James' World 2

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Have you ever been torn between “what your head is telling you” and “what your heart is telling you”? If so, you might be surprised at just how much your heart does have to say. It’s a little-known fact outside of scientific circles, but your heart actually contains some 40,000 neurons — the same cells which make up the bulk of your brain. 

And they don’t just respond to directions from the brain. The heart also sends messages to the brain — messages that go beyond basic messages like pain signals and other unconscious data. It also sends messages to the parts of the brain which process thoughts and emotions. This means that your heart really can affect your decisions and feelings. 

The phrase “listen to your heart” takes on a whole new meaning when you consider this information. 

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The term “heart-mind” was coined in 1991 to describe the neural network of the heart.

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Alex Honnold has his own verb. “To honnold”—usually written as “honnolding”—is to stand in some high, precarious place with your back to the wall, looking straight into the abyss. To face fear, literally.

The verb was inspired by photographs of Honnold in precisely that position on Thank God Ledge, located 1,800 feet off the deck in Yosemite National Park. Honnold side-shuffled across this narrow sill of stone, heels to the wall, toes touching the void, when, in 2008, he became the first rock climber ever to scale the sheer granite face of Half Dome alone and without a rope. Had he lost his balance, he would have fallen for 10 long seconds to his death on the ground far below. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

Honnold is history’s greatest ever climber in the free solo style, meaning he ascends without a rope or protective equipment of any kind. Above about 50 feet, any fall would likely be lethal, which means that, on epic days of soloing, he might spend 12 or more hours in the Death Zone. On the hardest parts of some climbing routes, his fingers will have no more contact with the rock than most people have with the touchscreens of their phones, while his toes press down on edges as thin as sticks of gum. Just watching a video of Honnold climbing will trigger some degree of vertigo, heart palpitations, or nausea in most people, and that’s if they can watch them at all. Even Honnold has said that his palms sweat when he watches himself on film.

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ABSENCE OF FEAR: Scans compare Honnold’s brain (left) with a control subject’s (right), a rock climber of a similar age. Crosshairs mark the amygdala, a group of nuclei involved in generating fear. As both climbers look at the same arousing images, the control subject’s amygdala glows, while Honnold’s remains inert, showing no activity whatsoever. Photo by Jane Joseph

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