Blok, A. Chekhov, artist I. Myasoedov, V. Gilyarovsky and others - were passionate admirers of circus athletes and wrestlers, moreover, many of them themselves went in for sports with enthusiasm .
Kuprin often judged wrestling competitions and was his man in the circus. Gilyarovsky, an athletically developed person, liked to demonstrate power numbers among friends (he bent coins with his fingers). The English writer Arthur Conan Doyle was also a fan of strength, and in 1901 he was on the jury of an athletics competition in England.
Dmitry Aleksandrovich Lukin. Mikhail Lukashev, in his story "The Glorious Captain Lukin", describes this strong man in this way: "This man had remarkable popularity in the Russian fleet, and not only in it. The writers V. B. Bronevsky, A. Y. Bulgakov, F. V. Bulgarin, P. P. Svinin, Admiral P. I. Panafidin, Count V. A. Sologub, Decembrists N. I. Lorer, M. I. Pylyaev and others.
V.B. Bronevsky, who went through the 1807 campaign with Lukin, said this: “His experiments with strength produced amazement ... For example, with a slight exertion of strength, he broke horseshoes, could hold pood cannonballs in outstretched hands, lifted a cannon with a machine tool with one hand to a plumb line; with one finger pressed a nail into the ship's wall.
The captain always behaved independently and fearlessly, appeared in the most dangerous places. In Crete, he was attacked by a gang of armed bandits. But after the strongman tore off the heavy marble tabletop from the table and threw it at the raiders, the latter fled in all directions.
In another remote and deserted place - there Lukin was walking with his beloved dog named "Boms", the robber suddenly put a pistol to his chest. The second accomplice stood a little apart. But the usual composure did not betray the captain here either.
I don’t have money, but I’ll give you an expensive watch,” he said and put his right hand in his pocket, pretending to take out a watch, but at the same moment he unexpectedly pulled the pistol away with his left hand and tightly squeezed the bandit’s hand together with the pistol handle. The robber howled at the squeeze. His accomplice was about to rush to help, but Lukin, without letting go of his grasped hand, briefly commanded: "Boms, drank!" And the well-trained dog rushed at the second robber, knocked him over to the ground and did not let him move. Lukin released the unlucky and badly injured robbers, advising "to be more careful next time." And he left a pistol for himself, in which both the trigger and the trigger guard turned out to be bent and crumpled.
In not a single fight did Lukin strike his opponents. Indeed, he was truly amazing, the only boxer in the world who was afraid not of the opponent's fists, but of his own. And here was the thing. When Lukin was still very young, robbers on one of the streets of night Petersburg tried to break the parade ground from him. But Lukin was not Gogol's Akaky Akakievich. He held the cloak with one hand, and with the other, without even turning around and not very hard, he hit the attacker in the face. But this was enough for the robber with a broken jaw to fall dead onto the pavement. It was after this incident that Lukin promised himself never to use his fists and firmly adhered to this rule even in boxing fights.
The great success of the Estonian strongman world champion Georg Lurich was brought not only by records, but also by the harmony and beauty of the physique. He repeatedly posed for such sculptors as Rodin and Adamson. The sculpture of the last "Champion" was awarded the first prize at the World Exhibition in America in 1904. In the arena, Lurich demonstrated the following numbers: standing on the wrestling bridge, he held four men on himself, and at that time he held a barbell of 7 pounds in his hands. He held five people on one arm, held two camels with his hands, pulling in opposite directions. He lifted a barbell of 105 kg with his right hand and, holding it at the top, took a weight of 34 kg from the floor with his left and lifted it up.
Hans Steyer (Bavaria, 1849 - 1906), standing on two chairs, raised 16 pounds with his middle finger (threaded in a ring). His “live horizontal bar” enjoyed success with the audience: with straight arms, Steyer held a 70-pound barbell in front of him, on the neck of which his son, who weighed 90 pounds, did gymnastic exercises.
Steyer was famous for his eccentricity. His cane weighed 40 pounds, the snuffbox, which he held in the palm of his hand, treating friends, weighed 100 pounds. Sometimes he put a 75-pound top hat on his head and, when he arrived at a cafe, left it on the table, then asked the waiter to bring his top hat.
Louis Cyr ("American Miracle", 1863 - 1912) This strongest man on the American continent was striking in his size. With a height of 176 cm, he had a weight of 133 kg, a chest volume of 147 cm, biceps of 55 cm. A curious incident happened to 22-year-old Louis Cyr in Montreal, where he served as a policeman: once he brought two hooligans to the station, holding them under his arms . After this incident, at the insistence of friends, he began to develop strength and perform with athletic numbers, in which for a long time he did not know competitors. He lifted 26 pounds to his knees with one hand, lifted a platform with 14 adult men on his shoulders. Held a load of 143 pounds in front of him at arm's length for 5 seconds. He put a sheet of paper under the barrel of cement and offered to pull it out. Not a single athlete was able to complete this task, while Louis Cyr himself lifted this barrel every evening.
Bohemian Anton Riha was famous for his ability to carry huge weights. In 1891, he raised 52 poods.
The French athlete Apollon (Louis Yuni) lifted five weights of 20 kg each with one hand. He lifted a barbell weighing 165 kg with a very thick neck (5 cm). Only 20 years after Apollo, this barbell (axle from the trolley) was lifted by the champion of the 1924 Olympic Games, Charles Rigulo, who, by the way, holds the world record in the snatch with the right hand of 116 kg. In the famous "cage release" trick, Apollo pushes the thick bars apart with his hands and exits the cage.
AT early XVIII century in England, the athlete Tom Tofan was very popular. Of medium height, proportionately built, he easily tore stones weighing up to 24 blowing from the ground with his hands, tied an iron poker around his neck like a scarf, and in 1741, in a square crowded with spectators, he lifted three barrels of water with the help of straps worn on his shoulders. weighing 50 pounds.
In 1893, a competition was held in New York for the title of "world champion in weight lifting." The competition brought together the strongest athletes of the time. Louis Cyr came from Canada, Evgeny Sandow came from Europe, the American James Walter Kennedy twice lifted an iron ball weighing 36 pounds 24.5 pounds, tearing it off the platform by 4 inches. None of their athletes could repeat this number.
The set record turned out to be fatal for the 33-year-old athlete: he overstrained himself and after that he was forced to perform only with a demonstration of his muscles. The athlete died at 43.
In 1906, the Englishman Arthur Saxon lifted a barbell weighing 159 kg to his shoulder with both hands, shifted it to his right hand and pushed it up. He carried a barbell of 6 pounds on his raised hands, at the ends of which hung one person each.
Eugene Sandow (F. Miller, 1867 - 1925) enjoyed great popularity among the British. He was called the "magician of posture" and "the strongest man." With a weight of no more than 80 kg, he set a world record by squeezing 101.5 kg with one hand. He did a back flip, holding 1.5 pounds in each hand. Within four minutes, he could do 200 push-ups on his hands. In 1911, King George V of England awarded Sandow the title of Professor of Physical Development.
The tricks of the American jumper Palmey are curious. Having put a man weighing 48 kg on his shoulders, he jumped over a table 80 cm high and wide with him. Then he put his wife on his back and jumped over a barrel 90 cm high ten times in a row.
"Petersburg leaflet" dated July 3, 1893 wrote about a certain Ivan Chekunov, who, in the presence of a crowd of people, freely lifted an anvil weighing 35 pounds (560 kg).
Georg Gakkenshmidt ("Russian Lion"), world champion in wrestling and world record holder in weightlifting, with one hand squeezed out a barbell weighing 122 kg. He took 41 kg dumbbells in each hand and spread his straight arms horizontally to the sides. I squeezed a barbell weighing 145 kg on the wrestling bridge.
Athletes of antiquity possessed truly phenomenal strength. The Olympia Museum has a stone resembling a giant stone weight weighing 143.5 kg. On this ancient weight there is an inscription: "Bibon raised me above his head with one hand." For comparison, we recall that the outstanding weightlifter of our time A. Pisarenko pushed the weight of 257.5 kg with both hands.
The Russian Tsar Peter I possessed enormous power. In Holland, for example, he stopped windmills holding on to the wing.
Our contemporary power juggler Valentin Dikul freely juggles 80-kilogram kettlebells and holds the "Volga" on his shoulders (the dynamometer shows the load on the athlete's shoulders is 1570 kg). The most amazing thing is that Dikul became a power juggler 7 years after a severe injury, which usually makes people disabled for life. In 1961, acting as an aerial acrobat, Dikul fell in a circus from a great height and received a compression fracture of the spine in the lumbar region. As a result, the lower body and legs were paralyzed. Dikul needed three and a half years of hard training on a special simulator, combined with self-massage, to take the first step on his previously paralyzed legs, and another year to fully restore their movement.
Vladimir Savelyev in July 2001 completed a unique power marathon on July 20, 2001 with an achievement that will be included in the Guinness Book of Records. Starting from July 18, the athlete lifted a 24-kilogram weight every day for 12 hours in a row. He pushed the weight from his chest over his head to his outstretched arm, resting no more than 10 minutes per hour. All this took place on a red-hot stone square in front of the Moskvich cultural center. In 36 hours, Saveliev squeezed the projectile 14,663 times, lifting a total of more than 351 tons.
30-year-old power gymnast from Dagestan Omar Khanapiev set such a record. Grasping the cable with his teeth, he moved the TU-134 plane from its place and dragged it seven meters. This kind of talent manifested itself in him 20 years ago. Even then, with his teeth, he pulled out nails hammered into boards and bent horseshoes. On November 9, 2001, in the fishing port of Makhachkala, Khanapiev moved and dragged a tanker with a displacement of 567 tons across the water for a distance of 15 meters. On November 7, in the same way, he dragged locomotives weighing 136 and 140 tons to a distance of 10 and 12 meters. By the way, outwardly Omar Khanapiev does not look like a hero at all: his height is below average, and his weight is about 60 kilograms.
American researchers tried to establish the potential for increasing human strength. It turned out that the strength of the biceps muscle of the right hand during flexion increases under the influence of taking a moderate dose of alcohol by an average of 1.8 kg, with the introduction of adrenaline into the blood - by 2.3 kg, after the introduction of the exciting drug aphetamine - by 4.7 kg, and under hypnosis - even 9.1 kg.
Our contemporary, a young Frenchman Patrick Edlinger, with a body weight of 63 kg with a height of 176 cm, is able to pull himself up on any finger of both hands. Its main ability is to storm sheer cliffs without using any technical or safety means at all. He trains for 6 hours a day, and not only in rock climbing, but also according to the yoga system. Among his outstanding achievements is the ascent at his fingertips over hot stones of the 800-meter sheer peak of the Hand of Fatma, rising in the very center of the Malian desert.
The example of a brave climber was followed by a young Frenchwoman Catherine Destival. At the age of 25, she was seriously injured: as a result of a fall from a cliff 35 m high, she suffered a double fracture of the pelvis, a fracture of several lumbar vertebrae and a rib. Nevertheless, after three months, thanks to hard training, in 2 hours without insurance and equipment, she conquered the sheer peak of El Puro in the Aragonese mountains in Spain.
Super strength
Physiologists have established that a person can spend only up to 70% of his muscular energy by willpower, and the remaining 30% is a reserve in case of emergency. Let us give some examples of such circumstances.
Once a polar pilot, while fixing his skis at an airplane that had landed on an ice floe, felt a push on his shoulder, thinking that his comrade was joking, the pilot waved it off: "Don't interfere with work." The push was repeated again, and then, turning around, the man was horrified: in front of him stood a huge polar bear. In an instant, the pilot was on the plane of the wing of his plane and began to call for help. The polar explorers who ran up killed the beast. "How did you get on the wing?" they asked the pilot. "Jumped," he replied. It was hard to believe. During the second jump, the pilot could not overcome even half of this distance. It turned out that in conditions of mortal danger, he took a height close to the world record.
During the Great Patriotic War, during the defense of Sevastopol, a group of fighters rolled a heavy gun to the top of Sapun Mountain. Later, when the battle was over, even significantly more people could not move the gun.
And here is a case from the practice of training cosmonauts that Hero of the Soviet Union N.P. Kamanin in his book "The path to space begins with charging."
In August 1967, there was another training of astronauts - parachute jumps. From time to time, white domes bloomed over the Black Sea coast.
An emergency happened to cosmonaut Alexei Leonov: when the dome filled with air, the parachute strap caught on the metal back attached to the satchel and wrapped around the cosmonaut's leg. He hung upside down.
Landing on the crown or back of the head is a dull prospect. And then a gust of wind carried the parachutist to the coastal rocks ... In vain he tried to free his leg. Then, exerting all his strength, he unbent the metal back and pulled out the strap from under it... On the ground, not alone, but with the help of three other cosmonauts, Alexei Leonov tried to straighten the metal, but could not. Just like that, without extreme need, it did not work out.
In another case, the pilot, leaving the crashed plane, tore the hose connecting the high-altitude one reinforced with a thick steel spiral with his hands, four hefty guys tried in vain to break it. How can one not recall the words of Napoleon: "The spiritual strength of a person is related to the physical as three to one."
Such a case has also been registered. A man, falling from a skyscraper, caught his hand on a pin in the wall and hung on one arm until help arrived.
An interesting example is also described in H. Lindemann's book "Autogenic Training": "During the repair of a heavy American limousine, a young man fell under it and was crushed to the ground. The victim's father, knowing how much the car weighs, ran after the jack. At this time, screaming young man his mother ran out of the house and lifted the body of a multi-ton car with her hands on one side so that her son could get out. Fear for her son gave the mother access to an inviolable reserve of strength.
A similar case was registered during the earthquake in Iran, where a woman lifted a fragment of a wall weighing several centners, which crushed her child. During another disaster - in a fire, an elderly woman pulled out a forged chest with her good from the house. When the fire ended, she could not budge him, and the firefighters dragged him back with difficulty.
And here is an incident that occurred in December 1978 in the Mordovian village of Shein-Maidan with Antonina Semyonova Grosheva:
“In the evening of December 12, I fed the calves for the night and went home from the farm. It was already dark. But I have been walking along this road for twenty-two years, and there was no fear. It was half a kilometer to the last house when I shuddered from a push from behind, and immediately someone grabbed my leg. A dog? We have a huge angry dog in our village, the owners let it run at night. I turned and waved my bag. And then I saw: a wolf! He knocked me down, and I thought: Well, that's death. If it weren't for the handkerchief, it would have been so, because the beast grabbed my throat. I grabbed his jaws with my hands and began to unclench them. And they are like iron. And I got strength from somewhere - with my left I pulled my lower jaw with my hand, and when I wanted to grab it with my right hand, my hand slid into my mouth. I pushed it deeper and caught my tongue. Probably, the wolf was hurt by this, because it stopped tearing, and I was able to get to my feet. help, but no one heard, or maybe they heard and got scared - you never know what happened at night aet". Then Antonina Semyonovna dragged the wolf by the tongue for more than half a kilometer to her house and killed him with a heavy door bolt.
In preparing the publication, materials from the book by N.A. Agadzhanyan and A.Yu.Katkov "Reserves of our body", "Knowledge", Moscow, 1990