Don’t Trust Your Gut !!
A way to find out if your intuition is fooling you
Have you ever experienced that weird sensation in your gut, signalling whether a decision feels right or wrong without any logical explanation for it? Intuition is frequently associated with mysticism, telepathy, and premonitions, but does science back it? Can we truly rely on our intuition and trust its guidance? This common question often leads to confusion and self-doubt. It becomes challenging to decipher between our anxiety-driven thoughts and our gut responses, our intuition.
Now what is the difference?
As explained above, anxiety is often assumed to be irrational, however, at its core, anxiety is our protective mechanism. It predicts potential threats and aims to keep us safe and alive. These threats can be real, perceived, or even far-fetched scenarios that our brain conjures. It’s important to note that anxiety isn’t necessarily irrational; it is simply our brain’s attempt to safeguard us. By recognizing this, we can reframe our understanding of anxiety.
Research suggests that high anxiety suppresses intuition while decreasing anxiety enhances our gut instincts. By practising calming and grounding activities, we can reduce anxiety and gain clearer perspectives beyond the tunnel vision of our protective response. This biological alignment allows us to make more rational assessments of potential situations.
Yet, the more we delve into anxiety and the nervous system, the darker and more intricate this topic becomes. The definition of intuition resembles the concept of neuroception, our subconscious ability to detect threats and safety. Both anxiety and intuition stem from experiential learning, as our brain and nervous system accumulate knowledge about what is safe or dangerous. However, intuition is also influenced by our morals and values, setting it apart from anxiety.
To better discern between anxiety and intuition, we have to calm our anxiety enough to review the reality of a situation, identify our fears, connect them to our values, and consider our moral code. By doing so, we can gain a clearer understanding of what our body and intuition are trying to communicate. Through this process, we can develop trust in ourselves, our intuition, and the gut instincts that arise from both our intuition and anxiety’s protective nature.
Caring for our mental health is critical since it has a direct impact on our general well-being. Anxiety can confuse our gut instincts, making it critical to address our mental health. We can only improve our connection to true gut feelings and navigate life with clarity and confidence by taking care of our mental health.
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About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminating the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
