Gut
Someone once said, “Guts are wiser than the mind.”Someone responded: “It’s because we feed guts more than our minds.”
By the time Loras’s trial has ended, Queen Margaery realises something is wrong, as neither Cersei nor Tommen has yet arrived. She tries to leave the Sept, along with her brother, father, and the rest of the assembly, but the Sparrows prevent them from doing so, as the High Sparrow dismisses her concerns and insists that the trial must continue.
Cersei understands the consequences of her absence, and she's absent anyway, which means she does not intend to suffer those consequences. So the trial can wait; we all need to leave.
Margaery gives a final look to the High Sparrow, signalling that he has doomed them all candles melt. This is the best told-ya look one can ever get
People sometimes can’t ignore the urgent feelings as they evolve into being a part of the background noise. It’s when they are often told to calm them, not to overthink, or how they need to stop taking themselves seriously. It could not be very comforting to hear this, and taking a deep breath could feel more difficult. One can understand this sense of urgency and impending doom best through the abovementioned scene from Game of Thrones.
Given many possibilities, the gut talk can be explained by three factors I list here:
- Gut Talk (explained by integrated neural pathways)
- Decision Making (information processing system)
- Risk-Benefit analysis (presented by behavioural economics)
1. Gut Talk (integrated neural pathways)
Gut talk is based on various brain networks, and it's a recital term in the integrative processing of information. It's the valuation of personal meaning and its impact on personal decisions.
The Gut is always right. But is it? If yes, how? And why?
This common expression could be translated as instinct. But, in reality, the Gut is only a part of the picture. The Gut is the messenger of the true neuroscientific essence of this expression.
MARGAERY TYRELL TO THE HIGH SPARROW, SHORTLY BEFORE THE EXPLOSION.
But in reality, if one can take the time to untangle those urgent feelings, one can differentiate if these feelings have a more powerful message to tell you or need to be ignored.
Yes, one needs to pause and understand Pause's neural wisdom.
Neural Wisdom of the Pause
The most significant difference between humans and animals is that animals respond to every arousal. So there is a difference between following your visions that create a rich and purposeful life and responding to every whim that comes into your head that could get you into trouble.
Pause has neural wisdom; it lets the brain access alternate solutions and makes new rules based on what is stored in the brain. Simultaneously, this also decreases the heart rate - parallel signals are sent to calming brain areas.
- Do your impulses come from a curiosity?
- Are they reactions to feeling unheard, bored, or anxious?
- Are they part of a more significant theme?
- Are they habits held over from an earlier time in our lives?
Brain-Gut talk
The idea that "gut sensations" result from the Gut talking to the brain is widely used. But overreliance and everyday use of such limited scientifically defined concepts might deviate science from its principles of inquiry.
We dismiss a signal from the Insular Cortex that rationally analyses the situation. Instead, it looks at the picture holistically. As a result, it eliminates all possibilities of a single fear, initial thought, or belief. So, no, it is more potent than a simple selection bias.
Brain communication occurs in two ways; mechanical or chemical connection. To navigate the state of being alert or calm, our brain has a Seesaw-like hinge.
Intuition is more than a selection bias
How can we explain tbs differences between exploratory excitement vs anxiety, specificity vs flexibility, and spontaneity vs impulsivity and allows us to answer these questions:
- Do your impulses come from a curiosity?
- Are they reactions to feeling unheard, bored, or anxious?
- Are they part of a more significant theme?
- Are they habits held over from an earlier time in our lives?
2. Decision Making
Decision-making depends on calculating the value of existing options. This, in turn, is a function of the environment and the individual’s internal state.
What goes into decision-making?
Integrated Processing of Information: Different neural processes in the brain constitute the integrated processing of information, its interpretation of personal meaning, and its influence on a person's behavioural decisions.
To navigate the state of being alert or calm, our brain has a Seesaw-like hinge.
The Insula is the hinge.
The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is a screwdriver that regulates the Insula and helps us imagine different avatars and possibilities instead of discarded, lone interpretations of bodily responses.
Threat: in a threat situation, the threat reporting messages that are heart rate changes, bodily responses, and gut signals are en route to the brain. Once the threat has been identified, the Insula perceives everything, and PFC runs the show. PFC helps explore other options, regulate & apply different rules to different situations, and realistically analyses the problem holistically. As a result, it eliminates all possibilities of a single fear, initial thought, or belief.
Actual Crash: In cases of chronic anxiety, Executive Dysfunctions, or Recurrent MDD, Insula starts to run the show. The sensory-motor response to everything is taken as a stimulus
Unusual Times
Background anxiety can influence attitudes, beliefs and decisions.
Incidental anxiety interrupts the neuronal assessment of risky decision-making. It changes the attention from probable positive outcomes to anticipated bad results, a process in which the anterior Insula plays a specific role.
Transient anxiety episodes often have adaptive value because they raise awareness and attention to potentially harmful outcomes.
Functional anxiety, however, can develop into a maladaptive condition if worried behaviour is constantly validated and disconnected from the environment.
Mood can also affect decision-making. For example, an unpleasant mood is a critical source of irrational decision-making, particularly in the context of social behaviour.
3. Risk-Benefit analysis
One of the best aspects of my clinical practice is that patients pick up and learn the language I use throughout the years. I often tell my patients about risk-benefit analysis. For example, if an adult is worried about the deadline or parents are concerned about a child’s motivation for final exam preparation, I tell them that "please try" to worry less about this; the child/adult knows the nature of the risk they are taking and extent of risk can they afford.
Over time, in the follow-up sessions, many patients in my clinic often bring up the risk-benefit ratio themselves. This could be either in the form of side effect discussion, drug holidays, or choosing an option of therapy before pharmacological treatment.
Risk and benefit are inherently subjective based on three factors; perception, attitude nd rational decision-making process, along with individual, group, and cultural differences.
People make decisions based on the extent of riskiness/benefit they ascribe to an option. It’s called Risk/benefit perception.
- The perceived benefit often elicits temptation.
- Perceived Risk evokes aversion.
The attitude is about how much one’s risk-taking tendencies are influenced by their risk-Riskfit-risk-benefit analysis. Attitudes towards perceived Risk are less affected by context but vary across domains. People may take risks either when they precisive the chance to be low or the benefit to be high. However, the extent of both differs across people.
Nerd Alert ⚠️
For example, preference for (X) binge-watching Netflix is a process of the tradeoff between (a) the perceptions of benefit (Being the first one in the group to watch Enola Holmes 2) and (b) risk associated (missed deadline for assignment) with that alternative (Netflix binging) as well as the one's attitudes toward benefit and risk (a) and b, respectively).
Rational decision-making entails calculating the predicted worth of each available choice and invariably choosing the one with the highest expected value.
Risk aversion ↔ Risk seeking
This common expression could be reworded as instinct. But, in reality, the Gut is only a part of the picture.
The Gut is the messenger of the true neuroscientific essence of this expression.
Contrary to popular belief, your gut feeling is not a magical ability. It is a result of the bi-directional communication between gut and the centers of our brain known as the gut-brain axis. Your brain carries out these processes automatically to help prepare you for any situation that might come up. Since these processes run in the background*,” you may not always realize what you’re observing or what it means.
