Fun With Stress 1.1
Introduction
&
Memory, Labeling and Buttonization
Reading time: 7 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 play particularly with the concept of chronic 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 understanding grows about an object with such a big daily impact on so many of us, it’s grip diminishes which opens the door to relaxation, restoring equilibrium and change our basic state of being from anxious to joyful. Because the more we can form ideas about how something works, the less frightening it tends to become.
The birth of our agricultural, industrial and technological societies came with 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. For instance, 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 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 undercurrent 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 absence of worry and blame. When desired situations happen while our basic state of being is joyful, all our energy is used for the enjoyment of whatever is happening now. In the same spirit, when undesired situations happen, all our energy is used for their acceptance without energy wastage on worry, blame or shame.
This series is for you if you are interested in changing your perspective and basic state of being, by learning about the concept of chronic stress, and its effects on body and mind.
Every time our buttons are pushed, we get triggered into a stress response – by which is meant the physiological adaptations necessary to liberate ourselves from a potentially dangerous situation (either by fleeing or fighting). Every source that is capable of pushing our buttons is regarded as input. The stress response will then cause changes to occur in our thinking, feeling, and behaviour, which in this study 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 memory, and how we create buttons. Furthermore, we’ll distinguish between physical and mental input as the former generally represents our buttons being pushed from without, and the latter is about how we ourselves can push our buttons.
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.
We will discover that our stress 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 relentless pushing of our buttons, it begins to falter. Moreover, particularly the systems 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.
Finally, even though we will discuss various body parts and systems independently, please keep in mind that none of them can exist completely by themselves. Like everything in this universe, they are interdependent; they need each other in order to exist. All the ‘different’ parts that make our body, arise, grow and develop simultaneously when we grow in moms belly. 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 and awareness, and shine a light on hitherto dark places of our selves.
Jolly studying,
Erik Stout
Image: Placidplace
Memory, Labeling and Buttonization
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, never again!” and this labelling happens for the most part without us being consciously aware of it. The following remarkable story was told by a client 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 obvious 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 pathways that are being created in the brain during traumatic experiences. For every time he encountered a war casualty in Syria, a process called ‘implicit fear conditioning’ taught his body memory something indelible – i.e. massive anxiety buttons were created for his protection, as we shall see.
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. It’s quite obvious that when bullets are flying around everywhere and the proof of their effectiveness is being seen and smelled at every street corner, our brain with its innate tendency to protect will store all possible sensory information (sights, smells, etc.) as big buttons in memory. Every time a sight, sound, or smell is being perceived that even slightly resembles those from the war situation, Farid’s buttons will be pushed hard. That triggers his stress response, which provides him with the alertness, clarity, and energy, necessary to get out of a warlike situation alive.
Ultimately what happened 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, basically ‘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 memory and made into a button.
Information from the outside world enters through our senses. Every sight, sound, touch, smell and taste that Farid experienced in the war situation was 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; the context in which the smell was perceived was totally different. 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 are good 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 that 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 while the scent enters Farid’s nose, while at the same time 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 fireworks 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. For now,
Jolly greetings,
Erik Stout
[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.
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