The Unified Theory of the Nervous System
and Behavior
Cognitive Philosophy /Brain Theory by Steven Michael Harris
Do You Know Your Early Warning Stress Signals? (ABC News Healthology, 1/17/2005) (link retired)
This ABC blurb about stress provides a great amount of evidence for my theories but argues for competing theories as if they are facts. Sorting out the theory from the fact as presented in this article takes some work:
The goal of relaxation techniques, according to Herbert Benson, MD, president of the Mind/Body Medical Institute in Boston and an associate professor of medicine at Harvard University, is to elicit a relaxation response from your body that counteracts the consequences of stress by slowing your heart rate, breathing rate and lowers blood pressure. Below, Dr. Benson talks about common stress signals, and ways to relieve stress.
Yes, relaxation techniques do help avoid certain stress responses, but a clearer understanding of the nature of what stress actually is will inform different explanations for how and why various techniques work.
What is stress?
Stress is any circumstance that requires behavioral adjustment. Any change is, therefore, stressful. And when under stress, we evoke what's called the "fight or flight" response. And that is when adrenaline is put forth in our body and we experience increased metabolism, heart rate, blood pressure and breathing rate. Our body is preparing us to run or to fight. Biologically, we need the "fight or flight" response. Our species wouldn't be here today without it because it is necessary for self-protection. Our modern society, however, turns on our stress response when we don't need it. So when we don't run or fight when we're under stress, those same hormones can lead to a number of different disorders, such as anxiety, depression and high blood pressure. Stress can also lead to cardiac irregularities, heart attacks and insomnia. It worsens PMS and hot flashes from menopause, and affects ovulation and infertility.
Yes, change does lead to some stress, but this is a very simplistic and wrong explanation for what stress actually is. I've written a lot about how stress is involved in all nervous system functioning. It is stress that causes all of the disorders and causes the formation of our behavioral traits and personalities. Stress is the reason behind our cycles and our aesthetic responses and our sense of pleasure/pain and beauty. Stress happens when conflicting information happens in the brain that must be calculated together. Stress occurs when divergent realms of information must be associated to each other in calculations (emotion) as well. Stress is half of the processing of the nervous system.
The explanation that stress is caused by adrenaline being pumped into the body is a mistaken notion that follows the pharmaceutical model of interpreting the body: that everything in the body and the mind is controlled by “brain chemistry.” This really does not inform anything about how the mind and brain do things. For instance: What caused the stress? Was it stress that caused the adrenaline to pump through the body or was it the adrenaline pumped through the body that caused the stress?
The constant referencing to “fight or flight response” as the explanation for all stress is simplistic and wrong. It is a theory stated as if it is a fact and there are holes in this theory. The implication is that as animals we developed a stress response to deal with danger (“fight or flight”) and that response is the only form of stress in the animal world, but as humans with human culture we have other kinds of stresses that don't exist in the animal world so that we build up inappropriate stress as if we are responding in the “fight or flight” world. Animals have other kinds of stress rather than “fight or flight.” Animals can be observed to be affected by social stress, stress caused by the elements, stress caused by disease and starvation, stress caused by loneliness or horniness or even boredom. There other kinds of stress have nothing to do with the “fight or flight” theory but they all can have an effect on the various maladies attributed to stress.
Yes, adrenaline can be observed to have an association with certain kinds of stress, but the observation of that association is not a proof that adrenaline is stress or stress is adrenaline. An association with some subset of the various expressions of stress could cause the increase in adrenaline, for instance, causing a false impression that hormonal influences are the entirety of the makeup of stress. The insistence that adrenaline causes stress is inherent in the pharmaceutical control of the language of medicine and biological research with the implication that our problems can always be solved by purchasing and using some drug. (Has there ever been a drug that removes stress such as one that lowers adrenaline production or destroys adrenaline in the brain? If such a drug existed it would not work because the premise that adrenaline is stress is wrong.)
I have written a variety of essays regarding this argument as this is a very complicated subject to debate. Most of my essays refer to this issue. Links to suggested related reading concerning the topic of stress:
The “fight or flight” theory is a product of the thinking in evolutionary biology. My argument against some evolutionary biology thinking is in: Evolution is the New Religion
Hormonal controls in the brain pretty much always have something to do with changes in the mechanisms of focus in the brain, “focus” being something that needs to be redefined. Some of the explanation for focus is in this essay: Switchboard example
Do people usually know when they are under stress?
There are a number of stress warning signals. There are physical symptoms, behavioral symptoms, emotional symptoms, cognitive symptoms and spiritual symptoms. Physical symptoms include headaches, indigestion, stomachaches, sweaty palms, sleep difficulties, back pain, tight shoulders, neck, racing heart and tiredness. Behavioral symptoms include excessive smoking; compulsive gum chewing; bossiness; being very critical of others; grinding one's teeth at night; overuse of alcohol and compulsive eating. Emotional symptoms include crying; nervousness; boredom; edginess; feeling powerless to change things; anger; loneliness; unhappiness for no reason and being easily upset. And cognitive symptoms involve trouble thinking clearly, forgetfulness, lack of creativity, memory loss and loss of your sense of humor. Spiritual symptoms might include cynicism, doubt, martyrdom and a loss of direction. And in relationships, stress might play out as an inability to get along with others, getting angry too easily, clamming up or having a low sex drive.
First I must say that it is very unscientific to claim “spiritual” symptoms to exist, and these “spiritual symptoms” listed have nothing to do with spirituality as listed here. (This proselytizing is not welcome in such a forum, from my point of view.) Stress causes negative feelings applied to all subject matter and cynicism is just negative feeling applied to other people or situations. Martyrdom is negative feeling applied to the value of the self or negative actions to the self to prove a negative value of the self to others. Loss of direction is really an ADD/ADHD kind of trait that occurs with stress.
In those essays I've linked from this page I address the various ways that stress is exhibited in the body. Every decision of the body has a stress side and another side that is in the stimulant category as the nerve cells all have such an assignment to different realms of subject matter. Contracted muscles are on the stress side of the range and relaxed muscles on the stimulant end of the range. So stress will show up in muscle tightness throughout the body.
Negative feelings (pain) are on the stress end of the scale and so there are many expressions of such pain (negative feeling). Stress causes all disorders so symptoms of all disorders will occur under stress (with long-term permanent stress or with short-term temporary stress).
How can people distinguish between stress signals and medical problems?
Different people have different organs that are targeted by stress. Some people become anxious, other people have stomachaches, others headaches. And some people who already suffer from certain conditions, such as migraine headaches, may find that stress will trigger or worsen their headache. A person should ask themselves if the symptom or feeling they are experiencing is caused by or made worse by stress. And if so, then it's stress related. If you are concerned about a particular symptom, however, you should always go to a doctor first to make sure it's nothing else.
The above excerpt is an example of providing the evidence for my theory and then totally missing the importance of that information and providing an incorrect interpretation or explanation of the data.
Stress causes all disorders. There are long-term and short-term expressions of that same stress. (That stress can also be communicated through genetics.) Stress causes these symptoms and so there is no difference if the condition previously existed before or not (so there is no difference if the symptom is caused by or worsened by the stress). Yes, there are different causes of problems (disease or situational stress), but the mathematics of how stress communicates through the brain are the same no matter if the stress is caused by situation or disease. Removing a pathogen (disease) can remove the stress source just like removing the situational problem can remove the stress source, so different tacks can be effective in reducing stress, but what that stress is according to the way the brain communicates is the same. (And if stress from any source causes permanent impairment once the source, the disease or other factor, has been removed, then the same methods to remove stress will be necessary to remove or reduce that permanent expression of stress. I have discovered a new treatment that will have an effect on such permanent stress that will be explained later.)
What can people do to relieve stress?
There is no good drug or surgical procedure to treat stress. So if you possibly can, try to alter the stressful situation. But just as we all have within us the "fight or flight" or stress response, so we also have within us an opposite response, which is called the relaxation response. And a person should elicit that on a regular basis.
The stress response comes about automatically. The relaxation response requires two steps. One is a repetition. The repetition can be a word, a sound, a prayer, a phrase, or even a repetitive movement. And the second step is when other thoughts come to mind while you're doing the repetition, they should be ignored and you come back to the repetition. The technique should be used once or twice a day for 10 to 20 minutes. So a person could sit quietly and choose an appropriate repetition. It could be a prayer. It could be Om. It could be a secular term like the word "love," "peace" or "calm." Or one can do a repetitive exercise such as yoga, tai chi, ji gong, jogging. Other repetitive activities are knitting or crocheting.
Yes, there is no drug or surgical procedure to reduce stress. In truth, almost all drug treatments get the benefits by increasing the stress on a subset of the brain so that the subset stops sending signals that stress the remaining brain. This gives an illusion of benefit with a symptom disappearing (reducing general pain) but with impairment of many other symptoms (side-effects) and a loss of function that seems to be a benefit (for instance, amnesia for depressive memories in the case of anti-depressants).
Yes, repetitive motions or thoughts can be calming because the brain has an easier time dealing with predictable information (repetition being very predictable) and so this kind of thinking or behaving is less stressful. This kind of information put forth in this ABC article actually supports my reasoning for why those with autism and other neurological disorders tend to rock back and forth or focus on repetitive patterns in wallpaper and other such “symptoms.” These “symptoms” are actually coping mechanisms for dealing with extreme stress that is in their systems. If you want to reduce your response to stress, you should imitate the behaviors of those with autism: rock back and forth and use dissociation (which is the same thing as meditation). (Dissociation is a kind of inhibition of a subset of the brain, a selective increase of stress in a subset of the brain that causes a temporary decrease of stress signals received by other parts of the brain, created by the same internal mechanisms of focus that we all possess.)
How does the relaxation response affect the body?
What happens is that levels of certain hormones in your body, such as adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol, literally change, and you're calmer. In addition, the wirings in your brain, your brain chemicals, actually change. All of this has been scientifically proven. As a result, you're less likely to be upset by a stressor, and certainly less likely to have the stress's harmful effect occur.
There is a big difference between a scientifically proven association between changes in these chemicals and stressful experiences (there is such proof) and the proof that the regulation of such stress is completely controlled by those same chemicals (there is no such proof, that is just theory).
And this statement that the relaxation techniques actually change the wiring of your brain is a stupid and worthless decree that is legally impossible to challenge because every experience and every moment of life creates “actual change” to the wiring of your brain.
What is your advice to people when it comes to stress relief?
People should view health and well-being as akin to a three-legged stool. One leg is medications, the second leg is surgery and procedures. They are absolutely of essence in modern medicine. But they don't effectively treat stress and its harmful effects. That's why we need a third leg and that is self-care. In that self-care leg, we have the relaxation response, nutrition and exercise, and the belief system of the patient. So people should be aware that there are scores of techniques that they can use to counteract the harmful effects of stress.
Notice how this paragraph about stress advises that the first approach to solving your problems is medication. This is just public-relations material to convince you to solve your problems with drugs. Pharmaceutical companies are most likely either directly or indirectly involved in providing this press-release. And they are wrong! Most current pharmaceutical approaches actually increase the same kinds of stress that caused the disorders they are treating. The improvement is an illusion. There are many arguments to go against the pharmaceutical companies within the essays of my Unified Theory website.
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Many of the problems of medicine, biology, psychology and philosophy require an understanding of the basic mathematical principles behind how the nervous system does what it does to achieve function and experience, and that mathematics is not explained using narrowly-focused statistics. Understanding how this math works will be the tool for the discovery of many answers of great importance to humanity. The case for this concept and the offering of an explanation of this kind of math is made in the many essays of this website.
On these pages you will find ideas that should haunt you. Included are new concepts in science, medicine, sociology, evolutionary psychology, philosophy and more...
This website and the podcasts of Everyone's Revolution explain how the brain creates the mind, but many side issues must be resolved in order to teach this material. Once you realize that the "hard problems" are really the first problems to be answered, you then have a tool for changing all of science and medicine by explaining a massive number of discoveries that will fall into line in order to unify the evidence. All of the evidence is good. The interpretations of the evidence are mistaken in many cases. For ten years now there have been new discoveries of evidence that all move in the direction of supporting this theory (or this school of many theories) and its predictions. Quite a few people have started to pay attention to this theory as well.
