Much of the activity of your brain happens out of your consciousness. In stressful times, this surprising lesson from neuroscience can help to reduce your fears.

Five hundred million years ago, a small marine animal changed the course of history: it became the first predator. It somehow felt the presence of another being nearby, pushed or wobbled over it and deliberately ate it.

This new hunting activity started an evolutionary arms race. Over millions of years, both predators and prey have developed more complex bodies that could feel and move more effectively to capture or evade other creatures.

Eventually, some creatures developed a command center to control those complex bodies. We call it a brain.

This story about how brain evolved, although it is just a sketch, draws attention to an important understanding of man that is all too often overlooked. The main task of your brain is not thinking; it controls the systems of your body to keep you alive. According to recent findings in neuroscience, even if they produce conscious thoughts and feelings, your brain is more at the service of your body's management needs than you realize.

And in stressful times like now, this curious perspective on your mental life can even help reduce your fears.

Much of the activity of your brain happens out of your consciousness. At any time, your brain needs to find out the needs of your body for the next moment and implement a plan to meet those needs in advance. For example, every morning when you wake up, your brain anticipates the energy you need to drag your pathetic body out of bed and start your day. It proactively floods your bloodstream with the hormone cortisol, making glucose available for fast energy.

Your brain controls your body with something like a budget. A financial budget keeps track of money as it is earned and spent. The budget for your body keeps track of resources such as water, salt and glucose as you win and lose them. Any action that involves spending resources, such as getting up, running and learning, is like a recording of your account. Actions that supplement your resources, such as eating and sleeping, are like deposits.

The scientific name for body budgeting is allostasis. It means automatically predicting and preparing to meet the needs of the body before they occur. Think about what happens when you are thirsty and drink a glass of water. The water takes about 20 minutes to get into your bloodstream, but within seconds you will have less thirst. What relieves your thirst so quickly? Your brain does that. It has learned from past experience that water is an attack on your body budget that will hydrate you, so your brain quenches your thirst long before the water has a direct effect on your blood.


This budgetary report of how the brain works may seem plausible when it comes to your body functions. It may seem less natural to see your mental life as a series of deposits and withdrawals. But your own experience is rarely a guide to the inner workings of your brain. Every thought you have, every sense of happiness or anger or awe you experience, every kindness you express and every insult you endure? ? or swinging, is part of your brain's calculations while anticipating your metabolic needs and putting them in the budget.

This view of the brain has many implications for understanding people. So often we see ourselves, for example, in mental terms, separate from the physical. A bad abdominal pain that follows a delicious meal can send us to the gastroenterologist, but if we experience that same pain during a messy divorce, we can go to a psychotherapist instead. At the gastroenterologist, we perceive our discomfort as an underlying physical problem; in the therapist's office we experience the same discomfort as anxiety - a psychological disorder that is physically manifested.

However, in terms of body budget, this distinction between mental and physical does not make sense. Anxiety does not cause abdominal pain; rather, feelings of anxiety and abdominal pain are both ways in which human brain understands physical discomfort. There is no such thing as a purely mental cause, because every mental experience has roots in physically budgeting your body. This is one of the reasons why physical actions, such as deep breathing or more sleep, can be surprisingly helpful in addressing problems that we traditionally consider psychological.

We all live in challenging times and we are all at high risk of disrupted body budgets. If you feel tired from the pandemic and you fight against a lack of motivation, look at your situation from the perspective of your body. Your burden may feel lighter if you consider your discomfort to be something bodily. When an unpleasant thought comes to mind, such as “I can not cope with this madness anymore”, ask yourself questions about budgeting the body. “Did I sleep enough last night? Am I dehydrated? Shall I take a walk? Call a friend? Because I could use a deposit or two of my body budget. “

This is not a semantic game. It's about giving new meaning to your physical sensations to steer your actions.

I'm not saying you can snap your fingers and solve deep misery, or wipe out depression with a change of perspective. I'm suggesting that it's possible to acknowledge what your brain really does and take some comfort from it. Your brain is not to think. Everything that evokes it, from thoughts to emotions to dreams, is at the service of budgeting the body. This judiciously adopted perspective can be a source of resilience in difficult times.

Lisa Feldman Barrett (@LFeldmanBarrett) is professor in de psychologie aan de Northeastern University en de auteur van "Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain", waarvan dit essay is aangepast.

Do you actually exist?
Philosopher René Descartes also dealt with this question and points precisely to the importance of the mind. He wondered if he existed and decided to think about it.. According to him, the thought showed that he existed. It follows from 'I think' that there is a 'I', whether those thoughts are true or not.

#brein #hersenen #gezondheid

Your brain is not there to think