Bring Up Biophilia—What makes us particularly attracted to nature

6 October, 20216 October, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

Staying locked up inside our homes during this dreaded pandemic has made us realized that we definitely need to spend more time in our outside world. Not only to socialize but to get in touch with our natural environment. But unfortunately, even when we are deciding to play in the dirt or choosing to have our ears filled with bird songs, we are mostly unaware of what it does to us. Yet, we are just beginning to understand that nature can do way more for us than the other way around. As soon as we allow ourselves the satisfaction to immerse in any natural environment, we can observe physical and psychological benefits. It only begs us to wonder why outdoor activities are not persistently on our minds. And although we have been aware of our profound relationship with nature for a while now, there were still no words to describe it. More specifically, the term biophilia was, until recently, to some degree foreign to us. Just in case you still don’t know what biophilia might mean, it is a word used to describe our innate instinct to connect with nature.

Nobody ignores the positive effects present in our bodies when we spend time in nature. That’s why many people opt for outdoor destinations for their planned vacations. And one might believe that the relief we feel after those vacays can be the result of the time taken off work and it could in part be true. However, we should not underestimate the impact of natural input on the body and mind. Even short exposure to any of these inputs can produce a wide range of positive influences. Actually, a mere 30-min exposure can be sufficient to produce sensations like lowered anxiety, improved focus, increased productivity, heightened creativity, greater happiness, and more. Personally speaking, the addition of biophilic elements in my writing routine has definitely been a tremendous help. Especially the addition of nature soundtracks for my audio input has proven itself the most significant improvement. It certainly was the best tool to keep my focus on the task at hand, improved my creativity and reduced the anxiety that I was facing.

Most people believe that our personal health is essentially synonymous with physical health. And even if this is not thoroughly wrong, it is a gross overestimation. Health researchers are busting their backs trying to popularize the notion that we need to do drastically more to preserve our health. Gone are the times when exercising and eating well were the fundamental guidelines. We most promptly need to consider our mental health as well. That begins with making sure to take advantage of all the tools at our disposal. Most of you might already be fervent adherents of meditation, and that is absolutely great. Meditation is very challenging, and if you can find success in the practice, I am most definitely impressed. However, caring for our mental well-being doesn’t have to be a demanding activity. The simple act of deciding to add a plant to your desk office can already help. Also, they, fortunately, don’t even need to be alive. The implementation of artificial elements reminding us of nature also produces some significant impact. Albeit, the results are more modest than when genuine natural components are involved.

Interestingly, adding biophilic elements to your meditation might be a great way to enrich your experience. We don’t even need to go overboard with it. Adding a simple nature soundtrack as our background music might be entirely sufficient. The music may allow us to relax and relieve the underlying anxiety that is keeping our minds hostage. To some extent, we may even include more senses into our practice. We could involve our sight by imagining a forest, a beach, a mountain, or any other landscape for that matter. This approach is already so rampant in visualization exercises to promote relaxation and mental stability. Touch might also be a very remarkable way to stimulate our senses. Holding a sea shell or touching grass is a great way to connect with nature. The smell can also be a powerful ally. Adding some nature-inspired essential oil can be a very affordable and easily accessible way to remind ourselves of our natural world. At last, we could also include some tasting elements, such as fruits, veggies, nuts or any raw food.

To this day, nobody has come to any solid conclusion to explain why biophilia has such a critical impact on our lives. Nevertheless, the strongest argument relies on evolutionary pressures. We feel more relaxed just by hearing a waterfall because access to water is essential. Through generations, we have integrated the sound of water as comforting and restoring music. The sight of trees can remind us of the possible access to food sources, either from hunting, fishing or gathering. Touching grass or a plant’s leaf might remind us of our proximity to nature. And I think that smelling and tasting natural elements doesn’t need any comment about their positive impact on our mood. What drove evolution was our need to survive, and being in proximity to nature provided us with the safest way to succeed. And even though, technically, an arid desert is still natural, it doesn’t seem to provide as much relief to us. We have probably learnt through our ancestors that nothing can abundantly grow there. We have learnt through generations and generations not to feel at ease in those environments because staying there could result in death.

Another possible explanation for the reason we seem so particularly drawn towards living elements might reside in how these things are anything but static. We don’t quite like how things change so abruptly; it is anxiogenic. And yet, we still strive for change, a slow sluggish change, to be exact. And that is doubtlessly provided by most living biophilic components. A plant will always look like the same plant, more or less, but its leaves will change. Some will die and fall, and then some new may appear. Some new branches may emerge. The plant might also grow taller if its pot is big enough and has enough water and nutrients. All this to say that living things provide us with a slow but steady change that kindly reminds us of time and guides us into making the best of it.

Domestic animals are also fantastic biophilic elements, which might partly explain why zootherapy is so effective. Having pets does not only engage one sense, our sight, but all of them. We most certainly can see them zooming around, we can smell their breath, we can pat their fur, we may haphazardly taste their saliva, and we most definitely can hear them barking, meowing, chirping and more. And strangely enough, the benefits from being around animals are very similar to the ones observed from us being in nature. Amongst many benefits, we can notice lowered blood pressure, lightened breathing, increased mood and release of oxytocin which can promote calm and encourage attachment. Nevertheless, assuming that all the perceived positive effects relied on their biophilic aspect would be unfair. Being in the company of animals has also shown great help to maintain physical health by promoting physical activities and motivating their owners to get going.

Considering the importance of biophilia, we can now understand the need to incorporate some elements into our daily lives. And some changes don’t need to be extreme. As for me, I have decided to change the background for my desktop for a natural landscape which supplemented the nature soundtracks very nicely. I would like to include more biophilic elements in the future for my home, such as plants and maybe a pet someday, but they can be expensive. Right now, I prefer spending some valuable and wholesome quality time in the great outdoors. I honestly love the occasional hike, or sudden walks, or even spending time on our porch. The more important part is the do it consciously and mindfully. Whenever I’m outdoor, I seek anything that might remind me of nature. I particularly like hearing the birdsongs, seeing the occasional spiders, smell the decaying leaves on the ground or the freshly mowed lawn and holding rocks in my hands.

Whatever you might choose to include, I approve of your change. These changes might not mean much to most people, but they mean a great deal to me, and I hope for you too. So, if you decide to make this move, please let me know about your journey. I would absolutely be delighted to hear about it.

I thank you infinitely for reading this post and if you would like to know more about the mysteries that surround us, please join my subscription list to keep up with my newest content. If you have any questions, please add them to the comment section and I’ll make sure to answer them as soon as humanly possible.

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox

Economics

Bring up Matching‒How Dating Apps Are disappointing us

Click here to read.

7 August, 20217 August, 2021

Economics

Bring up Choices – How an Economist Might See Them

Click here to read.

3 July, 20217 August, 2021

Economics

Bring Up Traffic – Where does all that congestion come from

Click here to read.

10 April, 20211 May, 2021

Bring Up Intelligence—How IQ tests do not measure how smart we really are

11 September, 202111 September, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

I can’t even begin counting the number of times people called me “smart” for studying science at a university level. And even though I am partly flattered, another more substantial part of me is outright annoyed. To be clear, I am understandably not a proponent of the maxim “You don’t need a rocket scientist to do this.” This idea that rocket scientists are at the top of the intelligence pyramid is downright arrogant. Yes, they are indeed brilliant, but there are also plenty of people in other fields that are equally smart. Be careful here; even non-scientist can be as intelligent as rocket scientists. So next time you feel compelled to tell your scientist friends how smart they are, remember to tell your local farmers how smart they are as well. We need to stop considering how intelligent people are by the amount of mathematical knowledge they master or how much academic content they can stuff into their brains. We may have understood now that intelligence is complex. Yet, we are still way behind when it comes to redefining how we view it in our modern society.

Since the early 20th century, intelligence has been defined by how much you score on an Intelligence Quotient test (IQ test). Considering the average on the test to be 100, anyone who would score under 90 would classify as dull and the ones with scores under 70, mentally defective. On the contrary, individuals that score above 115 would be considered gifted. However, even though we created this test with the intention to measure intelligence, it only succeeded at evaluating the general factor, “g” (i.e. cognitive abilities). Indeed the questions asked often revolve around aspects like general knowledge, arithmetics, vocabulary, language comprehension, picture completion, block design, object assembly, coding, picture arrangement and similarities. This tool seemed so formidable and has been so successfully marketed as a universal intelligent test that most people today would readily believe them to measure intelligence. But beware that this test does not capture the whole picture of intelligence, and rating your job candidates on only this measure would be a complete travesty.

There are, however, people out there that are genuine supporters of the IQ tests as a future performance predictor. Although these individuals are not entirely misguided -IQ tests do indeed show moderate correlation with future successes-, other measures have proven themselves even more reliable. For instance, emotional intelligence has proven itself a good predictor, along with self-control, faith over one’s future and interpersonal strategies. More impressively, in all those predictors, self-control actually was better at estimating one’s chance of success, even compared to IQ tests. And this brings me to wonder about the consequences of such an intelligence test. For me, it seems like a premature way to etiquette people into categories dictating if they should succeed or not. If we decide to attend university or apply for jobs, we can’t escape the ‘oh!’ so prevalent IQ tests, which may determine if we will get the job or not. And it seems that the more prestigious the place you are applying to, the more probable you will have to face one of these tests. So the test is no longer used merely as an indicator but as an obstacle too. We can only wonder from such observation if the success is truthfully linked to IQ scores or are the IQ scores deciding who should succeed or not? For me, this whole IQ thing really sounds like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So if intelligence is not what IQ tests are calculating, then what is intelligence? Many psychologists and psychometrists attempted to describe it. Yet, nobody came up with a theory upon which everyone could agree. This disagreement over the definition arises from the different understanding that people have of intelligence. A mathematician, for example, may believe that intelligence is your ability to reason and compute complex problems; a physicist may think that it is the ability of one’s mind to picture abstract objects; an artist may perceive it to be the ability to create. And it is that flexibility in the concept that makes it hard to measure. I would even say that it is a vain pursuit to try measuring it. Intelligence is too complex and evidently a subjective notion. Yet, some theories seem better at summarizing the idea.

In an attempt to correct how we saw intelligence, Robert Sternberg proposed the triarchic theory of intelligence. He started describing the classical view of intelligence as analytic intelligence. This one best describes how well we will do in an academic setting. It involves reasoning, computing, problem-solving, and more. As a second theory, he introduced creative intelligence. It best defines how someone can be innovative, inventive and a generator of new ideas. As the third and last, he brought up practical intelligence, which describes best the people that are particularly ‘street smart.’ Those individuals are known as people who can have a good idea of how things might turn out and avoid trouble. They typically know the best route, the best restaurant, the best contacts, etc. They also might have a better intuition about someone’s intention soon after meeting them for the first time.

Although this approach is much better than what IQ tests offered us, I find it still lacks complexity. It doesn’t yet capture the whole image of intelligence. And someone else, an American psychologist, came to a similar conclusion and proposed that we view intelligence as multimodal and not as one single unit, which agrees with what Sternberg previously offered. However, Gardner’s theory was slightly more ambitious as it officially encompasses nine types of intelligence, and unofficially, 10. Yet, given the lack of empirical evidence to support this idea, this theory is still being critiqued. Gardner’s approach was uniquely based on subjective judgement and observation. And since the whole concept is an abstract notion, to begin with, such as love and sadness -which we can’t measure either-, I find it quite suitable.

We could probably group the first three under Sternberg’s view of analytic intelligence. And yet, I find this segmenting to be fairer. They are visual-spatial intelligence, linguistic-verbal intelligence and logical-mathematical intelligence. They are all probably very self-explanatory, but I can, at the very least, describe them a little. Visual-spatial intelligence refers to people who are good at locating themselves and finding directions. Basically, people who score high on this intelligence may be capable of mentally visualizing the whole itinerary when they travel somewhere. Individuals that score high in linguistic-verbal are often the ones we would describe as eloquent. They have a way with words, and they also have an easier time learning new languages. Well, logical-mathematical inclined people have an easier time following rules and creating new ones. They also excel at reasoning and critical thinking.

As mentioned, there are at least six more to introduce, so I’ll be quick. These six types are bodily-kinesthetic, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, naturalistic, and existential. Bodily-kinesthetic people are better at orchestrating and fine-tuning their movement. It is why this type is most often called physical intelligence. Musical people have increased ease in determining the tone, sounds and rhythms of music. Interpersonal individuals are more skilled at networking and creating good long-lasting relationships. Intrapersonal refers to people that are finely tuned to their inner thought workings and are very good at introspection. Naturalistic intelligence characterizes people that can effortlessly draw links with nature. And existential intelligence was created as an alternative to spiritual intelligence, where people perceive that their lives have a higher purpose. At last, there is one remaining unofficial intelligence, which is digital intelligence. Its need arose from the accessibility to digital content.

To wrap up everything, let’s say that I particularly like Einstein’s quote: “if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.“ It is truly an amazing analogy to describe how everyone can be intelligent in their own way. But if you test them all using the same standardized tools, you might miss what’s right under your nose. So, as a take-home message, I would like you to realize that some scientists are smart (on some modalities), but so can be dropout students (on different modalities). And most importantly, that you are intelligent too and never forget it. I’ll end this article with another clever quote from Einstein: “The measure of intelligence is the ability to change [or to adapt],” and I find that it englobes well the notion of intelligence. As humans, we are born with the ability to adapt, and as such, we are all intelligent.

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox

Bring Up Ageing—What We Can Expect With Growing Older

5 June, 202120 May, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

From where I stand, there is nothing sweeter than a newborn baby. It is so pure, an impeccable blank slate. However, this condition only lasts for a moment. Indeed, as soon as babies are born, they begin growing older, which embarks them on transformative journeys. Actually, this last sentence suggests that ageing starts at birth, but this is not exactly right. We now have legitimate reasons to believe that it would happen before labour even kicks off. Scientists are claiming that they observed the first signs of ageing at the blastocyst stage, which occurs as early as five days after fertilization. Not quite yet an embryo, the blastocyst is composed of three main parts: an inner cell mass (embryoblast), an intramembranous liquid (blastocoel) and an outer cell layer (trophoblast).

The embryoblast, which results from many cellular divisions, is responsible for forming what becomes the early embryo. So, we seem to possess a better understanding of the moment when ageing begins. Yet, we don’t really grasp what is going on before the blastocyst stage, but we know a few things. We realize that the blastocyst comes from the cellular divisions of the fertilized eggs. We also recognize that the female gametes, at the time of fertilization, can be very old. They can be anywhere between 12 and 51 years old, which corresponds to our reproductive age. Thus, the reason behind our ability to produce offspring that are cellularly and physically younger than us is pretty enigmatic. Somehow, the cells go through a reversal ageing process, but there is no existing explanation yet revealing how this process could even be possible.

Anyhow, even if research on ageing is still failing to reveal the mysteries behind this rejuvenation—maybe it is time travel, we do not know! 😉—, we are still discovering quite a lot about ageing in human development. We presently realize the power we each hold in slowing down ageing and potentially reversing it to some extent. At this point, we are all aware of the public recommendation promoted by our respective health officials to reduce physiological ageing. We should adopt a healthy diet that may include fruits and vegetables, oily fish and nuts. And should exclude most, if not all, processed food. We should get at least 3 hours 30 min to 4 hours of physical activities per week. One-third of that time should be used toward vigorous aerobic activities and two-thirds toward moderate aerobic activities. At last, we should all sleep enough, which approximately corresponds to eight hours per night. I know you’ve heard about all these health recommendations, and each of them probably more than once. Yet, the recommendations for proper brain care are clearly not as well advertised, even though some of them are considerably similar.

Still, we should be even more careful about our brains since they contain the oldest cells of the human body, neurons. Even though we can still generate a few neurons throughout our life, most neurons that we have will never be substituted. Typically, once neurons die, they are gone forever. Thus, we must take great care of these wondrous cells and provide them with the proper stimulation they require and rest. Research has revealed some crucial roles that the brain must fulfill in order to thrive. It seems to all rest on these three elements: executive function (thinking and reasoning), social cognition (interacting with others) and emotional regulation (maintaining a state of well-being). And similarly to the physiological health guidelines, our cerebral health also has its own set of recommendations for us to follow.

Caring for our brain might very well be the same as caring for our gut microbiota. Our gastrointestinal tract hosts a vast and complex range of microorganisms. These microorganisms are essential to our overall health, as well as our brains. They are responsible for absorbing minerals and nutrients, synthesizing enzymes, vitamins and amino acids and producing short-chain fatty acids. Moreover, in recent years, it has come to our knowledge that these microorganisms were also responsible for even more than previously thought. For example, scientists have discovered that a few were able to produce certain neurotransmitters, like serotonin. This revelation suggests that our gut may have more impact on our well-being than what we are attributing them. But caring for our digestive tract can be a sensitive task since any slight change to our environment might jeopardize it. The most important risk (after a faulty diet, of course!) might be regularly switching our intimate partners. Kissing exchanges microorganisms, some foreign to us, which may attack and endanger that sweet balance gained over our lifetime. On that front, I risk nothing; I’ve kept the same partner for over ten years. I’m safe!

Although our gut may also benefit from a stable and healthy diet, our brain might prefer a fattier diet. Beware that I am not talking about fast food or processed food here; I am merely talking about healthy unsaturated fat. Omega-3 and Omega-6 fatty acids have been gaining a lot of attention in the last decade. And now we know more about their impact on the brain. Even though we eat lots of omega-6 fatty acids, we don’t eat enough omega-3 fatty acids. We now consider the ideal ratio to be 1:4, compared to our average consumption ratio of 20:1 (omega-6: omega-3). Omega-6 is essential, but we should consume it moderately. Whereas omega-3 fatty acids have a neuroprotective effect and, as such, we should eat more of them. A good source of omega-3 fatty acids is oily fish, spinach and flax seeds. I typically also enjoy chia seeds and walnuts as my source for omega-3.

To protect our brain, we also need to stay active. Other than the previously mentioned guideline, we must remember to get up every hour of sedentary work for at least 10 minutes. Otherwise, we risk abolishing all the gain produced from our regular activities. If you follow these rules correctly, you might fully deserve your beauty sleep. And it is genuinely as important to sleep as to eat or be active. Despite what we have all come to understand, it is wrong to believe that we need to sleep less as we age. Studies have revealed that it does not matter how old you get; you still need those 7 – 9 hours of sleep every night. Personally, I love going to sleep, and I won’t complain about this recommendation.

Now that we have mentioned digestion, diet, physical activity, and sleep, what more can there be? Three more things. We must try our best to nurture our social relationships. Being social is essential to reduce stress and loneliness, which comes under emotional regulation. Then, we can find a new skill to learn. How about learning a new language? How about Russian? Learning Russian was the endeavour I assigned myself three years ago. Although I am improving, I am not nearly disciplined enough that I can speak it yet. Still, I can understand a decent amount of written words.

There is one last piece of advice to strive for, which is to stay happy. Personally, this pursuit of happiness is not technically a pursuit. I have learnt to embrace all the positive that life has to offer while trying to let go of the negative. Happiness seems to be not the absence of the negative but the experience of the positive. I realized that achieving an overall state of happiness meant staying present. I had to learn to let go of regrets and past trauma and explore the distant future only as a thought.

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Environment

Bring Up Biophilia—What makes us particularly attracted to nature

No one can dismiss the amazing feeling we get after spending some time in nature. We instantly feel relaxed and reinvigorated. Some might attribute this effect to time spent far away from work, and even though they could be correct, it is not the whole picture. Biophilia is a relatively new concept that brought the…

6 October, 20216 October, 2021

Physiology

Bring Up Blood—How our oxygen gets carried throughout our body

Good evening my dearest followers, Please, take a moment to enjoy this excerpt for my newest post (Bring Up Blood). We could most certainly not live without blood. It is absolutely essential for the survival of our most distant limbs and organs. Even though almost all of our respiration is thanks to our respiratory organs,…

25 September, 202125 September, 2021

Computer Science

Bring Up Artificial Intelligence—What can it do for us, or more precisely what it can’t

We keep hearing on the news of the many achievements made by Artificial Intelligence. From winning at Chess to winning at Jeopardy! against its longest streak-winner, AIs seem to truly outdo themselves. However, nobody can agree if those machines truly hold something we can call Artificial Intelligence. They can’t do more than the task they…

18 September, 2021

Bring Up Smell- How We Perceive Odours

15 May, 202115 May, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / 1 Comment

We are now well into Spring, and walking outside is totally blissful. The temperature is comfortable, but more importantly, the scent in the air is somehow exhilarating. I then stop walking and take a moment to breathe in all the odours that surround me. I am fortunate enough not to be afflicted by any pollen allergies, so I go all out. I can smell flowers, freshly mown grass, dirt, laundry and more. Not only is the smell keeping me connected to the present, but it is also igniting an interior feeling of deep connection to my surroundings. This connection is bringing me its share of joy and tranquility. I know that as long as I’ll be standing right here, everything will remain perfect.

Our sense of smell, or olfaction, is (as far as we know) our oldest sense, right along with taste. It is such a remarkably developed sense that we are able to detect a tremendous number of odours. Despite what a study from 1927 suggested, humans have the potential to smell much more than 10,000 distinct odorants. Over one billion of them, to be exact, as reported by a 2014 study. Still, this incredible figure is considerably meagre compared to the ability displayed by dogs. Our domesticated canines are surpassing our smelling power by as much as 44 fold (44x), with 220 million olfactory receptor cells in their nasal cavity compared with 5–6 million for us, mere humans.

In comparison to the senses presented in two earlier posts (see Bring Up Hearing, Bring Up Sight), smell possesses a rather simple organ, the nose. This cavity has receptors spread over all of its epithelium. These receptors are cranial neurons that are astonishingly capable of renewing themselves every 30–60 days. Neurons are typically incapable of such feats. The nasal cavity encompasses a wide diversity of cells. It includes no less than six morphologically and biochemically distinct cell types. One especially relevant cell type for smell is the ciliated cells. Their sensory cilia are facing the inside of the nasal cavity. Their role is to catch the odorant molecules. Once activated, they send their signal to the olfactory cortex in the main olfactory bulb (there are two). The second olfactory bulb, called the vomeronasal organ (VNO), is not as important as the main. It serves to detect pheromones. In humans, we can find our VNO in the anteroinferior third of the nasal septum. The VNO also signals to the main olfactory bulb.

To be fair, all odours, scents, and pheromones are volatile compounds. However, pheromones have something that odours and scents do not have. Pheromones are chemical substances secreted by one individual and absorbed (or received) by another individual of the same species. The pheromones, once someone else picks them up, can act as hormones in their body. They have the ability to alter behaviour and physiology for survival and reproduction purposes. There are many kinds of pheromones, each carrying different signalling objectives. The signal emitted could be used to signal danger, food ingestion safety, food location and more, which can promote survival. As for reproduction, they can signal for potential and fertile mates and help with offspring recognition.

When it comes to choosing sexual partners, Smell seems to be a significant component for determining their attractiveness. Indeed, some studies have demonstrated that family members seem to have a scent perceived as “less attractive” compared with the scent of strangers. It is actually quite understandable as inbreeding correlates to an increased susceptibility to a wide range of disorders. Limiting inbreeding through regulating smell perception may seem like a reasonable solution to deter us from it. However, smell perception may not serve the unique purpose of limiting inbreeding. It also helps to recognize who’s family and who’s not. And we are able to do this very early on in life. Newborns are capable of identifying their mothers after being exposed for at least one hour.

The sense of smell is not as stable as the other senses; it varies greatly depending on conditions. In general, women have more robust, or more attuned, olfactory abilities compared to men. Although, this might not be true. Recent researchers have now started questioning this “common knowledge” and its validity. They have revealed that the difference noticed between the sexes is actually really small and possibly caused by anatomical differences. Now omitting the weakly possible sex differences, there are still other factors influencing olfactory variation. Circadian rhythm seems to be a strong influence; early morning appears to be accompanied by the weakest sensitivity to smell. Scientists are suggesting that its highest point is at night, right before going to bed. At last, an important factor seems to be the availability of moisture in our nasal cavity. The more, the merrier it seems. With this idea in mind, researchers are now advancing that smell is at its best during summer and spring. Workout sessions also seem to work wonders when it comes to increasing olfactory power.

It’s all well and good to know how our olfaction changes, but why should we care about it enough to protect it? The reason is utterly simple; it makes us feel great. Although, this is possible only if we perceive the scents as pleasant. From all the senses, olfaction is the one that shares the most links to memory and emotional brain regions. There is a belief in the activation of olfactory neurons to have the capacity to activate the brain reward system, which is a system also involved in addictive behaviours. Smell, as well as taste, is considered to have developed this strong connection as a way to avoid ingesting potentially harmful substances or running straight towards danger. By reinforcing survival behaviour through rewards, we are now not only able to safely feed ourselves, but we can also enjoy the process. Actually, if you didn’t already know, smell has a lot to do with taste as it provides 80% of the signalling necessary to perceive flavours. Another curious thing about smell resides in how our body responds to its signals. For most senses, when signals reach the brain, there will first be its identification, and only then would it be followed by a reaction. Olfaction works the other way around, reaction (emotional) first and then identification after.

When smell was introduced to you as having a lot to do with pleasure, some of you might have been quite skeptical. However, we did not produce that theory out of thin air and without anything to back it up. It turns out that people with olfactory dysfunctions tend to struggle more with malnutrition, apathy, depression and lower quality of life than the general population. This statement potentially indicates that a disrupted perception of scents leads to an overall decrease in hedonia (pleasure, enjoyment and comfort). These olfactory dysfunctions can be a reduced sense of smell (Hyposmia), a total lack of olfaction (Anosmia), a change in its perception (Parosmia, things that usually smell pleasant might now smell bad) or a perception of a smell that is actually not present (Phantosmia, olfactory hallucination). These dysfunctions could be present at birth or occur at any moment in our life. The general advice is to avoid excessive exposure to malodours (bad smells) as it can lead to the onset of a dysfunction.

At last, we are part of the mammalian family, and as such, we can infer that the ownership of a nose is not exclusive to only us but also to the rest of the family. If you also thought as much, then you wouldn’t be completely wrong. Most mammals have or had a nose, and still, not all of them use it as their primary olfactory organs. Toothed whales still have a nose but can’t smell anymore. Baleen whales, however, have kept the usage of their nose as an olfactory tool. Albeit we don’t know about the precise purpose of keeping them as they strongly rely on echolocation to find food. Other animals likewise can smell, but they might not smell the same way we do. Snakes, for example, smell mainly through their VNO located at the roof of their mouth, even though they also have a nose capable of sensing odours. They grab the molecules of scents with their tongue and insert them into the VNO for identification. As for fish, they do smell through an olfactory organ located in their nasal sac, where water, filled with chemical signals, is flowing in. As water comes in, it makes contact with the lamellae possessing olfactory receptor neurons which can provide the fish with the necessary information. Considerably more animals have olfaction than those that do not, which only encourages us to consider its importance towards our survival. Would you not agree?

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Neuroscience

Bring Up Intelligence—How IQ tests do not measure how smart we really are

It is so common to compare ourselves with others, and it is even more common to assume that other people are smarter than us. In those cases, we forget to consider that many types of intelligence exist, not only one. However, it is easy to think of ourselves as stupid if we fail our mathematics…

11 September, 202111 September, 2021

Art

Bring Up Tattoo—How it can be possible to mark our skin permanently

Not all appearance alterations are created equal; some may be more short-lived and others more permanent. If you think of tattoos, they mostly belong to the second category. So thinking carefully about certain aspects of the tattoo becomes imperative. Things like the symbolism or the artistry behind your new piece shouldn’t be random. Choosing a…

4 September, 20214 September, 2021

Human Development

Bring Up Grad School—What Is the Reality Behind Higher Education

For people who want to pursue studies after completing high school, university studies may look very attractive. So, undergraduate studies may lead to graduate studies. However, undergraduate studies are not the same as graduate studies. The latter is not only more complicated, but it is also very different. First of all, contrary to your undergrad,…

28 August, 202128 August, 2021

Bring Up Hearing—Where is this sound coming from

1 May, 20213 May, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / 1 Comment

The type of stimulus that first recruits my awareness in the morning is most probably auditory. The sound may be coming from outside, like bird songs, or it could be coming from indoors, like my scheduled alarms. It certainly sounds more pleasant to be awakened by the tweeting of the birds, but living in Montréal, hearing the rumblings of heavy machinery is definitely more likely, which is sincerely irritating. This observation raises a particular question about the pleasantness of sounds and its origin. To answer the how and where its pleasantness comes from, we must know the differences between music and noise. However, it may not be as straightforward a question as it may seem.

The nature of sound is quite interesting as it doesn’t have any material constituents. Nobody was ever able to grab sound, to see sound or to taste sound. We cannot do any of those because a sound is a product of vibrations that spread through the air (or water) as acoustic waves. Depending on the properties displayed by the acoustic waves, the sound can be perceived differently. On the one hand, we can interpret a sound to have different levels of loudness which is attributed, in most parts, to the amplitude of the waves. The greater the amplitude (the height from the resting point to the top of the wave), the louder we recognize the sound to be. On the other hand, a sound can also have a different pitch depending on the specific period, frequency and wavelength it displays.

Acoustic waves generally follow the pattern dictated by sinusoidal functions, which we probably all encountered at some point in High School. For acoustic waves, the amplitude -determined by the height between the maximum and the x-axis- is still conserved. We only need one tiny adjustment; the x-axis now becomes known as the resting point. A period becomes the time it takes for the sound to complete its cycle. The frequency becomes the number of cycles completed within a specific time, which we typically calculate in Hertz (Hz; cycle/second). The wavelength is then the amount of distance sound can travel per period. They (all three) remain closely related to one another; the frequency is inversely proportional to both the period and the wavelength.

These properties mean that the longer the wavelength (smaller Hz) is, the lower the frequency becomes. And as for the pitch, the inverse is also true. Although, there exist limitations to this observation. Namely, the limit of our human ear. They only possess the ability to detect sound within the range of 64 Hz to 23 kHz. However, some animals can perceive sound in much greater ranges than we can. Dogs are one of these animals with a hearing capacity between 67 Hz to 45 kHz. Nevertheless, cats take the lead here with their remarkable hearing sensibility ranging from 45 Hz to 67 kHz. This characteristic may describe their incredible success at hunting little prey such as rodents, which can emit sound as high as 100 kHz.

Depending on what the sound passes through, the speed and its direction can and will vary. Water, being thicker than air, will most definitely slow down sounds and redirect at a much greater angle than what we can observe with air. This redirection is also called refraction, which is the same phenomenon that is responsible for the shift of the image when seeing an object immersed in water. If, for whatever reason, you absolutely have no idea of what I am referring to, try this: take a transparent glass of water and partly submerged an opaque object in it (could be anything). You can see that the object seems broken when it passes through water, and that is refraction.

Even though there are many properties characterizing sound, the ear is principally reactive to one, frequency. Amplitude will only play a background role to infer loudness to the sound. Our ear, which is our hearing organ, seems particularly attuned to pitch and loudness. As sounds are created, through the contact of objects causing vibration, it produces the acoustic waves as mentioned earlier. Upon hitting the auricle, the sound will be amplified and modulated before reaching the eardrum. The vibration, amplification and modulation create a chain reaction in the middle ear, which activates the ossicles (Malleus, Incus, and Stapes). The ossicles will then transmit the sound wave to the cochlea in the inner ear. In the cochlea, we can find plenty of hearing nerves, which connect to the brain. Once at the brain, the signal becomes interpreted to allow identification, classification and interpretation of the sounds.

It is the brain that is responsible for determining the pleasant nature of the sound we hear. Some people are affected by a condition that renders them unable to enjoy or derive any pleasure from music. This condition is known as musical anhedonia. It is a neurological condition caused by reduced connectivity in subcortical regions related to reward. Although these people might not be able to enjoy music, they can most definitely identify it, unlike those suffering from music agnosia. Despite their ability to hear, the latter cannot even tell the difference between music and noise. Individuals typically acquire this condition following an injury to at least one of the temporal lobes or after a unilateral stroke. These two conditions splendidly reveal the importance of the brain’s interpretation role in the perception of music.

There is one more aspect of sound that I haven’t introduced yet: timbre. This term is often replaced by “sound quality” as it refers to the nature and distinctiveness of a sound, in other words, the pattern of harmonics. For instance, a violin will never sound exactly like a piano, even though you decide to play the same note at the same loudness level. Now, despite having described all these aspects and properties of sound, we still fall short when it comes to explaining where the pleasantness of music originates. However, what we have discussed so far was more related to sound itself and not music. What makes music is its rhythm or tempo, which creates sound arrangements through time, that can either be pleasing or not. When considering music perception, rhythm and pitch are the most central aspects involved.

Now that I have introduced rhythm, we can start approaching closer to an answer. There are many factors involved; familiarity, distortion and reverb. As a general rule, we prefer sounds and/or patterns of sound that we are more familiar with; the ones we heard before. Usually, music acquires its different alluring attributes over relatively long periods. Music is pretty conservative as a general rule. However, beyond familiarity, there are distortion and reverb, each responsible for some aspect of pleasantness. Distortion comes from making the tone of the sound imperfect by changing its original form. Reverb is pretty much like echo, but instead of having the sound coming back to you in two parts, it comes back to you almost immediately. Although, not fast enough for merging with the original sound. The result becomes a continuation of the sound. We can often witness reverb in churches or even (ahem!) the shower. Reverb partly explains why it’s so delightful to hear ourselves signing in the shower. Yet, I cannot say I do much of that; my showers are always too short for that. How about you?

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Mathematics

Bring Up Cryptography—How to Hide your Messages

To ensure our privacy, we must be careful about what we share and how we share it. Most often, your personal information, like your passwords, we’ll be hiding from everyone. But that only happens if we transmit the data through a secured channel. Unfortunately, you can be as careful as possible, some people can still…

21 August, 202121 August, 2021

Chemistry

Bring Up Fireworks—How Do We Make Colours Explode

Summer festivals are not only fun for all the foods they’re providing and the activities they’re offering, but also because of their well-anticipated fireworks. Those orchestrated explosions are so grandiose that most can’t help but feel moved by the spectacle. Some may even start wondering what makes those magical displays, and I am for sure…

14 August, 202114 August, 2021

Lifestyle

Bring Up Working Out—How It Can Benefit Our Entire Body

Staying active is hard, and we may very well feel tempted to give it up entirely. However, there are some good reasons why health professionals advocate adopting a more active lifestyle. Beyond the most apparent argument, weight loss, there are other advantages to moving out of your couch and grabbing those neglected sneakers for a…

31 July, 202131 July, 2021

Bring Up Touch—How do we perceive tactile stimuli

24 April, 202124 April, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / 1 Comment

From all senses that we develop, touch is the first one to form. During pregnancy, fetuses will begin developing feelings of sensations on their faces at week 8. Yet, the nose and the lips will be responsible for processing nearly all sensations. A month later, feelings on the palms and soles will develop, and if we wait for an additional five weeks (week 17), the abdomen will start sensing too. Interestingly, our brain will devote a majority of its attention to those parts especially. It is relatively easy to test this. Try prodding someone else’s back, with their consent, and ask them to evaluate how far two prods are from each other. Then do the same again, but this time over their palm. Were the results similar? Hopefully, the palms results should be unquestionably more accurate than the back results. This effect is possible through the bulkier number of neuronal endings found on the skin of our palms compared to those on our back.

Speaking of neuronal endings, we cannot avoid talking about the many specialized sensory neurons that form the somatosensory neural pathways, which get completed by the middle of the third trimester. From this point on, the baby will feel a more integral range of feelings. Each specialized sensory neuron has, on its endings, receptors that are enabling the perception of different sensations. Mechanoreceptors will provide detection for pressure, light touch, tearing or vibration. Thermoreceptors are sensitive to temperature changes. Chemoreceptors will detect chemical changes, and nociceptors are responsible for transmitting pain signals. It is intriguing to note that pain is the last sensation to develop and appear through the formation of totally different pathways (read https://bringupscience.com/2021/01/23/bring-up-pain-2/ for more). In sum, all specific tactile inputs have distinct neurons responsible for their detections. This statement also applies to touch in social interactions. As opposed to ordinary touch, the tap that we receive on the back of our shoulder, as praise, elicits an emotional response. This particular tactile sensation makes up what we now describe as social or emotional touch. It recruits a different somatosensory system than the one involved in conventional touch.

A piece of evidence supporting the idea that social touch involves the activation of different pathways comes from studying people affected by primary sensory neuropathy. Individuals affected by this disorder are known to display touch blindness, i.e. they cannot feel any tactile input coming from neither their hands nor their bodies. They are even incapable of reading braille, where each letter corresponds to a dot pattern, and all dots are embossed. This adaptation, commonly, grants people who cannot read solely based on their sight the ability to read through touch. Thus as already mentioned, individuals affected by this neuropathy cannot read, nor can they feel the object coming in contact with their skin. However, they strangely can feel a touch from another person and attribute it an emotional value. They, indeed, can feel the gentle touch of someone stroking their arm and communicate that the touch felt pleasant. However, this theory is currently based on anecdotal evidence only, and thus we shouldn’t jump to any conclusion just yet.

Even if social touch turns out to have no different pathways than conventional touch, it would be reasonable to keep in mind the importance of its impact anyway. Indeed, some orphan children, who grew up in an orphanage, received so little social-emotional interaction that it hampered their growth dramatically and, in some instances, even led to death. I should disclose that customarily the orphanage staff was conveying proper treatments with absolutely no intention of neglect. Unfortunately, they were often too few and could honestly not care for more than the children’s most basic needs. Those needs were thought, at that moment, to be strictly drinking, feeding, sleeping and occasional physical activity. As long as these aspects were all taken care of, they genuinely believe that they tended well. Only now we know that social touch is amongst those basic needs. The lack of it will downright kill a kid. Current studies have demonstrated that social touch enables growth hormone release and will stimulate the immune system. Researchers have found similar findings to support the reciprocal, i.e. that a lack of social touch hinders growth hormone release and cripples the immune system. Moreover, children who were unfortunate enough to have been placed in such an institution were found at an elevated risk to develop behavioural, social and psychological problems.

Additionally, social touch occupies such a meaningful place in our life that, as a result, we may mistakenly associate general tactile inputs to our impression of a person. To illustrate this idea, let us consider this well-known experiment conducted by social psychologists. The psychologist asked the volunteers to describe their first impressions of a stranger. Every subject of the study had the same task, to relay their general impression. The only difference between all the volunteers was the drink they were holding while meeting this other person: Half held a cold drink and the rest a hot drink. We would all think that the beverages they were holding should have no impact on their impression of another individual, but that is not what happened. Curiously, people holding the hot drinks described their new acquaintance as “warmer”; the inverse was also true for the cold drink volunteers. Another experiment tried a different approach through evaluation of the same resume but on two differently weighed clipboards. It seemed that the resume attached to the heavier clipboard made the candidate seem more serious and competent than the individual whose resume was attached to the lighter clipboard.

Despite social touch playing an integral role in our life, it is not the only factor that can interfere with our touch perception. Emotions play a considerable role in how we interpret touch or pain. The feeling we bear in a particular moment (good/bad mood, relaxed/scared, rested/tired, etc.) may considerably impact how we will perceive that tap on our back. The same tap may feel like an assault or an encouragement, depending on your emotion at the time. If you hate the person, you might think of that tap as an assault, but if that person is a friend, then you could have perceived it as an encouragement. Additionally, when we feel happy, pain does not seem as terrible as when we are sad or depressed. We can only say that touch and emotions are in a very intricate relationship, indeed.

Now, I cannot write about touch without talking about tickles. I honestly find them somewhat intriguing since no one has yet to come with an irrefutable explanation as to why we feel them. There are many theories, however. My favourite one introduces tickles as an evolutionary mechanism that leads to more capable offspring. Tickles are, in the simplest terms, the results of neuronal overexcitation. We, as adults, can feel tickles in only our most sensitive areas, but as a kid, that surface can be as great as the entire space occupied by your skin. Sadly, our sensitivity, as we are ageing, seems to decline progressively. The duality of tickles (being felt as both unpleasant and pleasant) supposedly serves as both an incentive to protect the sensitive areas and encourage wrestling and fighting. Those two consequences force offspring to prepare and practise both their offensive and defensive strategies to better cope with inevitable future threats. It seems such a no-brainer that the more you practise, the better you become, and this is why I genuinely value this idea.

Get new content delivered directly to your inbox.

Chemistry

Bring Up Coffee—What Is In Besides Caffeine

The most enduring morning staple is probably coffee. Most people may even swear that their ritual cup of coffee is the only thing that keeps them going. Without coffee, some people might feel lost or incomplete. And even though we can all agree that heaps of people drink coffee, they do not all drink it…

24 July, 202124 July, 2021

Human Development

Bring Up Puberty—When a Transition to Adulthood Becomes Unavoidable

If you’re an adult now, you are lucky enough to have survived the awkward years of teenagehood. These years are filled with changes that are hard to navigate around. From the periods (for girls) and the wet dreams (for boys) to the physical changes, it becomes difficult to find our bearings. It becomes quite easy…

17 July, 202116 July, 2021

Physiology

Bring Up Perspiration—How I Am Regulating My Temperature

It is no secret that water is a vital component for life on Earth. For instance, us humans need water for more than one physiological process. Water is used by our kidneys to help filter out waste products, by our blood to help transport products to different parts of our body and by our sweat…

10 July, 202110 July, 2021

Bring Up Sleep – How can I increase my overall well-being

3 April, 20213 April, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

Today sitting in front of my laptop writing to you, I can think of only one thing, sleep. It’s been on my mind for the mere reason that over the last few weeks I’ve had bouts of insomnia. When people say things like “We don’t truly appreciate what we have until it’s gone”, for insomnia, you can really take a moment to acknowledge how accurate this is. Every day we sleep, as we should. If this does not apply to you, I’m compelling you to reconsider your life habits. Since sleeping happens on a regular basis, we tend to disregard giving it the particular attention it deserves. For as far as I can remember, I’ve always loved sleeping, and thus I’ve continuously pursued a good night’s sleep of at least 8 hours. However, generally, I need well over 8 hours of sleep to be completely refreshed. Personal factors are at play and it’s important to consider individual differences. We have to be open to listen and adapt to what our bodies are trying to tell us.

What happens during sleep is a question that many scientists have dedicated most of their lives trying to answer. For the longest time, research was fruitless. Scientists had barely any clues as to its function, but everyone had at least a hypothesis as to its purpose. Researchers, despite their visible lack of results on the nature of sleep, knew that it was at the very least essential for our survival. We didn’t have to stretch our thinking to its limit to accept this. Simply looking at data, people who tended to neglect their sleep, aged faster than those who pursued a good night’s sleep on a regular basis. Also, you may already be aware that being completely sleep deprived for more than a couple of days may lead to the development of psychological disturbances like paranoia and hallucinations. In comparison, good sleepers may seem to benefit from more resilient metabolisms which provides a lower risk for obesity, cardiovascular diseases, anxiety, depression and much more.

Knowing about its importance is still not sufficient to have everyone adjusting their sleeping habits. Many of us have reasons supporting our systematic neglect against fulfilling the required amount of shut-eye hours. Those reasons could range anywhere from having young children to the affliction of sleeping disorders. As such, at different moments in our lives, we may notice our sleeping habits beginning to change. In fact, the changes that we undergo are not always conscious. As a baby, for example, we have to sleep for a hefty total of 18 hours. Luckily for us, it doesn’t remain as such for too long, otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to get anything done. Gradually as we age, the sleeping requirements decrease and come to a plateau at 18, to an acceptable 7-9 hours of sleep. It only seems to slightly fall again after 65 years old at a requirement of 7-8hours.

Even though we robustly half the amount of sleep needed by the time we reach adulthood, many people won’t follow the guidelines and will find themselves sleep-deprived. One issue could be that we typically find that sleep is a waste of time and that it is solely meant to make us feel rested. However, researchers have been able to come up with theories supporting other importance of sleep. Amongst many theories, four of them seem to stand out: inactivity theory, energy conservation theory, restorative theories and brain plasticity theory. For the moment, none of them are proven to be the unique explanation for the role of sleep. Moreover, researchers are currently agreeing that the answer is more likely to involve many of these theories and not only one.

Considering sleep as a survival mechanism, we can easily do a parallel with other survival mechanisms. Anxiety is there as a warning sign to alert us and enable the use of flight or fight when danger is detected. In most situations, we tend to use flight, in other words, we prefer avoidance. If we are able to fight, then the situation is of no corporeal danger. This reasoning supports the implication that anxiety serves to avoid danger. The same reasoning can also be transposed to pain; pain serves to avoid physical harm. Hunger, another survival mechanism, serves to avoid the lack of nutrients. Similarly, all survival mechanisms can be reduced to such basic instruction: to avoid. This is exactly what the theory of inactivity used to justify the need for sleep. The theory states that through many generations, we developed sleep to keep us out of harm’s-way during our most vulnerable time, at least that’s the essence behind this theory. However, some might say that being totally unconscious would render us more vulnerable, not less.

Despite having objections to this theory, there still exists some advantages to being almost completely still. By limiting movement, thinking, and perception, you are significantly reducing your individual energy demand and expenditure. In fact, compared to our awakened state, we consume 10% less energy than when asleep. This has led to the energy conservation theory, which some consider a branch of the inactivity theory, and in some cases, the same. However, the explanation is different. Energy conservation means that we need fewer nutrients to survive, which is an essential advantage when living in a world where access to food is limited. It did not only prolong our supply but allowed us to share the supply with more people. However, nowadays we live in a world where food supplies seem endless, and simultaneously people are sleeping less. Meanwhile, researchers are coming to terms with accepting that sleep deprivation, as well as overeating, are both factors contributing to the development of obesity.

Major and noticeable consequences of sleep deprivation are diminished mental acuity, memory and learning capacity. These consequences lead us to ponder over the significance of such findings. One interpretation supports the idea that sleep has restorative functions, conveniently called restorative theories. Interestingly, while looking closely at different restorative mechanisms such as muscle growth, protein synthesis, growth hormone release and tissue repair, we can observe that these seem to happen mostly, and sometimes uniquely, at night. Like adenosine, which accumulates progressively in the body directly following awakening, which seems to promote sleep after a certain concentration has been reached. Every night, an adenosine clean-up is known to take place, restoring the initial level observed in the morning.

At last, in the last few years, a new theory has been emerging: the brain plasticity theory. This theory seems to hit the nail on the head when trying to explain the influence of sleep on human cognition. Brain plasticity is known to be responsible for brain structural and organizational changes. Intriguingly, brain plasticity seems to be halted, or at least slowed, when sleep duration becomes insufficient. Lower brain plasticity is linked to reduced memory and learning.

Sleep is such an important tool that we must come to respect in order to remain healthy, and for a longer period. In sum, it helps us fight off our daily stress, supports our immune system, promotes better cognition and stabilizes our mood. To significantly ameliorate your sleep, we don’t need to sacrifice anything more than a round or two of your favourite game.

Join 143 other followers

Bring Up State of Panic – What makes us completely lose it

20 February, 20212 March, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

Waking up in March 2020, while the whole COVID-19 pandemic was unravelling, was no cup of tea. I was foolishly thinking at first that this pandemic wouldn’t change much in our daily lives. After a couple months, I got hit really hard by the observation that things couldn’t be further from the normal we used to know. I was forced to realize that this situation would remain so for a very long time. Given that I had to plan my wedding for summer 2021 and manage a website by myself which got launched no earlier than January 2020, I found this situation considerably troublesome. I won’t hide that this ordeal was a huge anxiety trigger for me. My biggest concern was especially the difficulty getting food. Before the pandemic started, I usually proceeded to order my groceries online, but now it was simply impossible to find an available delivery slot. My fiancée and I came to realize that we had no other choice than to walk down to the grocery store ourselves.

Yet our troubles were still far from over. Before we could even see the entrance of the grocery store, we were forced to notice the interminable lineup. I’ve heard that Montréal got hit pretty hard on that front compared to other regions in Quebec, and from what I experienced, I couldn’t agree more. The lineups were often so long that it would typically take us, my fiancé and I, well over an hour to simply get into the store. At the entrance, we were informed that only one of us could enter. So naturally I went in. I only started picking up the grocery to discover suddenly that most essentials were out of stock. Think about flour, sugar, eggs, canned foods, toilet papers and more. This was all so far out of my already established habits that it was sufficient enough to trigger an unbearable anxiety episode. It got so bad, at one point, that I had totally given up on even contemplating being productive. Watching Rom-Coms was my main distraction and was definitely what kept me going day after day. Months into the pandemic, with the help of my already busy fiancé, I decided to kick myself in the rear and do something about it.

The change of mindset was accompanied by summer and its relaxed restrictions. The possibility to see friends and family was more than welcome. Altogether, it was sufficient to have me overcome the anxiety which made me go through somewhat resembling more of a normal life. With perspective, I can say that my anxiety had manifested itself through avoidance and immobility, often referred as Freeze when we talk about this topic. There are, nonetheless, other possible reactions when faced with this same situation. The reactions can be so different that if we compare two of them, they may look completely contradictory. For example, some may become slobs, not doing much really, and some might develop a full-blown panic, hoarding everything on their paths. From a narrow point of view, we may interpret the latter reaction as selfish; however selfishness is not the driver behind this behaviour, fear is.

I feel confident enough to state that most of us have never experienced anything similar to this before. The closest thing that we may have experienced are natural disasters, accidents and attacks. All of those are very localized and in all of those situations we might expect help from outsiders. In the case of this pandemic, everyone was affected. We could only seek help from within us. A lot of people were quick to jump to the most horrific conclusion. Without toilet paper, what would we do? People got so afraid of missing essentials that they hoarded as much as was possible creating a massive shortage in grocery. This was perceived to be enough to validate their actions when in fact it was just the result of a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, this shortage may have been avoided if people kept their buying habits unchanged and not going full rampage mode on the grocery aisles.

When we learn to understand the elements that contribute to the development of anxiety, we are in a better standing to act in a more moderate way. A way that doesn’t give in to a state of panic, or even fear for that matter. Truly enough, years ago, I thought that anxiety merely originated from being overwhelmed for a very long time. It was only from one of my university courses that I discovered that anxiety was truly more complex than this. I found out that much like pain, anxiety is an adaptive response that is meant to protect us. It was so finely tuned to detect potential threat, that even now in the absence of significant threat to our life, it still fires up. After much research on the topic, experts came to determine very specific factors that can trigger anxiety, which they summed to the term “NUTS”. NUTS is an acronym for Novelty, Unpredictability, Threat to ego and finally Sense of control. Typically, the more of these elements are present in a situation, the more anxiogenic (causing anxiety) this situation is said to be.

Let’s use this current pandemic as an example to illustrate these elements. The novelty aspect speaks for itself. We have never encountered anything even slightly similar in our life. The pandemic was the result of an exposure to a new strain of coronaviruses (Sars-Cov-2) that, even though was not very deadly, was efficiently spreading. When we came across this virus last spring, we knew barely anything about it. This brings me to the second aspect, unpredictability. We certainly didn’t know what the proper protocol was to apply when dealing with this, nor did we know how long this pandemic would last. We clearly didn’t know if we were in contact with it or not, viruses are invisible to eye scrutiny and this particular virus could even be spread by asymptomatic people. Also unknown was what our immune reaction would be if or when we came in contact with it. This last unpredictability was also appealing to the third aspect of anxiety, threat to ego (self). At last we have the sense of control aspect of anxiety which in this case is not very impressive. The only real control we have over the situation is our reaction, which we don’t have much control over to begin with.

With all that said, it’s not surprising that the anxiety triggered may have been intense for many of us. Sometime so intense that it would have translated into fear in some and panic in others. Panic is often accompanied with emotionally compromised decisions that are taken in the spur of the moment and wouldn’t be repeated in normal circumstances. This brings me back to the toilet paper hoarding problem I’ve mentioned earlier. This behaviour is not very popular in our everyday life, but in times of panic, it is widely common. People momentarily stop thinking about the wellbeing of others and primarily think about theirs. Considering that when anxious people are easy to jump to the worst-case possible scenario, rumours about possible toilet paper shortage is enough to instigate fear in people’s mind and react accordingly. Hoarding also proves to be a way for people to gain a sense of control over the situation.

In a couple of months, we will be marking our first year into this pandemic. Things have now begun to feel like a new reality. We still would prefer our life to go back to normal, but this new everyday existence has now become more bearable. Without the common state of panic that many experienced early on, people have currently resumed to think about the wellbeing of others. We can again observe acts of generosity and compassion to others. We have come a long way and, as long as we remember to look for the components of anxiety, we can learn to better cope with what life decides to throw at us.

To help you respond better when anxiety starts to hit, you need to wonder about NUTS and ask yourself how you can decrease novelty (e.g. Reading, be careful not to become obsessed, which you exacerbate anxiety), diminish unpredictability (e.g. plans for as many scenarios as you may be able to come up with), lessen the possible threat to ego (e.g. set measure to protect yourself, for COVID-19 pandemic, it could be distancing, wearing protective equipment or even staying home) and finally increasing control (e.g. learn ways to control what you can, could be trying to moderate emotion, maintaining relationship, fixing a work schedule, etc.).

Bring Up Alexithymia – What does it mean to be emotionally blind

6 February, 202124 February, 2021 / Sylvie Blouin / Leave a comment

This last November, my boyfriend (now fiancé) and I celebrated our 10^th year anniversary. This unmistakably leads most people to think that our relationship was always all kisses and roses, but the truth is that it has never been even close to that. Only in the last couple years has our relationship moved to a slightly more romantically inclined state. Here, let me explain, I’m not saying that he was being completely detached, uncaring or worse. He just seemed incapable of showing any signs of compassion (and no, this was no bull poop). It’s not because he didn’t want to make the effort or that he didn’t care. The reason was more likely related to the incomprehension of his feelings, and also mine for the matter.

Feelings are complicated, but with years of practice most of us become experts in decoding their meaning. That training starts in our early years by trying to discriminate differences with physical cues like the curve of our lips, the arching of our eyebrows, the shape of our eyes, the minute twitching of our cheek, etc. After that learning stage is completed, we proceed to relate emotions to cues we’ve observed. This eventually becomes fine-tuned by the use of trial-and-error processes. We become so good at it that we even come to dismiss that some people might yet struggle with it, which is the case of people affected by Alexithymia, or emotional blindness. Alexithymia can literally be translated to “A lack of words for feelings (or emotions)”.

In order to understand how these people may interpret emotions, we have to realize the intricate difficulties that lie behind interpreting emotions. You can actually observe the complicated nature of feelings by taking a look at scientific research exploring this topic. I may start by saying that even researchers have difficulty establishing a consensus on how many of them there are. For a very long time, we assume that there were only 8 distinct emotions: anger, fear, anticipation, trust, surprise, sadness, joy and disgust. More recently a study conducted by two researchers from the University of California, Berkeley (Alan S. Cowen and Dacher Keltner) have suggested that there may be up to 27 distinct emotions (see image below, for details). Surprisingly, they have come to exclude anger, trust, surprise (no word pun intended) and anticipation. They explained that those feelings might be different intensities of the newly considered distinct feelings.

Despite the difficulties demonstrated in academia for determining even the number of emotions, we still expect everyone to be geniuses at it. However, we have to open our eyes to the possibility that still about 10% of the population have drastic difficulties with both noticing or interpreting them. Alexithymic people are battling with more than just hurdles to describe feelings, they also suffer from impoverished dream recalling, emotion processing deficits, reduced expressivity of emotions, lack of daydreaming and/or fantasies and reduced sexual desire. Interestingly, I think that the reduced expressivity observed is actually part of a defence mechanism. I can imagine that having trouble identifying emotions may lead to many unsuccessful attempts in decoding emotion. This would in turn, drive people to react inadequately. As a need to save face in the future and they might decide to remain neutral in most circumstances. This would ensure that no insult, although inadvertently, could be done to the interacting participant.

My personal involvement with Alexithymia is, as you may suspect, through the interaction with my fiancé, Manuel. Then again, I was not aware of this from the very beginning. It took me attending a course for my undergraduate degree to figure this out, which was about 4 years ago. I guess we could have called this serendipity, because meanwhile I was discovering this subject, an awareness of his lack of feeling surfaced. However, love relationships bring their lots of mystery. Manuel’s mystery was his exceptional ease at hiding his emotional deficits. Again, I don’t think it was voluntary. He wasn’t trying to be a manly man and bottling down his emotions. He just couldn’t understand his underlying motivation to avoid expressing emotions. It’s only in retrospect that I realized, I should have been able to point this out sooner. I remember one day when I was crying, I was completely devastated. I remember not knowing why I was even feeling that way. In this situation, you and I would think that Manuel would try as hard as he could to comfort me. He had another reasoning at that time; instead he proceeded to have a laugh. When we talk about what happened back then, we both cannot explain the reasoning behind this. However, my intuition is telling me that it must have been a manifestation of a deep uneasiness with the situation. I assure you that now, when it comes to comforting, he is acting like a perfect gentleman, well at least with me. Using a lot of compassion about his condition, I now inform him of the best approaches when my reactions become a bit too much for him.

Full disclaimer: Manuel has never been formally diagnosed. Yet, we still have evidence supporting this statement. Manuel filled an online questionnaire about Alexithymia for which he scored high on most of its categories. The online questionnaire can be accessed through https://www.alexithymia.us/. But beware that this does not, by any means, replace a proper diagnosis made by a trained professional such as a psychologist, psychiatrist or physicians. So, if you believe you are affected by alexithymia and you feel as if it’s impacting your life for the worse, then you should definitely seek those professionals.

Coming back to Manuel, we did mention that he shows emotion processing deficits and reduced expression of emotions, but we haven’t talked about his experience with the other aspect of Alexithymia. If we examine the lack of daydreaming/fantasies, it manifested mostly in his inability to visualize a future with me, or any medium to long-term future for that matter. It really created some stress in the relationship, but we got through this by making an if-then statement, which I found he responds very well to. Without this push through in the form of communication (and a little leap of faith), we got through the point where the two of us agreed to get married later this year. As for the impoverished dream recalling, I can guarantee you that it couldn’t be further from the truth. He can recall dreams to such details that gets me envious of him.

As a bonus segment, I would like to share with you two memories where we could really notice some significant breakthroughs. About three years ago, I saw Manuel cry for the very first time. We were at his brother’s wedding and he was a groomsman, so these were obviously tears of joy. I just remember the feeling of joy and surprise I was experiencing seeing him like that. Even he could not even comprehend the full extent of his emotions at that moment. This has led him to be more interested in his feelings from this point on. At last, I want to share what I believe truly opened him up to the feelings of love. Four years ago, his brother got his first child, which meant that Manuel was becoming an uncle for the very first time. A little more than a year ago, that young niece went on to do the most precious thing. She looked in Manuel’s eyes and told him that she loved him. Manuel told me that it’s at that very moment that something switched inside of him and he felt this strong tug wanting him to express the same feeling back at her. That only would have been enough to make me the happiest girl. And, at my surprise, this change was not only directed at his niece, but at me too. Yes, he told me the three-word sentence (I love you) for the first time last year. Soon after these words were repeated once again, but this time, to his parents.

I hope you have learnt a lot about Alexithymia and that you will be able to help others or yourself, whichever is appropriate. Remember that the difficulty brought on by this condition can be tackled using proper tools like communication as well as the openness to becoming more attentive to feelings. It is easy to dismiss emotions completely, exceptionally when it becomes so difficult and our efforts constantly end up hurting people that we care for. Still, with the right people you can find a safe way to develop a better understanding. We simply have to be true to ourselves and accept help when needed.

Bring Up Science

Psychology

Bring Up Biophilia—What makes us particularly attracted to nature

Bring up Matching‒How Dating Apps Are disappointing us

Bring up Choices – How an Economist Might See Them

Bring Up Traffic – Where does all that congestion come from

Bring Up Intelligence—How IQ tests do not measure how smart we really are

Bring Up Ageing—What We Can Expect With Growing Older

Bring Up Biophilia—What makes us particularly attracted to nature

Bring Up Blood—How our oxygen gets carried throughout our body

Bring Up Artificial Intelligence—What can it do for us, or more precisely what it can’t

Bring Up Smell- How We Perceive Odours

Bring Up Intelligence—How IQ tests do not measure how smart we really are

Bring Up Tattoo—How it can be possible to mark our skin permanently

Bring Up Grad School—What Is the Reality Behind Higher Education

Bring Up Hearing—Where is this sound coming from

Bring Up Cryptography—How to Hide your Messages

Bring Up Fireworks—How Do We Make Colours Explode

Bring Up Working Out—How It Can Benefit Our Entire Body

Bring Up Sleep – How can I increase my overall well-being

Bring Up State of Panic – What makes us completely lose it

Bring Up Alexithymia – What does it mean to be emotionally blind