Why does your body feel your emotions?

[Vallerina 2]

Quote

So by adjusting your thoughts do you then adjust your emotions? If so you have full control over your emotions - that truly is a gift.

Oh god! I wish I had full control over my emotions! That'd be great! I don't, but I'm learning how to adjust some of them. (I read a book at the beginning of the summer which is really helping me do so.)

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[Zenister 0]

Quote

the electrical signal is actually an ion exchange controlled by chemicals...

this is what i was getting at.. at root cause everything is chemical. The mechanism it functions by is electrical, but its the chemical creates the electrical, and affects how it effects the mind/body.

Quote

Okay, but it still doesn't answer my question! Why would someone's stomach hurt? Why would your chest feel elated? I get that there are going to be things like sweat/breathing/heart rate/etc that change, but it doesn't explain why specific body parts hurt/feel good

for this one your going to have to go farther than me.. specific emotions are triggered by specific chemical reactions at specific regions in the brain which relate to specific organs... [I](thats alot of specificity)[/I] but as to how/why it's exactly wired that way, Peregrinerose can probably answer much better than I or point you to a better resource than my limited knowledge...

great question btw....

ps. an 'argument' is an exchange of ideas, there is no malice whatsoever involved... you wouldn’t believe how often i've tried to explain that to some people without success...some never grasp that because you are contradicting/questioning someone’s idea or concept in order to reach 'clarity' that you are personally attacking them or trying to make them feel inferior.... this is absolutely NOT the case.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

So you say your emotions and your thoughts are inextricably linked, we covered that already - what you think you feel... but you also say that you can't control your emotions - they happen irrespective of what you think.... why are these two concepts compatable?

[Zenister 0]

Quote

So by adjusting your thoughts do you then adjust your emotions? If so you have full control over your emotions - that truly is a gift.

absolutely.

although i do not veiw it so much as a gift, it is a skill, a goal. However 'control' is perhaps to strong a word. By using the word control it seems as if you are repressing emotion and that is never a good thing IME.

'Awareness' of your emotions, 'Control' over your reactions is how i would phrase it.

without that control i would have been dead long ago....everyone exercises that control to some extent or another, some people strive to refine and improve it. It is a continual journey not a destination.... and sometimes the best experiences are still to be found when emotions get the better of you... life has little meaning without strong emotion.

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[Vallerina 2]

Quote

but you also say that you can't control your emotions - they happen irrespective of what you think....

No, you can't control your emotions. I can't just STOP feeling angry because I want to. If I want to stop feeling angry, I'd have to stop thinking about what's making me angry or think about it in a new light (ie, "I'm pissed off that so and so because they said that Jackopierce sucks!" would have to change to something like, "So, they don't like Jackopierce, and they expressed that well. Just because they don't like them doesn't mean it's a crappy band or that I shouldn't like them. They are entitled to feel about them however they wish.")

What I find bizarre that I have no control over are the things like why certain body parts feel certain emotions.

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[mr2mk1g 10]

I think I would describe that as the ability to chose not to be effected by it - I do that... but the ability to actually bring on an emotion, or to completely dispell an emotion... that I would term control... I do not have that... that truly would be a gift.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Quote

What I find bizarre that I have no control over are the things like why certain body parts feel certain emotions.

We keep telling you - it's because your body is effected by hormones and other chemicals released by glands such as your pituitary gland when you "feel" certain emotions.

EG anger - you'll release adrenaline which will cause vasodilation close to your skin an in your muscles possibly causing your skin to go red. You might feel hot, your heart rate may increase, blood vesels to your stomach and bowel will constrict and this may give you butterflies or you might feel sick. Your breathing may increase and blood flow to your lungs may increase giving you a funny feeling in your chest - one might describe it as elation...

These are things controlled by your autonomic nervous system and you don't have full conscious control over this system.

Your thoughts however are not part of this system... you can fully control those. You don't CHOSE to release adrenaline - you don't CHOSE to increase your heart beat. You can chose to ignore your racing heart and sweaty palms though and think about something else.

Thus the two systems are not intrinsically linked - on a basic biological level.

[peregrinerose 0]

Quote

Okay, but it still doesn't answer my question! Why would someone's stomach hurt? Why would your chest feel elated? I get that there are going to be things like sweat/breathing/heart rate/etc that change, but it doesn't explain why specific body parts hurt/feel good.

Because EVERY organ has the receptors for the neurotransmitters we are talking about (epinephrine, norepinephrine, etc), so they all get involved. Internal organs are rather stupid. They don't perceive sense or motion or change the same way the rest of the body does. So your body interprets it as best it can, the weight in the chest, etc.

Jen

Do or do not, there is no try -Yoda

[CrazyIvan 0]

In my case, my emotions feel my body.

__________________________________________
Blue Skies and May the Force be with you.

[Vallerina 2]

Quote

We keep telling you - it's because your body is effected by hormones and other chemicals released by glands such as your pituitary gland when you "feel" certain emotions.

Lol! I know why, I just didn't understand the specific body part thing (as in, why don't my knees hurt when I'm sad rather than my stomach?)

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[Zenister 0]

but you can. it's so simple really.

want to be happy? think happy thoughts, stop thinking angry ones. Want to be angry? (its useful on occasion) find that coal of rage and blow on it till it lights....... Really focus.

there is the hard part, the part that requires training and discipline.

the emotion will still be there, but once you stop letting it affect you the cycle breaks and so in a sense you have 'control' over it, but not control over the chemical response that caused it, you are changing one 'set of chemicals' for another by conscious choice, reason and force of will. It's your body and your mind. Do you obey it or does it obey you?

make sense?

____________________________________
Those who fail to learn from the past are simply Doomed.

[kelel01 1]

Read peregrinerose's posts. They pretty much explain it. Particularly the first one.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Quote

(as in, why don't my knees hurt when I'm sad rather than my stomach?)

(sorry if this annoys creationists but...)

That's due to evolution. Having your knees hurt would serve no useful purpose.

Having your lungs supplied with more blood and having your breathing increase gives you more O2 so you are stronger and faster. Having your heart pump faster and harder gets that O2 to your muscles faster and more efficiently, as does having your muscles engorged with blood. Cutting the blood supply to your stomach and bowel increases the volume of blood available to your muscles for running/fighting - it's not like it's needed urgently in your stomach at the time anyway. You might even shit yourself in extreme circumstances - that's just extra weight your carrying anyway.

Knees hurting... nah - no use to it, so we don't display that response.

[Bolas 5]

Quote

ps. an 'argument' is an exchange of ideas, there is no malice whatsoever involved... you wouldn’t believe how often i've tried to explain that to some people without success...some never grasp that because you are contradicting/questioning someone’s idea or concept in order to reach 'clarity' that you are personally attacking them or trying to make them feel inferior.... this is absolutely NOT the case.

Sorry I had to do it...
M: An argument isn't just contradiction.
A: It can be.
M: No it can't. An argument is a connected series of statements intended to establish a proposition.
A: No it isn't.
M: Yes it is! It's not just contradiction.
A: Look, if I argue with you, I must take up a contrary position.
M: Yes, but that's not just saying 'No it isn't.'
A: Yes it is!
M: No it isn't!
M: Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes.

P.S. Val, when does Phil get back?

Stupidity if left untreated is self-correcting
If ya can't be good, look good, if that fails, make 'em laugh.

[billvon 3,120]

> I never really understood the connection between feelings and how
>your body reflects it.

Evolution. When we are afraid, our heart rate goes up, we breathe more heavily, we release adrenalin etc all of which allows us to flee the bear that would otherwise kill us. When we feel lust, we make all the changes (which I won't go into here) that prepares us for sex. If it didn't do that, we wouldn't be as successful at reproducing, and evolution frowns on you if you don't reproduce. Other emotions:

Jealousy - if you feel badly when you see "your man" with someone else, then you will tend to do things to avoid that feeling, like never leaving his side or whatever. This helps ensure that that guy will protect your offspring, which leads to a good evolutionary outcome. If jealousy gave you a happy feeling, you'd want to see him with other women a lot, and that would lead to him neglecting to care for your offspring.

Sadness - loss of something that was important to you (to children, often that means a favorite food or toy) makes you feel bad. That's emotional programming so that kids (for example) hang on to their favorite food, which is a behavior that helps keep them well-fed.

Happiness - the opposite; we are programmed to feel this way when we do things that help ensure our survival or our offspring's survival. A mother being happy with her child is a classic case.

Those are just some basic emotions; since we've become (somewhat) intelligent we've come up with more complex behaviors and more rationalizations as to what makes us feel good and bad. Nowadays we are pretty good at convincing ourselves that we shouldn't do things that give us immediate gratification (like rape) because it is against a code of social behavior that's more important to us. So we sublimate that drive into something else, like macho posturing at a bar, to achieve a similar result (sex with a willing woman.) The various sublimations and codes of behavior lead to complex behavior where a great many things make us feel bad or good.

Was that sufficiently obtuse?

[happythoughts 0]

Some of my best adventures involve my emotions and my organs.

[Vallerina 2]

Quote

Was that sufficiently obtuse?

Should I just start pming you with my bizarre questions? You and (oh, crap, can't remember the screen name of who it was before you) made it clear with the evolutionary thingy.

And, Bolas, Phil is back today! Yay!

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[fireflytx 0]

I hate when someone breaks your heart, it literally feels like your heart it going to explode and it feels like it is never going to stop

"Well behaved women rarely make history"

[mr2mk1g 10]

Quote

You and (oh, crap, can't remember the screen name of who it was before you) made it clear with the evolutionary thingy.

No one ever remembers my screen name.

Whenever I meet people in real life they always go "Oh yeah - "Mister two something-or-other" or "M.R.2. mumble mumble mumble..."

Oh well...

[Vallerina 2]

Your avatar is cool, though!

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[Morcyk 0]

I'm all about the feeling over logic, although it is rather difficult to do at times. If feelings are chemical reactions in your body, wouldn't it also stand that thought patterns are too? Is logic all that different than emotions? Don't your past emotional experiences drive the logic that you use to determine a solution?

[crwmike 0]

Quote

Quote

We keep telling you - it's because your body is effected by hormones and other chemicals released by glands such as your pituitary gland when you "feel" certain emotions.

Lol! I know why, I just didn't understand the specific body part thing (as in, why don't my knees hurt when I'm sad rather than my stomach?)

Because in a body's arousal state blood isn't shunted away from your knees in order to prepare you for fight or flight. Blood is shunted to your lungs, heart and brain and skeletal muscles, while vasoconstricting the blood vessels in you skin.. The shutdown of your digestive system is logical, for digesting food is an unnecessary energy drain at the time and explains the contraction of your stomach and tightening of the throat.

The body only has one 'arousal state' physiologically speaking. What we 'feel' is determined by our previous experiences and adaptive techniques. All this, however, is pretty much an immediate and transitory reaction.

When the situation continues, a complicated series of hormones start flooding the body. Governed by the hypothalmus CRH (cortictropin releasing hormone) triggers ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone) from the pituitary gland, which results in increased production of cortisol from the adrenal glands.

Cortisol does a number of things, but it's main job is to increase energy to vital systems by increasing the availability of blood glucose and converting fat more efficently into energy. It also inhibits the reproductive system (also not necessary at the time) and stimulates the immune system.

In short (too late, eh? :), What you feel in various parts of your body is the result of chemicals being shunted to and from various parts with resultant effects on the tissues involved. How you feel is based on who you are and what adaptive experiences you have learned.

In response to the same stimulus, one person my feel elation, the other debilitating fear. a third, extreme anger. All have the same physiological processes happening.

Michael

[Sinkster 0]

it's the pineal gland

• Quote

[Vallerina 2]

Quote

What you feel in various parts of your body is the result of chemicals being shunted to and from various parts with resultant effects on the tissues involved.

Alright, so now for the most important question: how can I get it so when I am stressed, it feels like I'm getting a back massage?

There's a thin line between Saturday night and Sunday morning

[champu 1]

Quote

Alright, so now for the most important question: how can I get it so when I am stressed, it feels like I'm getting a back massage?

I'll need a scalpel, about 1000ft of really small plastic tubing, and a roll of duct tape...

...oh, and your signiture right here...