Generally curious..
In: Biology
So bodies and minds constantly work cooperatively and things like stress are an overlapping thing. For example, stress could be primarily triggered by a mental input (say I’m thinking through something and that causes me to realise I’ve got a major problem paying my bills) or a primarily physical input (I see and feel that I am being physically attacked) and in both cases stress (or, more helpful, a “stress response”) is triggered.
{Note that I said primarily because this distinction doesn’t really hold up beyond our own perceptions. I’ll return to this later}
So the stress response, however it is triggered, leads to changes in the hormones in our bodies. These guys are system-wide messages that impact brain and body. To get an idea of what that means, imagine the fire alarm going off in a large building with a good evacuation plan. Everyone hears the same alarm, but people with different roles react differently:
Many workers evacuate via the nearest exit.
The supervisor of each floor dons a hi-vis and sweeps the floor ensuring everyone is out before evacuating themselves.
A disabled worker with a evacuation assistance plan goes to the designated place.
Workers who are have trained in evacuation assistance go there also and assist the disabled worker.
The building manager goes to the alarm panel and analyses where the fire is.
Et cetera. They all hear the same sound but react differently. Likewise, the same stress-related hormone travels all around the body, triggering different reactions in different places. So whatever causes that hormone to be released, the effects will be the same, much like how the initial reaction to a fire alarm will be the same regardless of whether it was set off on first floor, top floor, by an automatic detector or by someone hitting the alarm panel.
So, why does a human have one alarm system in this way, and not a more nuanced reaction? Theres not a perfect answer there, but these are significant factors 1) Until recently, we had no need for it, because anything stressful needed this whole package of reactions. 2) It’s an automated system and there’s only so much you can complicate those anyhow. 3) {And this is back to the earlier point in curly brackets} the mind and body are much more joined-up than we feel like they are, so in reality everything is triggered by a mind/body combo. That realisation about my bills? Sensory input such as reading my bills with my eyes (even if it was at an earlier point in time) gave me the information that I thought through and got stressed about. Realising I was being physically attacked? My eyes and pain receptors only ever provided data, it was my brain that put together that I was being attacked, rather than feeling pain for another reason.
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