Externalization
The Dark Side of Creature Comforts
At this point in the book, you’ve gained an understanding of how discomfort plays a role in setting off your survival instinct, as well as how the cascade of biological events feeds the development of unhealthy habits. But a bigger question we have yet to answer is the following: What is actually causing us to experience greater levels of discomfort to begin with? And who—or what—is actually responsible for all this unhealthy conditioning? In this chapter, we will look at our triggers. In particular, we will examine how externalization is often the root cause of our demise, driving our discomfort levels to all-time highs. It’s also the culprit in the ways we can become conditioned to live an unhealthy life.
If I had to sum up the definition of externalization and what it means for our inner survivalist, I’d say that it’s the process by which we find ourselves increasingly affected by external influences and attributing more power and value to these outer reference points at the expense of our inner reference points. Inner reference points are simply our emotional and physical health, and our core beliefs. But with externalization, rather than our core driving our behavior and choices, we fall more and more at the mercy of outside influences and expectations. The end result is that we pursue goals and make choices that are incongruent with our true selves, and all the while our inner self is screaming a louder and more resounding No. And as agitance and discomfort levels are driven up by externalization, the threshold for setting off the survival instinct is driven down.
Just how do external forces working on our inner survivalist in everyday life create a more pesky, feisty, and overly sensitive survival instinct? To answer this question, let’s take a look at some of our most common experiences that point to just how powerful the effects of our ever-changing world can be on us.
First, have you ever noticed that when you’ve gone back to watch an old movie that you enjoyed long ago, it seems slow and protracted? You can’t get to the main point fast enough. Yet you recall that when you watched it before, it flowed better and moved at a good pace. Or have you ever reread some of your favorite books only to find them tediously slow and that it takes too long to get to the dramatic parts? Can you no longer handle long articles or blogs online, growing impatient and wishing the content were just whittled down to a series of quick bullets or a succinct summary of the topic? Maybe you’re even wishing that now as you read this! So why does this happen?
Having taught for more than twenty-five years, I’ve noticed that I have to deliver my material differently today than I did earlier in my career. I now find craftier ways to engage my audience, and I use terse, pithy language to keep them listening. Early in my career, back when I learned how to create sound bites for TV segments, little did I know that this manner of speaking would become the communication norm in our society.
When did we become so impatient, with a need for things to be delivered faster? When did our attention spans shrink? And why do we find ourselves irritated, bored, or tuning out when things are not given to us in an expedient manner?
These changes may not seem all that significant, but they actually represent a much more startling change that is occurring at a biochemical level within us. And it is these biochemical changes that are directly and harshly affecting agitance and discomfort levels while sensitizing our survival instinct, transforming it into something it was never meant to be.
In the Beginning: Would You like Fries with That?
When did our need for “fast delivery”—with goods, services, and even written information—begin? Contrary to what you might think, it started decades before we had smartphones, laptops, and nifty gadgets at our fingertips. While this may sound bizarre, bear with me: I believe that the transformation of the survival instinct began with the invention of the microwave and the growing popularity of fast and processed food. If you can, take a moment to recall the days before the microwave and before the ubiquity of fast food. Do you remember waiting and feeling desperately hungry for dinner? Can you recall asking your mom or dad when the meal would be ready, only to learn that it would be done “soon” or “in an hour”? Maybe you remember feeling uncomfortable, but that you managed to ultimately wait until dinner was actually served. We learned that we could feel hungry and sit with our hunger and somehow survive it.
But with the invention of the microwave and the greater availability of fast food, we no longer had to sit with being hungry. We learned that hunger could be easily satisfied and quickly remedied. (A fascinating bit of trivia: In the 1970s, there were approximately eight thousand foods; today, thanks to innovations in food manufacturing, there are more than forty thousand foods available to us pretty much anywhere, anytime.) Although this was enormously convenient, it also made us less and less tolerant of feeling even mildly hungry. We suddenly developed a greater expectation for our needs to be expediently met when it came to satisfying our hunger. Case in point: Have you ever gone to an event or a friend’s house for dinner and found yourself getting annoyed, frustrated, or even angry simply because the food wasn’t served when you wanted it?
This is not a trivial point. What really has happened is that we’ve set in motion a growing fear of hunger if we’re not immediately fulfilled. At the same time, we’ve made our impulses demand a speedier gratification. The end result? Just mild amounts of hunger can trigger agitance, discomfort, and a blistering response from our survival instinct. Our early ancestors might have gone days without food, but can you imagine that today? Most of us find it increasingly difficult to go a few hours feeling hungry.
More interesting still is the collection of symbols that have become associated with instant gratification, such as the brand images and icons linked to fast food chains, which can create discomfort. In the previous chapter we met researchers Chen-Bo Zhong and Sanford E. DeVoe, of the University of Toronto, a team that has studied relationships between fast food symbols, obesity, and decision making. You’ll recall that when their subjects were exposed to the logos of fast food companies, it resulted in behavior that was more inpatient and impulsive. These researchers also noted a surprising link between these fast food symbols and people’s ability to feel happiness. Not only did their studies’ subjects select short-term goals over long-term goals, but they also found it more difficult to fully find joy. This kind of observation makes one thing very clear: The growing demand for instant gratification when it comes to food stretches far beyond the need to eat; it affects how we make decisions, increases our irritability, and compromises our ability to feel happiness. In essence, the need for instant gratification creates an escalating discomfort in the mind and body, and when this discomfort rises to the point where it’s no longer manageable, it’s far more likely to trigger a fear response and awaken our survival instinct.
We don’t have to look too far to see the effects of this in our everyday life. I’ve noticed a profound increase in the number of patients who have a shrinking ability to manage frustration. They come in for help in dealing with what should be minor frustrations, but these frustrations are now capable of triggering a full-blown behavioral or emotional reaction. Take, for instance, the annoying experience of sitting in relentless traffic. More and more people are reacting in extreme ways to this petty frustration, from shouting expletives to engaging in “road rage” that can entail guns and violence—something that was extremely rare thirty years ago. Sadly, we now accept this as commonplace.
Recall James, from the second chapter, who began to rely on medications at the slightest sign of anxiety or pain. Although he reflects a much less extreme example relative to violent road rage, his experience is nonetheless similar: As his discomfort threshold shrank, he opened himself up to a raging survival instinct, which led him to exaggerated forms of coping that entailed a reliance on external means of containing it. Remember, too, the story of Kate, who was conditioned to eat at the tiniest hint of hunger or merely the anticipation of hunger. Like James, Kate exemplifies our growing inability to manage our discomfort, which affects our behaviors and emotions.
GOOGLING DISCOMFORT AND FINDING INSTANT GRATIFICATION
In addition to the proliferation of fast food over the past century, another, more recent trend has further helped feed our demand for instant gratification: the ever so powerful Internet search engines. A personal case in point: Not long ago I was taking a hike with a close friend and colleague in the Sierras outside Mammoth Lakes, in California. We were trying to recall a researcher who had published a specific study related to mind-body medicine. Both of us were acquainted with this man, but we couldn’t recall his name. Almost instinctively we pulled out our smartphones and began Googling, only to find that neither one of us could receive a strong enough signal to access the Web. We both laughed and teased each other that somehow we were going to have to wrestle with the uncertainty and live with the discomfort until we completed our hike several hours later. We continued to make fun of one another as to who could handle the suspense better and who would break down with anxiety and stress. Although we had fun in this moment, the fact is Google’s technology has dramatically changed how we live. No longer do we have to delay our desire for information and answers. We can get instant feedback and resolve any uncertainty in our lives fairly quickly. For those old enough to remember, in the pre-Internet era many of us would spend hours in the library running up and down stacks and perusing journals in search of answers and knowledge.
And, like the microwave and food industry, Internet search tools have influenced our ability to manage discomfort. On one level, they help us falsely manage discomfort by giving us a means to instantly gratify our needs and answer our questions, but on another level this is a double-edged sword. With access to such instant gratification, we reset our expectations across the broad spectrum of things we encounter in life. Suddenly, we want all of our impulses to be met right away, as quickly as the click of a button. Our growing discomfort then begins to be a more pervasive experience in our lives as it becomes increasingly impossible to gratify our impulses. As a result, we begin to experience a more widespread sense of discomfort in our lives, setting us up for a survival instinct that takes on a larger and larger role in our lives. In other words, while instant gratification has its short-term value in satisfying expectations, it ultimately leads us to expect short-term resolutions to all of our problems. And as many of us know, that doesn’t always happen. Life is much more complex than that. If we come to expect rapid (and satisfying) solutions to our problems, then we’re asking for trouble—we’re positioning ourselves to experience much more discomfort when life doesn’t work out that way.
Take, for example, my patient Zach, who was twenty-nine years old when he first came in for help managing work-related stress at his first job after law school. Like many young lawyers, he’d accepted a job at a large firm hoping to advance quickly and one day become a partner. But as is so often the case, young lawyers like him at prestigious firms end up doing quite a bit of the proverbial grunt work for the more senior attorneys. After a few years at the firm, Zach found it increasingly difficult to enjoy his work, because he wasn’t moving up the ranks fast enough. He noticed he was becoming impatient and irritable, and having problems focusing, which prompted him to see me. In fact, Zach reflects many people of his generation that I treat—young, ambitious individuals who are easily irked and exasperated by the tedious process of corporate advancement. Many of this Y generation were raised with the philosophy that intent or effort should be rewarded above the end result. This ideology was meant to compensate for previous generations that weren’t able to find value and appreciation in anything but complete success. As a result, Zach and his peers were praised routinely as they grew up, whether or not they totally succeeded. They are the “wonderful” generation, in which those who come in last place are awarded trophies and medals, and every project, work of art, and school paper is worthy of acclaim.
This unfortunately led Zach to feel satisfied with putting in less effort but expecting more in return—expecting to reap benefits for his efforts quickly. Thanks to his type of upbringing, Zach now had a difficult time dealing with conflict as an adult working in the real world. Avoiding it at all costs, he had a tendency to walk away from conflict even when it translated to serious consequences for him (and there was plenty of conflict in this firm, given the nature of the industry). All of this culminated in a very disappointed and discontented young lawyer desperate for relief. Simply put, Zach’s need for instant gratification was combining with his falling threshold for discomfort, setting off his survival instinct.
THE NEW SEXUAL REVOLUTION AND THE ADDICTION LOOP
Zach’s experience is but one of many examples that demonstrate the destructive powers of instant gratification, especially with regard to expectations. There are plenty of other examples, however, within the broader conversation about instant gratification that involve strong, sometimes undeniable impulses in the attempt to escape feelings of discomfort. And one huge category of these impulses, which I have treated in my practice, encompasses our sexual drives. At first glance, the need to be quickly gratified sexually may seem wildly different from the need to be rewarded immediately at work for a job well done. But these two scenarios have much more in common than you’d likely think.
There is no denying that all of us, whether we seek it out or not, have greater access to sexual stimuli, including pornography (thanks to the Internet) and sexual suggestiveness and references in the media. Ask any parents today what it’s like to raise teenagers and they will lament how “different” the world is today, from a sexual-liberation standpoint, compared with the era in which they grew up. Even modern fashion trends of revealing and sensual clothing add to ubiquitous sexual stimuli. What this means for the limbic brain is a higher level of activity in its dopamine circuits, which then results in higher agitance levels.
In a certain number of individuals, this effect can crystallize into sex addiction, as they increasingly turn to sexual gratification as a means of managing their levels of discomfort. Over time, a lower tolerance for agitance and discomfort begins to develop, which leads them to turn to sex ever more frequently in order to get relief. Unfortunately, this type of addiction, particularly porn addiction, has a sharp downward spiral—as the addiction takes hold, only a narrower and more specific range of stimuli can effectively satisfy their needs. Sexual fetishes and obsessions, for instance, can become more and more specific, and those who find themselves developing sexual fetishes are less able to delay the gratification of these fetishes as their ability to tolerate discomfort rapidly shrinks.
My using sex addiction as an example is not as extreme as you might think. You may not have any interest in understanding this addiction, but the common denominator across a wide variety of behaviors that entail instant gratification is the same: The more that is available to us, the higher our levels of agitance and the more we need to seek relief. Our impulses don’t lessen; rather, they actually intensify. It’s the same thing that we see with alcoholics and drug abusers. In addition to the urge to feel the mind-altering rewards of drinking or using a drug, the more the substance is abused, the longer it takes to feel satisfied (hence the need to go back for more in order to quell the discomfort). So there’s never an end to it. And as I discussed earlier, the more an individual pursues these addictions, whether it’s food, alcohol, drugs, or sex, the more deficient that person’s dopamine levels become, which further drives the addiction.
A most famous series of experiments studying this endless addiction loop has been conducted on rats. Researchers have examined rats given the choice of pressing a lever to stimulate the pleasure center part of their brain associated with sexual gratification or another lever for food and water. Needless to say, the rats die of starvation, barely able to pry themselves away from the stimulating lever, which has an incredibly powerful reward. And, as with human behavior, these researchers also note a lack of satiation in the rats, who take only brief breaks from pressing the lever.
Now I’m going to extend this observation one step further. A certain subset of people who use sex as a way to control agitance ultimately become more impulsive and are more likely to act on their impulses. This can lead to people reacting to their impulses in a much more grave manner, including pedophilia, engaging in violent sex acts such as sadomasochistic rituals, and participating in sex crimes over the Internet with minors. It doesn’t help that we’re exposed to widespread violence and sexual exploitation through television and film, which only feeds the cycle of agitance and discomfort.
But the take-home message from this rise of instant gratification in our culture is that it extends substantially beyond overeating, violence, and alcohol, drug, and sex addictions. It even goes beyond the satisfaction of our most basic or primary drives. We as a culture have become accustomed to immediate solutions to many of our desires and impulses. And rather than instant gratification reducing our inner imbalances, it only spikes them further, leaving our survival instinct to have an even more sensitive hair trigger.
The alarming surge in sex addiction, particularly with regard to Internet pornography, is why it’s likely to be added soon to the addictions listed in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, otherwise known as the DSM. Sean, for instance, was thirty-two years old when he initially came in seeking help ending a serious reliance on Internet porn, which he used for sexual gratification up to five times a day. As you can imagine, this compulsive habit was becoming disruptive, interfering with both his work and social life. He couldn’t get his work done and he began to alienate himself from friends and the woman he was dating. Although at first his use of Internet porn served as a form of pleasure, it morphed into an obsessive addiction that was serving the purpose of managing and containing greater and greater levels of discomfort, which is not unlike an alcoholic or drug user who reaches for a drink or a drug for the same purpose.
As Sean turned to pornography at the smallest indication of being uncomfortable, such as work demands and conflicts or problems in his relationship, he locked himself in a dangerous loop that fed on itself. Each time he received gratification, which was becoming short-lived, he further cemented his need for more. And the more he found relief with pornography, the more he found himself craving it. Ultimately, the treatment intervention that pried him loose from this addiction was to learn to manage being uncomfortable in his life and to no longer fear discomfort. This also had the effect of extinguishing his fixation on instant gratification.
Digital Demons
That day my friend and I couldn’t access the Internet to answer a burning question while we hiked in the mountains was an excellent real-life example for me. There we were, far removed from civilization while tucked away in the Sierras, and yet we still found ourselves reaching for an instant solution. It’s far too easy to fall victim to the magnetism of technology and the ease with which we can conduct research and business at the click of a button today. But the growing computerization of our society is also strongly contributing to rising levels of agitance and our sensitivity to discomfort. We know from research studies that the act of using a computer creates a stressful impact on our physiology, resulting in increases in blood pressure and heartbeat and changes in breathing patterns. Computers are machines that rely on precise programming to operate, which is characteristic of compulsiveness and perfectionism—a style that exerts greater discomfort when certain demands are not met. This may sound bizarre, but it’s not as big a stretch to see how the nature of computers can affect our perspective on the world. Think about it: Computers don’t deal in the world of ambiguity, but rather in precision. Over time we can easily become accustomed to this absolute nature of the world. But of course the world is not nearly as black and white.
Another way to think of this is to consider what happens when you sit in front of a computer screen for hours every day. Eventually, you start to lose your ability to see outside this short range as your eyes remain focused on the nearby screen. In a similar way, computers affect how we experience the world, often putting us out of focus with reality. Which explains why the proliferation of computers in so many facets of our lives has led to a lower tolerance for ambiguity. We don’t like uncertainty or situations that cannot be defined or solved in absolute terms. When you’re dealing with a difficult person at work, for instance, you cannot just press the Delete button. If you’re shouldering the weight of caring for a sick family member, you cannot just reboot that person and upload a totally healthy body. And should you find yourself in a car accident, you cannot press Rewind and take a different route. Life doesn’t follow the rules of computer codes, nor can it be manipulated at the touch of a button like so many of our technologies can.
Our idealist, obsessive behaviors do not remain relegated to our computer work; they can be projected onto other aspects of our lives as well. Although compulsiveness and perfection are usually rewarded with high achievement, they do pose problems outside the work environment. As you can imagine, they can create significant stress in relationships, when our expectations remain so high that they collide with the inherently flawed nature of the human race and our partners—particularly when we look for our relationships to respond in such a logical and linear manner.
Of course, all of this is only exacerbated by trends in communication. The popularity of e-mail and texts, which command brevity, has transformed our conversations with others, reducing them to a very basic level. As more communication occurs in this manner, we begin to lose the ability to interact effectively in our personal relationships, for relationships require much more than sound bites and abbreviated sentences. And since we are already reeling from higher agitance levels, it’s no wonder that conflicts can arise with much less provocation.
The Rise of Boredom and the Unrelenting Need for Stimulation
All of us know that the rise of computerization has led to a 24-7 lifestyle with very little opportunity to break away from the grid. Many of us feel like there’s not enough downtime, or free time, to sit and do nothing or enjoy a few unscripted hours. Our lives can sometimes feel like we’re moving from one text or e-mail to the next, constantly addressing demands at work and home—always “on.” We are increasingly becoming a culture that is glued to our smartphones, constantly waiting for the next incoming message, while fueling our agitance levels and intolerance for discomfort. Recall that earlier in the book I described how Andrea’s agitance levels were elevated in this manner, ultimately setting her up for a maladaptive pattern of avoidance. I also described how Will became entrapped in a similar way, which led to a maladaptive pattern of insomnia. How often do we get edgy and restless when a long period of time goes by without receiving any type of message? And when you don’t receive a message for a while, how do you begin to feel? Is it boredom, anxiety, loneliness, or even depression? It’s funny how living without a text message or an e-mail can have such a profound effect on the mind and body. We can feel like we’ve been cut off from the world, alienated, or thrown into space without a tether. When was the last time you left home without your cell phone? And if you did forget your phone, did you feel unsettled inside?
We as a culture are becoming more dependent on external stimulation, and when we do not receive it, our agitance levels naturally begin to rise. I described earlier how old films that might have been enjoyable when initially viewed years ago seem tedious or slow when they are watched today. Film directors and editors have noticed the same trend, so to compensate for viewers’ needs for greater stimulation and their propensity for boredom, they now create many more film cuts and transitions to sustain the viewers’ interest.
We see this insatiable need for stimulation in a more exaggerated way among young people who take multitasking to the limit by doing homework, listening to music, watching TV, and returning their e-mails and text messages, all while having a snack. But this is not limited to the younger generation, for I’ve witnessed more and more adults picking up the habit. It’s almost as if the increasing need to feel flooded with stimulation has gotten to the point that it’s become an addiction, which makes us feel agitated when we don’t receive it. And when individuals are asked to forfeit some of the stimulation, they actually seem to go into a state of withdrawal, which elevates agitance levels to the point of discomfort. Almost on a daily basis, I see this played out when I ask my patients to turn off their cell phones. For many, it seems painful—so much so that they attempt to quell their agitance and discomfort by silencing their phone instead.
Unfortunately, the need for external stimulation doesn’t stop; instead it feeds on itself and demands even more stimulation, all the while fueling agitance to higher and higher levels. The more we engage in or are influenced by externalization, the lower our dopamine levels sink, and the more we become enslaved by our attempts to restore them. We in fact get trapped within cycles of unending agitance, discomfort, and a survival instinct that’s always awake and alert. In other words, our inner survivalist becomes insatiable. It’s similar to heroin addiction, in which initially the use of the drug creates a glorious high, but after several weeks of using it, it no longer generates as strong an effect. The addict needs increasingly more of the substance to replicate the original high. In short order, it becomes a fruitless endeavor, leaving the addict with growing levels of agitance and discomfort that cannot be discharged. This only fuels the addiction further as the addict desperately tries to quell his or her sinking discomfort threshold. And, like the addict, we as a culture are beginning to experience a lower discomfort threshold, which is leading to a large subset of the population being in a habitual state of discomfort and unhappiness—and a chronic activation of the survival instinct.
Other Sneaky Sources of Externalization
So far we’ve been exploring how more obvious external influences such as electronic devices and access to instant gratification are dramatically stoking our agitance and discomfort levels while lowering our thresholds for discomfort. But what about influences that are much more subtle, affecting us without our awareness? We can easily overlook the magnitude with which these undercurrents affect us. It’s important, however, to note that the level of agitance and subsequent discomfort created are not strictly a function of how obvious, loud, or visible an influencing factor is. Rather, subtle and insidious influences can lead to a dramatic reduction of our discomfort threshold and undermining of the ways in which we learn to manage it.
We tend to think that watching TV, a movie, or advertisements is a passive event. But in actuality, serious amounts of conditioning are unfolding, and most of it we are unaware of. This is strikingly true with advertisers who are marketing their products to us using subliminal messaging and other conditioning strategies, which can entail both visual and auditory cues. You can expect that these advertisers and companies have spent millions of dollars figuring out how to deliver their message with the greatest impact. And they take full advantage of the power of conditioning to cement their message within us, often by appealing to our emotions.
The goal of such advertising is to make consumers take action. And the way to create action is to stimulate the consumer. That stimulator is agitance. In other words, consumers are made to feel unsettled if they don’t resolve their discomfort, and the advertised product is portrayed as the solution. Obviously, advertisers are motivated by generating sales of their products. They have found that ads with the underlying theme that only their product can make you feel more comfortable—giving you more happiness, more energy, less pain, etc.—work. These ads also imply that without their product you’ll be uncomfortable.
Another means by which externalization is boosting our agitance levels is through our growing connection with and reliance on films, news coverage, pictures, articles, and music that bombard us with an onslaught of carefully crafted messages and images. But the effect these messages have on us is anything but innocuous. They in fact offer a powerful external reference point for how to live our lives (i.e., what to wear, what makes us happy, how much money we should make, what we should look like, whom we should marry or date, what is sexy, etc.). Further, they inadvertently strengthen our growing dependence on external references at the expense of our internal references, which may much more accurately reflect what is truly healthy and fulfilling for us. And the more externalized we become, the more discomfort we experience.
One of the most dramatic examples of how externalization leads to a harmful reference point is in the realm of body weight. As we know, there is a great emphasis on being thin in our culture. This is made particularly obvious in the proliferation of beauty magazines and dieting ideas, and the implied image of what’s considered attractive in the media, especially on television and in film. Naturally we strive to achieve this goal of thinness, particularly young women. The obsession to comply with this imposed standard creates significant agitance for these women, which can then encourage extreme behaviors, such as obsessive dieting, purging, or excessive exercise. This places them in that habitual state of discomfort as they simultaneously seek to allay it. They become easy prey for fast solutions in the form of maladaptive habits that are traps in themselves, such as a reliance on medication or recreational drugs to deal with the discomfort. Or they can resort to stimulants to increase metabolism and weight loss while at the same time reeling from the side effects on their mood. In more extreme cases, someone might turn to cosmetic or bypass surgery in an attempt to permanently quell his or her discomfort.
But the hidden reality of our growing externalization is that there’s often an inability to live up to this artificial ideal all the time, or at least in any healthy manner. The attempt to do so is made all the more frustrating by the fact the ideal can never be fully realized. So what follows is a blow to self-esteem combined with elevated agitance levels, which can eventually materialize into high levels of discomfort and the formation of maladaptive habits that aim to contain the discomfort and prevent the activation of the survival instinct. As I discussed in chapter 5, these solutions not only lead to a collapsing threshold for discomfort, but they also undermine our ability to self-soothe in healthy ways, as we come to place more emphasis on external solutions and have less faith in internal solutions.
Externalization can materialize in even more subtle ways. An enormous amount of research has been conducted to shed light on the biochemical effects of advertising. Neuromarketing is a new field of marketing that investigates our responses to marketing stimuli. Researchers use technologies such as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure changes in activity in parts of the brain, electroencephalography (EEG) to measure activity in specific regions of the brain, and sensors to measure changes in our physiological state (heart rate, respiratory rate, and changes in the electrical properties of the skin in response to stress or anxiety) to learn why we make the decisions we do, and what part of the brain is telling us to do it. So advertisers that make use of this research are looking for very subtle ways to engineer agitance in consumers, in order to create demand for their product.
What if we have no conscious awareness of an external message? Can it affect us as well? Take, for instance, the last time you sat on the couch watching a television show with a friend or family member. The show cut to commercials, and you started to engage in a conversation with your companion until the show returned. Even though you weren’t paying attention to the advertisements per se, did they still have an effect on you, however subtly? Turns out, yes. In 2007, University College London researchers discovered the first physiological evidence that subliminal images do alter the brain. In other words, our brains can log things that we’re not even consciously aware of, yet which reach the retina of our eyes. This particular study used fMRI to prove that our brains can indeed respond to images our retina absorbs even though we’re not fully aware we’ve seen them. This speaks to the subtle and insidious way in which external information and influences can affect us and influence our agitance levels and discomfort thresholds.
So like it or not, we as a culture are being influenced by factors that are obvious and others that are subtle, and sometimes subliminal. But these forces, whether conspicuous or not, are anything but trite and insignificant. Instead, they are having a profound impact in our lives, precipitating more externalization, prompting a devaluation of our internal reference points, deflating self-esteem, and disrupting personal and work relationships—all of which boost agitance levels while lowering our discomfort thresholds. This, in turn, provokes our survival instinct, giving rise to bad habits and driving our demand for consumer products. In most cases the effects of these influences have seeped in over a series of years to significantly alter our behavior and physical and brain chemistry, while fueling record agitance levels. Since these influences are unlikely to lessen, and are more likely to increase, it’s never been more important to find ways to neutralize their impact.
And that’s exactly where we’re headed next. In the next part, I will discuss strategies that you can implement to minimize these influences on your agitance levels and begin to take control of your life and health.