So why does your brain know and panic that you need to get to the loo say to be sick or poop etc but not control it until you get there? Your brain literally tells you that you can’t do this bodily function where you are currently and makes you panic, then proceeds to do it anyway if you’re not fast enough?
In: Biology
Because our involuntary actions have no concept of “embarrassment.” If you are sick, all your physiology is concerned with is getting rid of whatever is making you sick as quickly as possible. You are panicking because you are fighting your instinct (for lack of a better word, not quite the same), which is difficult/impossible to consciously control.
I would guess it has to do with how your brain actually works. See, your brain is made up of many different parts. For the sake of this question, I will break it down to “smart brain” and “animal brain.” Your smart brain is you. It’s your thoughts and ability to think and use logic. Your animal brain is all of the primitive stuff that all other animals have including humans. It’s the part that makes your heart beat and your glands work.
The part of your brain that tells you that going to the bathroom in public is wrong is your smart brain. The big reason people consider it not okay to go to the bathroom in public is because of social forces. What people consider right and wrong. Concepts like “right” and “wrong” do not apply to your animal brain any more than it does to a dog or a cat’s animal brain (those animals go to the bathroom in public all the time). Your animal brain does whatever it feels it should do to keep your body healthy and alive.
At a certain point, your body can decide your smart brain is being very stupid. Like if you hold your breath until you pass out, your animal brain takes over and forces you to begin breathing again so you don’t die.
This is the same reason you may lose control of bodily functions despite your best attempts to do the opposite. Your animal brain, which ultimately can take control of your body whenever it wants, decides “hey, why aren’t you going to the bathroom? We *need* to go to the bathroom!” And so… you do.
I hope this helped.
I mean, it’s not that you can’t, it’s that you just really don’t want to. Physically your body can, and when your body makes extreme decisions like that it’s not going to wait forever.
You are your brain lol. You’re trying your best to keep it in but your ability to do so probably depends on how severe the need to do either of those things are. Eventually the urge becomes an automatic reflex, especially in the event of vomiting which requires the careful coordination of different muscles.
Because the evolution pressure on the previous generations was to survive and produce babies. the previous generations cared about producing offspring not be embarrassed in a social setting. Doggies do this all the time and don’t feel the shame of embarrassment
There are varying degrees of “control” over the body’s functions. Some things, like your heartbeat, are essentially completely beyond your control. You can *influence* it by doing breathing exercises and other such things, but to a very real extent, you can’t control whether your heart beats. It just does. Likewise, you can’t meaningfully control the rate at which food moves through your digestive tract–it just does. You have *some* control over your anal sphincters, but even that is limited. Your physical reflexes are another example of something not really under your control–your knee will jerk if the doctor hits it with their little hammer thing, you don’t really get a choice about that.
A step up from that is stuff like breathing and blinking. You can *partially* control these things, e.g. you can intentionally try to breathe faster or slower or hold your breath for a long time, you can close your eyes or try to hold them open for a long time, etc. But by and large those things just sort of happen without your brain really being involved. Sexual arousal is another one that falls in this range, where it’s possible to trigger or suppress it to some extent, but it can also happen to you without your consent.
All these things are part of what’s called the “autonomic” nervous system. They’re things that just happen, on their own, without your brain’s participation. They happen even while you’re unconscious.
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