A story about cortisol, fairness, and trying not to fight the entire Northern Line.

I’ve always struggled with crowds. Not crowds at concerts — crowds in motion. London crowds. It’s fine when we’re all stationary on the Tube, quietly ignoring one another. But the moment the doors open and the great migration begins, something in me flips. My cortisol jumps, my blood pressure jumps, and apparently I jump — straight into fight mode.

Give me a blood test at home and everything’s normal. Give me a blood test after squeezing through Bank at 8:45am and it looks like I’m auditioning to be a medical emergency.

And it’s not just stress. It’s aggression.
The sort that comes out of nowhere.
Nowhere am I closer to an altercation than in a tight crowd of strangers.

So recently I started analysing it — properly.

What I Noticed in Crowds

I realised that whenever someone walks toward me, I scrutinise them. Face, posture, gait — the whole forensic sweep. Then I judge them.
Will they give fair right-of-way?
Will they shoulder-barge?
Will they pretend not to see me and expect me to move?

And here’s the embarrassing part:
If I decide they’re not going to be fair, I mirror it.
If they won’t move, neither will I.

It’s ridiculous. It’s also automatic.

To be fair, it’s not entirely irrational — London has its share of testosterone-fuelled shoulder-checkers marching through the city like unpaid nightclub bouncers. I’ve seen them. I’ve been hit by them. And over time, I’ve become conditioned to expect trouble. One bad apple, repeated enough, becomes a worldview.

But then, one day, I looked around properly.

For every one of those characters, there are hundreds just trying to get to work. Occasionally I even spot an act of kindness — someone stepping aside, someone smiling.
And it dawned on me that this wasn’t just about crowds.

My Real Trigger: Fairness

Fairness is a core moral value for me. It sits somewhere in my bones. And nowhere does it appear more fiercely than in a crowd of strangers. Queue jumping in a coffee shop? Same trigger. Someone pushing past? Same trigger. But crowds ignite it like petrol.

Respect matters to me, but fairness — that’s the one that bursts onto the stage.

And then I asked myself the obvious question:
If fairness is the value, why am I acting like a battering ram?

Experiment 1: The Smile

First attempt was simple. Take off the scowl. Put on a smile.

It sounds stupid, but it works.

When someone sees a smile, everything changes. Their posture softens. Mine softens. Suddenly it’s two humans navigating space rather than two stags colliding in rutting season.

And I’ve seen the reverse work on me — someone smiles, and I instantly accommodate them in a way I never would with a blank expression. Turns out I am also trainable.

Experiment 2: Stop Staring at Everyone

My next idea was to stop scanning faces altogether.
After all, it’s this instant forensic analysis that gets me into trouble.

This was only partially successful.
I naturally scan crowds like some sort of unpaid MI5 intern. My wife can walk through a packed station and miss five people we know; I spot them from 40 metres away while simultaneously judging the structural integrity of their posture.

So this one’s a work in progress.

Experiment 3: Change the Goal

This was the breakthrough.

For years, I’ve approached crowds with a single objective:

Get to the exit in the shortest possible time, using the most direct route, with the hardest skull.

It’s the male instinct: ask any man for directions to Leicester Square and prepare for a TED talk nobody asked for.

But this goal — efficiency at all costs — was fuelling the problem.

So I changed it.

The New Goal

• Walk at a leisurely pace.

• Be considerate of everyone, not just those who “deserve” it.

• Play a game I invented: The Avoid Game — reach the exit without touching a single person.

I calm my breathing before I start. I remind myself of the goal. I put on the smile. And I begin.

How’s It Going?

Honestly? It works.
Not perfectly — it’s not a habit yet — but it works.

And if you’re like me: naturally introverted, triggered by crowds, competitive, pig-headed, untrusting of strangers, and convinced you’re always right…
…it’s worth trying.

Because here’s a final realisation that hit me harder than any shoulder-barge ever did:

The more right you think you are, the angrier you get.

That was me.
Hyper-focused. Competitive. Braced for impact.
My body would literally tighten — “made-of-steel man” ready to take a hit rather than be “wrong.”

Changing the goal loosened the armour.

Why This Matters

This isn’t really an article about crowds.
It’s about noticing your own reactions, tracing them back to the value underneath, and testing a few practical ways to reduce friction.

In the end, this is wellbeing at its simplest:
very small, very human shifts that make daily life feel easier.

And if it works in Bank station at rush hour, it’ll work anywhere.