Fun With Stress 1.1
Introduction
&
The Creation Of Memory, Labels and Push-Buttons
Reading time: 11 minutes
Owl image & Mandala image: GDJ. Composition: Erik Stout.
“A human being is part of the whole we call ‘Universe,’ and part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest – a kind of optical illusion of our consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Albert Einstein
“Simple in thinking and doing,
We return to the ground of being.
Patience with both friends and enemies,
We accord with the way things are.
Compassion with ourselves,
We unite every being in the world.”
Lao Tzu
Introduction
Fun With Stress means that we’re going to investigate the concept of stress as if it’s the most enchanting object of study we’ve ever run into.
Our starting point is the hypothesis that as soon as intellectual understanding grows about how stress works in our body, it’s grip diminishes which opens the door to relaxation, restoring equilibrium and change our basic state of being from anxious to joyful; which means curious, lively and playful.
With the birth of our settled, agricultural, industrial and technological societies, came an unexpected afterbirth in the form of social anxiety; a state in which most of us still dwell, albeit mostly unconsciously. Yet this constant undercurrent of fear determines a big part of our thinking, feeling and behaving, and harbours the potential of chronic stress, which harbours the potential of developing into mental and/or physical illnesses.[1]
Moreover, a basic undercurrent of anxiety diminishes our experience of life dramatically. When we get into a desired situation, we want it to go on forever and worry about when it will end, and if we get into an undesired situation we want it to be over as soon as possible and we usually wish to blame someone or other for putting us there in the first place.
In both cases, part of our available energy is wasted on worrying and/or blaming; features which by nature have to do with future or past instead of dealing with that moment where our lives actually play out: the present.
With joyfulness as a basic state of being we still get into desired and undesired situations, but the big difference lies in its nature of having to do with the present moment, and hence there is no energy loss on worrying or blaming.
This series of articles is meant for those who are interested in changing their perspective and basic state of being.
As a means we’re going to put ourselves smack in the middle as the vehicle through which our object of investigation can be studied, since most of us know what it’s like to feel stressed through personal experience (which, to this day, is the most effective learning method available to us).
We get triggered into a stress response when our buttons are pushed, and anyone or anything with that capacity is called input. The subsequent stress response will then cause superfast changes to occur in our organism. All the physical and mental changes that happen when our buttons are pushed will be called output.
The first part of this study will concentrate on the different forms of input and how strongly they can push our buttons. We’re going to elaborate on how input becomes memories, how buttons are created, and we’ll distinguish between physical and mental input.
The second part will concentrate on various physiological effects (output) of the stress response, particularly in cases of chronic stress.[2] Since these effects almost always have a psychosocial component as part of its cause, we will investigate and elaborate on the effects of chronic stress on most body parts and systems, and how they can be recognized and distinguished from mere biological causes.
The goal is that we obtain knowledge of what happens inside our body every time our buttons are pushed, which triggers our stress – or fight or flight – response. We will see that this response is a highly skilled defence mechanism with the potential of getting us out of harm’s way. However, if the system gets overworked due to incessant pushing of our buttons, it begins to falter. Moreover, particularly the systems that we need for replenishment and recovery, then, also begin to falter. We’re going to investigate how that works, how we can perceive that in our body, and how the tide can be turned.
In order to paint easy understandable pictures of how stress manifests itself in us, we will make use of relatable, everyday occurrences. Furthermore, for the purpose of communication it’s necessary to distinguish mind from body, brain from heart, and input from output. However I’d like to stress (pun intended) that we stay aware that even though we distinguish brain from heart for the sake of cummunication, they are mutually interdependent; they need each other in order to exist. They arise, grow and develop simultaneously just like we grow in moms belly, and in that sense they are a part of our whole being, just as we are part of the planet earth as a whole being, just as the earth is a part of the universe as a whole being.
May these articles become a step in the broadening of our understanding, perspective, and awareness, and shine a light on hitherto dark places of our selves.
Jolly studying,
Erik Stout
Image: Placidplace
The Creation Of Memory, Labels and Push-Buttons
Every time an experience is being stored in our memory, it is instantaneously labelled. Depending on the experience, labels can say “Great, let’s do that again!” or “Terrible, let’s never do that again!” and the brain attributes these labels depending on whether certain physical sensations are regarded as pleasant or unpleasant. This is what is meant by the term body memory.
Whatever we label as pleasant or unpleasant is for the most part culturally determined, which means that right after birth, we begin to learn to distinguish between the two by the reactions of the people in our environment. Then, when something happens that they regard as ‘good’, that thing or event is instantaneously connected to the physical sensations that are happening inside of us at that moment. For instance, when we see and hear our parents laughing and dancing to a song they both enjoy, that song is then connected to our physical sensations of that particular moment. From that moment on, whenever we hear that song, those physical sensations (e.g. like a certain kind of shiver) will arise in our body, and creates a feeling which we will then label as pleasant.
The same occurs when something happens that the people in our environment regard as ‘bad’. For example, if one or both of our parents can’t stand the sight and/or smell of vomit, they will inevitably show signs of repulsion if they have to clean up our vomit after we vomited. As soon as we, as babies, are subjected to their signs of repulsion, we immediately connect them to whatever physical sensations are happening in our little bodies at that moment. As a result, we can create a phobia for vomiting[3] – which in itself is as natural a phenomenon as going to the bathroom – if we have taught ourselves that vomiting is ‘evil’; after all, we are obviously ‘hurting’ our parent(s) with our vomiting. Moreover, when we are very young, we are completely dependent on them for our material, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing, so we wish to avoid any signs of rejection.[4]
All the beliefs and convictions we learn in our very young lives are so called emotionally learned patterns. They are created before our consciousness is developed to the point that we can begin to reflect on our own thoughts and actions (mainly with language), and are anchored deep in our psycho-physical organism, outside of the reach of our conscious attention. Therefore, they are incredibly difficult to get at, let alone change.
Rationally learned patterns, on the contrary, refer to our ability to know and remember facts, for example that The Rolling Stones is a band. Our conscious behaviour is based on active knowledge of these facts, but they usually do not evoke particular physical sensations. For instance, the plain fact that The Rolling Stones is a band doesn’t usually make people jump for joy or break down and cry. Therefore, because they lack an emotional component which is firmly attached to body memory, these rationally learned patterns are much easier to change than emotional ones.
Yet, our ability to create emotionally learned patterns doesn’t end when we learn how to think and talk, which is exemplified by this remarkable story that was told by a client of mine who was then living in Amsterdam for a little over two years (for privacy purposes the name has been changed).
Farid was a young man from Syria, who had left the war and his family in search of a better life. In Syria he encountered lots of war casualties laying on the side of the road, which ultimately affected him in ways he couldn’t have imagined. When he came to see me, he lived in Amsterdam, where dead people hadn’t been part of the public space for a long time. However, he was oftentimes still reminded of the war situation in a less conscious way.
Next to the entrance of his apartment building stood a garbage container from a restaurant. Many times as he walked by, the waste smelled almost exactly as the familiar odour of corpses, but he didn’t realize this until we spoke about the emotionally learned patterns that are being created in the brain – particularly during traumatic experiences. For every time he encountered a war casualty in Syria, with its inevitable sights and smells, the particular body sensations from that moment were connected with the possibility of annihilation. By this process called implicit fear conditioning, his body memory stored something indelible, and massive anxiety buttons were created for his protection.
Just like an encounter with a predator would push our anxiety buttons and ignite a stress response in order to protect ourselves, so do encounters with war situations and casualties – but only if we have actually experienced that for ourselves! That is why oftentimes people who have never been in a warlike situation before, talk about its atrocities as if they are but minor disturbances. The amount of veterans with PTSD tells a different story.
Be that as it may, ultimately what happened with Farid in The Netherlands was that every time the particular odour entered his nose, his buttons were being pushed. The inevitable stress response then caused his heartrate to increase dramatically and he tensed up completely due to heavy contraction of his skeletal muscles, ‘bracing him for impact’. Both these physiological changes he felt quite clearly, but consciously he had no idea why they occurred. That was because the smell was experienced in a completely different context than when it was stored as memories and made into buttons.
Information from the outside world enters through our senses. Every sight, sound, touch, smell and taste that Farid experienced in the war situation was therefore stored and ‘buttonized’ in his memory and provided with labels such as “Avoid at all cost!” In this way we could say that he was being programmed to either avoid warlike environments or seek shelter if he were to ever encounter one again.
When in Amsterdam an odour similar to that of the corpses back in Syria entered his nose, he physically tensed up, but consciously didn’t make the connection between the smell and the war, because he was in an environment where no public fighting was taking place. Yet if the smell would have entered his nose while at the same time a helicopter flew over and some loud bangs from fireworks were heard, chances were that his upcoming thoughts would have been something along the lines of, “Holy crap, where’s the bombs?!” Subsequently he might have collapsed and be looking for a place to hide. Only when he realizes again he’s in Amsterdam will his tension drop, and he’ll probably laugh at himself for acting silly.
Now imagine that Farid invites David over to his house for dinner. They are about to enter the apartment building when a helicopter flies over and loud bangs from fireworks are heard. All of a sudden David sees a hole in the air next to him where Farid had been standing. Then he sees him collapsed on the floor and looking anxiously. Assuming that David has never been in a hostile or warlike environment before, his brain will label the smell from the garbage container and sounds from the helicopter and fireworks much different than Farid’s. To David the smell might just represent everyday waste, the helicopter sound might remind him of a helicopter ride through the Grand Canyon, and the bangs of an awesome new year’s celebration. The input is the same, but their brains label it differently, creating a completely different meaning.
In the next article of this series we are going to investigate how personal meaning is created out of the infinite amounts of input we absorb every single moment.
Notes & References
[1] See Robert M. Sapolsky - Why Zebras Don’t Have Ulcers; Gabor Maté - When The Body Says No; Bessel van der Kolk - The Body Keeps The Score.
[2] We cannot avoid also discussing certain psychological effects of the stress response, but the focus in this study is particularly on physiology – the effects of the stress response in our body.
[3] I’m speaking from personal experience here.
[4] Usually our parents are as unaware of their behaviour as we become when we grow up. That is to say, if the sight of smell of vomit has become part of their emotionally learned patterns, they will inevitably react with signs of repulsion whenever they come into contact with vomit, whether they want to or not.
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