Feeling Your Feelings: The Head-to-Toe Science of Emotions
I'm a bit gassed How's it going down there Head-to-Toe Emotional You've probably heard that your emotions are controlled by your brain And there's a lot going on up there You have eighty-six billion nerve cells or neurons in your head They gather messages from your senses memories hormones and body parts and use those messages to help create feelings But nerve cells live in other places too There are millions of them in your heart your gut and even your butt Seriously While those clusters of cells won't help you puzzle through your math problems or plan your soccer strategies they might help you sort out your moods Every year scientists learn more about how your whole body helps to process and express your emotions It's not just your brain even your tiniest parts get involved You might have noticed that your fingers and toes move when you're feeling impatient Your nose wrinkles when you're disgusted by something And your stomach clenches when you get nervous That can mean your brain is sending instructions to these areas Other times those body parts are sending information to your brain And your nerve cells are often talking in both directions at once
How does all this information flow back and forth through your body And how does it turn into the things you call emotions Well that's what this book is about Every time you turn the page you'll be taking a close-up look at a new body part and how it might be feeling But you don't have to read these pages in order If you have a gut feeling that your stomach might be an interesting place to start turn to page 14 If the idea of having a butt brain makes you um jiggle with excitement check out page 12 If you're wondering what's up with sadness and snot try page 30 Or if you'd like a toe-to-head tour of the human body in perfectly logical order then turn the page Let's get emotional
Stomp Your Feet Your little brother spilled grape juice on your favorite T-shirt You're going to get him Stomp Stomp Stomp You won't even need to explain that you're angry Your brother will know by the sound of your feet We humans walk more heavily when we're mad This is true no matter where we're born Timbuktu or Toronto New York or New Delhi In fact even elephants and rhinos stomp when they're angry When you get mad your body acts like you're under attack A burst of adrenaline a chemical messenger sends blood to your muscles and releases extra sugar into your bloodstream Scientists call this the fight or flight or freeze response Your body is ready for action Your little brother probably isn't a physical threat but your body doesn't know that This part of your nervous system developed thousands of years ago when people regularly encountered wild animals And now your body is ready to fight So even if you don't plan on punching anyone your stomping warns other people that your body's in battle mode Watch out little brother Stress Test Have you ever had any of these reactions during a stressful situation Heart racing to send extra blood to your muscles Lungs working overtime for extra oxygen Hands up to protect yourself Pupils dilating so you can see danger Muscles tensing and ready
High-Tech Toes Video game designers have a problem Online people can only communicate by talking or typing But in real life we communicate by widening our eyes scrunching our eyebrows folding our arms and puffing out our chests Without all these physical cues how can gaming feel as immersive as real life Our feet might hold the answers In 2017 scientists in Denmark asked study participants to wear fancy shoes implanted with vibrating sensors Then they sent tiny shifts and shakes through the soles so it felt as if another person was walking on the floor nearby The participants had to identify different sorts of footsteps based on the vibrations they received through the shoes Were the footsteps aggressive happy neutral sad or tender Usually people were able to identify a definite emotion based on the tremors Hard quick tremors felt aggressive while soft slow tremors felt more tender Uneven tremors seemed happy as if someone was skipping Scientists and programmers are still working to fully incorporate this sort of body language called haptic feedback into video games What do you think Could you get touchy-feely touchy-feely through your feet neutral sad happy tender Want to learn more about anger Check out the liver-ish lore on page 10 Or turn the page for the next stop on our human body tour aggressive
