Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Bitter Taste

Have you ever been really nervous and you lose your appetite? It happens to me every time I'm anxious. A few weeks ago I was having interviews with different schools for getting into optometry programs, and I could never eat breakfast the morning of the interview. I had this nasty taste in my mouth--kind of like raw cocoa and pennies. I had never really noticed it before, but I recognized it as taste in my mouth that only happened when I was nervous.

I thought that this bitter taste might adrenaline. I only realized this when Katie quoted that line from The West Wing when that therapist said "It was the bitter taste in your mouth..."

Anyway, so now that I know that about myself, I can eat when I'm nervous.

...

I just tried looking up other sources to verify this claim that adrenaline tastes bitter...and I couldn't find any. Some people said that adrenaline has no taste. It's a hormone that circulates in your blood and binds to receptor cells. The bitter tastes comes from the fight-or-flight response because your salivary systems momentarily shuts down. I guess that makes some sense.

But tasting adrenaline sounds cooler.

2 comments:

Patricia said...

I remember when you were a teenager and you would always lose your appetite when you were anxious about something.

Sylvia Louise said...

When I saw the thumbnail of your post, I though the mouth was eating a ladybug.