Goodbye feelings

Whether we sweep them under the proverbial rug or prefer to wear them on our sleeves, feelings seem synonymous with being human.

They can be exhilarating, overwhelming, numbing, pleasant, excruciating or any number of other adjectives.

But not all feelings are the same. Nor does everyone experience the same emotions in response to a given stimulus or even if they do, the intensity often varies. What's more, some societies and cultures are very open (sometimes to the point of oversharing) while others are reserved. Where each of us falls on this spectrum is influenced by our upbringing, environment and by the situations we face.

But what are feelings and where do they come from? Evolutionary biologist, Robert Sapolski, offers an interesting perspective on the origin of feelings. Sapolski proposes that our feelings and reactions to any given stimulus have deep evolutionary roots going back thousands, if not millions, of years. The environment, cultural norms, and our ancestors' access to resources can all play a surprising role in how we respond today.

On an individual level, both genes and immediate family environment, as well as the level of relative safety or trauma we have experienced in life, can all affect our emotional response.

But beyond this, psychologist Lisa Feldman Barrett contends that conventional thinking about feelings is wrong. We tend to see our emotions as something separate from our bodies— as something in the mind. But Barrett's research, which has at times seemed counterintuitive even to her, suggests that the brain actually creates feelings to make sense of what is happening in our bodies.

Over time, our brains have learned to make predictions and apply a label (a feeling) to how the body is reacting to a situation. Sweaty palms, knots in the stomach, or an increased heart rate can signal either fear or excitement. The brain figures out which of the two it is based on context. For example, an increased heart rate is experienced as fear if you are waiting for a loved one to come out of surgery. Or it could be experienced as excitement if you are waiting to greet a loved one at the airport. The brain gathers information and builds contextual, predictive models. In other words feelings / emotions are just labels for collections of body sensations that precede the conscious experience of the feeling.

Barret and her team propose that the main function of your brain is not to think but to conduct a highly complex process that she calls 'body-budgeting' or allostatis. That is, the brain is 'automatically predicting and preparing to meet the body’s needs before they arise'.

Thus Barret suggests that when we have intense feelings, particularly of the negative variety, it can be helpful to ask yourself body budgeting questions like: have I had enough sleep, enough to eat, and so on to identify the source of the emotion. It may sound simplistic, but it is the reason why a good deep breath or a brisk walk can help to change your mood. That is, you can change how you feel by changing your body state.

Certainly, deeper and more chronic mental illnesses cannot be solved so simply. But for our day to day anxieties and grumpy moods, nourishing the body may be a good place to start.

So next time you are feeling stressed, or for that matter are feeling great, why not take a moment to pause and explore those feelings with curiosity about what is happening in your body.

Over time, this habit of tuning into our bodies may help us better manage our emotions. It may even give us the resilience to ride out the inevitable ups and downs of our emotional lives.