wise animal, wise body
This essay was written in 2015, the same year I started using the name "Mindful Biology".
It is reprinted here after some light editing.
We humans struggle to see our human bodies clearly. Think of the young woman, already slender, who looks in a mirror and believes herself fat. Or think of the middle-aged man who strips off his shirt and imagines himself as virile as we was in college. Or think of religions that deny kinship between humans are other animals, even though such kinship looks pretty obvious.
Why we delude ourselves is an interesting question, but here I want to explore how we to get past delusional thinking.
Most of us have cherished domestic animals at some point in our lives. Whether cat or dog, horse or hamster, we find it easy to bond with our mammalian kin. Birds, equally warm and wise, also make good friends. Some people even grow attached to reptiles or fish. The point is, most of us enjoy familiarity with animals, and we see how their lives differ from our own: more innocent, less conflicted, and often wiser than humans.
Non-human animals can help us penetrate the fog that surrounds us when we look at our own animal bodies.
Let’s focus on one obvious fact: animals are sensitive. My wife and I lived for years with an eleven pound dachshund-chihuahua mix. Our little Emily was often adventuresome, but she frightened easily. Fireworks, fire alarms, and trash trucks triggered strong reactions: she trembled and quaked, unable to settle down.
Now consider the noises a typical urban dweller experiences regularly: sirens, jackhammers, cars honking, and so on. These days I live in a suburb, so I’m a little more protected. But in years past I dwelt in the midst of all that jarring sound, but never suffered from it. Or so I thought.
The truth is that while I believed myself unaffected, my body was responding with muscle tension, heightened stress hormones, and so on. I just tuned out my natural sensitivity, the body's natural responsiveness. Human bodies register every sight, sound, odor, and texture. They know, innately and immediately, what’s going on. And they are highly alert to danger.
Back then, I assumed myself smarter than a little dog debilitated by such clamor. But I wasn't, if being smarter means understanding what matters.
But isn't bodily sensitivity often mistaken? Imagine you’re standing beneath an airport’s flight path: when a jet roars overhead, your body tenses. Research has demonstrated increases in blood pressure, heart rate, and other markers of stress in settings of intense noise. This stress reaction may seem a needless response, since the chance of something truly dangerous, like a plane crash, is remote. But is it truly mistaken?
Growing up I spent many weekends with my father measuring noise levels around Los Angeles International Airport. With decibel meters in hand, we visited playgrounds and classrooms, driveways and living rooms. My dad used the data we collected in statistical analyses that revealed significant correlation between noise intensity and stress-related deaths, such as from heart attack and stroke. (This was some of the earliest research that revealed the health dangers of noise pollution.)
What strikes me as I think about those times now is how local residents often seemed to take the thunderous clamor in stride, as if barely aware of the jets passing overhead. Perhaps they had internalized a thought of safety: a plane crash is very unlikely. Yet, in terms of health they were not truly safe, as my dad's research and other studies have shown.
Intense noise is an extreme case, but it highlights the body’s sensitivity. The human organism feels stressed by circumstances the mind is capable of ignoring.
I believe this may be happening on a global scale, as we see rapidly rising rates of chronic illnesses, which are often stress-related. We hear a lot about obesity, heart disease, autoimmune conditions, cancer, and so on. But they are often discussed in isolation, as medical conditions without roots in economic insecurity, rampant consumerism, intense competition for resources, employment that is exploitative or unavailable, over-burdened families, inadequate health care, environmental destruction, and so on. But, deep down, every human body knows the truth: modern society is toxic to life.
Our little dog Emily was right to be afraid of loud noises; they're unhealthy. Yet we have trouble seeing (or, more accurately, feeling) the toxicity that surrounds. Why? Because we don’t listen to our bodies.
We can’t encourage the entire culture to honor the wisdom of the body, but we can encourage ourselves. The first step is recognizing the organism’s responsiveness, the way it resonates with its environment. We can begin by remembering the sensitivity of non-human animals, using that insight to connect with the same sensitivity in our own bodies. By feeling, mindfully, into bodily reactions, we can intuit what is healthy and what is not. We can begin to restructure our lives to limit the damage caused by modern conditions. We can adopt relaxation practices; we can choose livelihoods that bolster rather than betray our values; we can seek out like-minded souls for mutual support and validation.
The sensitive human body—the human animal—knows what is healthy and what is not. If we all learned to listen to it, the world would change. The wealthy and powerful would feel the suffering caused by the unjust and ecologically irresponsible policies they impose upon the world. The underclasses—feeling their common cause—would band together, finding strength in united, non-violent action. Humanity as a whole would consume less and savor more.
Is this utopian? Perhaps. But it is what our bodies demand. Don’t take my word for it: the next time you feel settled, calm, and unhurried, listen deeply to your own animal nature. Does it really want more stuff? Does it really crave more distraction? A healing wisdom will be heard, murmuring in your sinews.