The Consciousness-Body Interaction: A Most Interesting New Illustration
The ways in which our consciousness is profoundly connected with our physical being have long been an intense interest of mine. It is in the context of that deep relationship between “mind” and “body” that I read this piece of news from the realm of scientific research.
This is from the “Health and Science” section of the February 26 issue of THE WEEK magazine.
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“A STRANGE BOTOX SIDE EFFECT
Botox injections that eliminate frown lines may interfere with people’s ability to perceive sadness and anger, a new study says. University of Wisconsin researchers studied 40 people who had received Botox treatments that paralyzed muscles that produce frowns. Both before the injections and afterward, the subjects were asked to read statements designed to evoke strong feelings (‘the push telemarketer won’t let you return to your dinner’), and then to push a button to indicate whether they understood them. After the Botox injections, patients had trouble processing and understanding sentences about anger, irritation, and sadness. This phenomenon apparently relates to the ‘facial feedback’ effect, in which the muscles used in smiling, frowning, and other emotional experiences send signals back to the brain, strengthening and making us aware of these emotions. On the one hand, researcher David Havas tells Discovery News, Botox might make people slightly happier by blunting their awareness of negative feelings. On the other, ‘we might miss subtle cues telling us things aren’t going well.’”
March 3rd, 2010 at 4:26 pm
I’ve studied several human development techniques based on the idea that putting your face into an expression helps to cause you to feel what the expression indicates. and they work, which i offer to validate this article.
Neurolinguistics programming (NLP) is the only program i can recall that uses this.
March 3rd, 2010 at 6:32 pm
I believe that using the muscles that create a smile induces the release of neurotransmitters that help create the feeling that goes with a smile. Like administering a happy-drug to oneself.
There, I feel happier now.
March 4th, 2010 at 12:02 pm
Interesting, that Chimps mimic our smiles, after spending time with humans. Baboons have extensive dentition, which they display with startling vigor. Serious-minded pre-industrial peoples were unlikely to smile and went about the day with a serious, self determination. The maddness of smiley-like crowds, can be seen at the recent Olympics, where wide spread mania was in blatent display.
March 5th, 2010 at 12:07 am
As a college student I belonged to a civic club in the community whose motto, chanted loudly once at the beginning of each (breakfast) meeting, was, “Act Enthusiastic and You’ll Be Enthusiastic!” [Aside from the poor grammar of the motto,] the message seemed to be effective. The org.’s members seemd to be under a spell not to allow any negativity or laziness enter into the following 90 minutes’ proceedings. A pretty good trick for a group that wanted maximum participation and effort.
Another memory that comes to mind is from Gordon Allport’s seminal book “The Nature of Prejudice” (orig. 1954). Allport’s research found that if people are trained to act mean towards some group, this behavior will then translate into mental and emotional constructs that in turn justify the mean behavior. His finding (surprising to many) was the reverse of conventional wisdom (i.e., that people acted upon reason).
Somehow these two examples align with the botox article above, it seems to me. Physical as the driving force towards thought or emotion, and not always the other way around.
March 9th, 2010 at 1:56 am
This is all so true! I just forced myself to smile and immediately felt better. Then got a cramp.
I thought about one of my female doctors who I really think is emotionally ‘handicapped’! The longer I know her the more I believe that 1) she really does care about me 2) she lies, I mean really lies. (but not for any apparent real reason; her lying is very childish) 3) there is really something very wrong with her.i.e. she cannot handle a patient being upset, or angry, and/or anything but ‘up’.
She looks like a little pretty girl who is about 14 years old and constantly must have plastic surgery, no lines either. Yet she works and is the mother of five children? 50 years old, and she hates old and ugly people.