Uncertainty and Overwhelm

As decendants of hunter gatherer tribal people, we have primitive survival influences passed along to us through our DNA. Since there were animals and other tribes actively trying to kill our ancestors, uncertatinty was experienced as an acutal threat to life. 

Now consider Epigenetics, which is the scientific name for the science of how stress alters DNA passed along from mother to child inutero. If there was survival behavior that kept our ancestors alive, as a survival based species, it was passed along genetically to allow the next generation to better survive. 

This is how uncertainty in any regard activates our survival sytem. The uncertainty can be something insignificant, such as going into an office building we have never been in. The survival system up-regulates in these circumstances, and survival first at all costs is priority. 

Once we have been in the building a number of times we can develop calm assertive feelings about entering and safely navigating through the very same building. If it is the first time entering the office building and it's empty, we'll be more able to easily and calmly navigate it. If however it's the first time we're in the building and there's chaos, noise, and confusion, it can add overwhelm on top of uncertainty. 

Since uncertainty is processed as a threat to life on some level, when overwhelm is added to uncertainty, overwhelm feels like we are being prevented from surviving the perceived threat to life and therefore registered as a direct attack on us, whether it's logical or not. This is where I have noticed impulsivity to escape the perceived threat becomes elevated. 

Consider overwhelm in two parts, 1. innerworld overwhelm and 2. outerworld overwhelm. 

To reduce overwhelm in our inner-world, we can practice physiological and psychological measures to survival system activation to help down regulate Sympathetic Nervous System operation and up regulate ParaSympathetic Nervous System operation, along with deactivating starvation mode (soothing the Enteric Nervous System) by nourishing our bodies with quality nutrients from good food and hydration from drinking water. 

To reduce overwhelm in our outer-world, we can set our intentions on actively reducing the number of things (bits of information) commanding our attention in different directions at once. There are only a certain number of stimuli humans can process at one time before the stress response activates. I learned it as 5 to 7 bits of information plus or minus 2, making it 3-9. 

The bits of information overwhelming our senses don't have to be actually threatening and can be something as simple as a following instructions on a GPS while driving somewhere, looking for an exit on a freeway, radio playing, kids fighting in the backseat of the car, and being asked questions. 

There's nothing logically life threatening going on there, however the uncertainty about where we're going primes the survival system for responsive action, and the overwhelm  provokes the feeling of being attacked by being prevented from taking survival action provoking further survial system activation, logical or not.