Una mente con mucho cuerpo parte 2

Express emotions and you can create a kind of breastplate because of the fear of being rejected. This will make it difficult to trust others and establish intimate relationships. It could be said that these types of individuals tend to function under thought better not say anything, because no one is going to be there anxious attachment

also known as ambivalent attachment. An example of this type of attachment is parents who tend to instability, who pay much attention in some moments and very little in others, or also overprotective parents who are all concerned and transfer their own fears to the little ones. In the first type, children will have difficulty exploring the world, will feel insecure and will not trust their caregivers. In the second, children are not allowed to explore and fall to rise again.

They may not have had the opportunity to learn three disorganized attachments. The one in which the same person who has to provide the care two generates fear is the one we see in people who have suffered serious trauma, for example, abuse or sexual abuse. You knew that Mary Einsporth of Body' s team helped define different ways to relate to each other, which has been called attachment

styles. In the 1960s he conducted an experiment known as a strange situation to study the interactions that the mother or a strange adult had with the child in a non- family environment. The importance of this study has been of such relevance in the psychology of development that it continues to be used today to refer to different styles of attachment. This experiment simulates situations in which the little one is forced to leave his known field, it would be like leaving our comfort

zone and analyzing his reactions. In other words, it is a question of observing how you move from the safe environment of the home to a less well - known environment. First, at about twelve months old, the age at which the relationship between the baby and the caregiver is clearly established to unknown and stressful situations for them was exposed. They were left next to the mother in

a room full of toys. After a while a stranger entered and the mother left the room episode of separation, leaving the little one alone with the stranger. She stayed outside for a while and then came back in, greeted and comforted the baby. This alternated different scenarios and evaluated the reactions and interactions between

the attachment figure and the small one. In the secure attachment it is observed that the child is able to play and freely explore the environment in the absence of the caregiver is distressed during the episode of separation, but when returning he receives it enthusiastically. In the habitation attachment, the child presents little anguish during the separation episode, but when the mother returns she tends to avoid it,

therefore, indifferent. Both in the absence and in the presence of the caregiver. In insecure ambivalent attachment signs of distress appear throughout the experiment, the child is angry and not comforted even when he has returned to the caregiver. What

an impact attachment types can have on how I relate to others. The style of attachment that we have acquired in childhood is going to have an important impact on both our friendship relationships and those of a couple and even on our sexuality, because it is at the base of our ability to self- regulate and to establish ties with others. Many may be surprised by this. How it

' s gonna affect me. He will say what I lived in childhood with my parents and I don' t even remember what I experienced, because it affects us much more than we think. Everything they did in those early years has influenced how you interpret and know the world. These attachment patterns or styles will have been stored in your most unconscious memory and automatic us, the one known as implicit memory, which is launched in automated learning processes, such as

driving a car or riding a bike. Our emotional reactions also have a lot to do with it. If we could observe it with neuroimage techniques, it is possible that we see how the friend tends to overreact and shoot in certain parenting styles, that is, our brain region more linked to emotions, will have shaped its way of activating itself according to what experienced and learned in childhood.

This I usually imagine as a miniature heart that is inside our brain and that, when we are very angry or with intense emotions, it starts to beat out of control, as if it were a tachycardia. About sixty percent of the population has a secure attachment and forty percent have it insecure, being twenty percent of the preventative type. You' re not surprised by the porcentaj

pages. When I first heard it, I could not help but think that sixty percent seemed very little to me, but it must be clarified that this does not mean that the other forty percent is pathological, but they will have more difficulty in the emotional and relational world. Secure attachment facilitates personal relationships, makes us secure to love and be loved if it allows us to establish balanced and healthy relationships. In the avoidative attachment there may be difficulties in trusting the

other, in intimate, in asking for help. In the case of anxious or ambivalent attachment, people can live relationships with insecurity and a tendency to dependence for fear of being abandoned. In the disorganized one there are important difficulties of relationship. Both this last attachment and the ambivalent can be at the base of stormy roller coaster- style relationships, those of I cannot live without you or without you I die. In addition, people with these types of attachment find

them boring and monotonous. The relationship with people of secure attachment, however, those comings and goings in the relationship camouflaged behind a supposed romantic crush, are generally the origin of repeated conflicts. In examining our development under the prism of attachment theory, it may seem that our relationship is determined forever and that we

cannot modify it. Well, although it is true that it marks us in a very important way, we could also have had very complicated early attachment relationships, however, have compensated or repaired them with another kind of relationships. In fact, this is the basis of the relationship that is established with the therapist. When you go to the query, it' s about working through the link that' s generated with it. In nineteen hundred and fifty, effet

Alexander described therapy precisely as a corrective emotional experience. Our regulation and relationship systems are modified and updated along the one- way wheel from meaningful experiences and relationships. Three, that is, there may be re- learning, because the ways of relating are also plastic, although plastic does not imply easy or effortless. As j Boedi said, no one is immune to a positive experience. About sixty percent of the population has a secure attachment. Finally, when we

refer to an ideal attachment style in childhood, we stick securely. We don ' t mean a perfect way to take care of ourselves. We mean a good enough way to take care of ourselves, as we have discussed before. Four. It' s not just about caring, either. It is about providing security and protection through our actions and care. And this occurs primarily during

the first three years of life. You knew that a couple relationship is the result of the interaction between two people, each with their own style of appeal in a particular social environment. Knowing our style of attachment gives us a lot of information about how we establish some links or others, for example, with our relationships as a couple. I leave this scheme to an orientational relationship of couple with someone of secure attachment, enjoy the intimacy of a relationship. He

does not live with anguish or concern that his partner may leave him. He is able to feel reciprocated in the relationship, he is able to share time with his partner and, at the same time, give him his space in case of breakup. He is able to accept, despite the pain that causes him, the loss of relationship with someone of avoidive attachment. Tends to distant and cold relationships. He has difficulty getting involved, he has difficulty manifesting his

emotions. Independence and autonomy are for her ahead of other values and the couple is not usually her priority. He tends to have superficial relationships and has difficulty giving clear messages that denote his full availability as a partner with someone of anxious or ambivalent attachment. He lives in fear of being abandoned by his partner. He needs constant signs of love. He tends to associate happiness only with his

partner relationship. He is not able or hard to feel reciprocated in the relationship. He needs to be with the couple continuously and spends most of his energy, thinking about the relationship they are often dependent and jealous people. He tends to continually interpret the acts or words of his partner, a couple' s relationship with someone of disorganized attachment, complicated relationships, love, hate, conflict

and dramatic. Live the relationship with great unstable ability, with emotional ups and downs. He has difficulty connecting what he does with what he feels. He is afraid of being abandoned and, at the same time, finds it difficult to intimate how to provide adequate answers for a secure attachment. If you' re a mother or a father, you might have asked yourself this question. What sensitive response should be given to provide a secure attachment or otherwise, how

you can be a good and bad mother at the same time. Naturally, it is not a question of being perfect caregivers so that our children can develop a secure attachment. But we can talk about patterns- generating aspects that tend to repeat and that facilitate the task of the good enough that we talked about before. According to psychologist Marnsworth and her collaborators, a sensitive response of attachment

to the baby includes the following characteristics. Ability to properly perceive and respond to the baby' s demand signals, ability to respect the child' s sense of autonomy, willingness to play with it. To provide them, the following elements must be given empathy, ability to put themselves in the place of the other contact, reflexive ability. A sensitive caregiver is able to calm the child when he or she is disturbed and to provide him or her with safety while

respecting his or her autonomy. We will manifest this sensitivity both verbally and nonverbally, in what we say and how we say it. So, for example, if our child falls to the ground, gets hurt and comes to look in tears for comfort, we will have to be able to calm him with our gaze, with physical contact and with our words, without ignoring or denying

suffering, but without our emotions addressing us so inadequately. It may turn out to be a father or a mother who does not attend to the suffering of his little one, who is still not able to calm down just like the ' s sake, my son, you' re fine You almost scared the one who cares for him crying and suffering more than he does. For God

shit out of me as he cries overflowing with his own emotions. A good enough answer would be one in which the caregiver attends to the discomfort and does not deny it, does not quarrel with the child for having fallen and does not disproportionately distress himself. This is, he doesn' t let his emotions get out of hand. This will provide the child with a model on how

to perceive and regulate their emotions. To provide all this to the baby is to provide the necessary tools to give sensitive responses to others in adult life, including to the sexual sphere. In the same way, the shortcomings in this very key period of our life end up becoming deficiencies in adult life that are exported to different aspects of behavior. Another very important term used in the theories of attachment is that of synchronization, which refers to coordination very much in the

mother- baby and father- baby relationships. This synchronization is the ability to connect, move to the son of or accompany the mental states of the other in moments of intimacy, The fact of playing and having fun within the parent child relationship acts as a regulator of the emotional states. More than extraordinary or exceptional interactions. Little everyday interactions must be taken care of, because they will allow the child to understand himself, the world and others when he comes into

adulthood. They are, therefore, the foundation of our emotional regulation and our ability to relate to others. Some of the questions you can ask yourself to know a little more about how you related before and how you relate today are comfortable. When they make some positive comments, you' re overwhelmed by negatives. You' re mad at yourself for being wrong You' re capable of asking for help. You usually repair the needs of others. There is a

balance between taking care of yourself and helping others. You tend to crush yourself or overcriticize yourself. After this extensive exposition on the theory of attachment, it will be easy for the reader to understand why authors like Peter Foungian, replaced the arch- known, I think later I exist by the thought, then I exist a see me a little child needs to be thought and looked at by another person. A child would never say I think later I exist,

but in any case, I am thought later I exist. To be looked at and thought of by the other will allow to build one' s own psyche, that which is not yet developed. In the first months and years of life, the super power to read the mind the vast majority of us have ever dreamed of reading the mind of others as if it were a superpower

only within the reach of fictional characters. Well, if you didn' t know, I' ll tell you that we come with this serial superpower and that we use it every day without just realizing the same way that we come into the world with the machinery necessary to develop language. Our brain is endowed with the latest technology in social relations and also has a pre- installation so

that we can develop it. As we said in previous chapters, we are able to reproduce the emotions of the other in our own body to put ourselves in his skin and be able to understand him. I give an example of everyday life. You leave work and when you enter through the door of the house, you find your partner' s socks on the floor. You don ' t say anything he or she is going to kiss you, but you respond with very little desire and you make a charade face. Then your partner

says something' s wrong with you. You' ll say nothing while looking at the socks, but your partner has picked up a microgest of disapproval and understood the meaning of that nothingness. This ability to sense each other' s point of view is what you know and give us an idea of their emotional state I guess. What you feel is what is known as mind theory,

the latest technology in emotional predictive capacity. In reality, the theory of the mind is only one of the components of what we know as social cognition, which refers to the role that cognitive processes play in our social interactions. You knew that social cognition is the emotional and cognitive processes that allow us to interpret, analyze and understand the social world. It alludes to our ability to know how others think and feel and how we behave. Depending on it. Social

cognition consists of the following elements. One recognition of emotions refers to the ability to recognize emotions as they are, i e to know, to identify them, if someone is sad, happy, etc. Two n teo s das of the mind. It is the faculty that allows us to attribute thoughts and

intentions to other people to take into account the mental states of others. Mentalization is the one that is involved when we make reflections of the kind I think you believe that I believe, that is, it is the one that allows us, for example, to infer about what we think the other thinks about the three of us attribution, an intention is assigned to the actions or expressions of others. Imagine that you walk down the street and come across a group

of people who are laughing. You might think they' re laughing at you. In that case, you have assigned them one intention four. Social context refers to tacit social norms, for example, to what is badly seen in a society. All this will have an impact on our interpretation and prediction of the behaviors of others through the mental states we attribute to them, but also on our own behaviors. Moreover, it allows us to understand why a person

does not react like us to the same encouragement. Mind theory is key to our survival. It explains behaviors like solidarity and allows us to adapt and connect with others, but also to lie, deceive and manipulate. It will be in our hands to make good use of it. It reaches the age of four or five, when children move from concrete thinking to developing a more abstract thought. Thus, even the fact of telling lies implies a minimal development of

psychic functions. For example, a two- year- old is not able to lie if you have young children. I urge you to carry out the experiment that I detail on these pages. You knew what you can test your child' s mind theory with one of the following exercises. Grab a box of cookies and ask him what you think the kid is. He' ll pick you up cookies, then you open it and show him it' s

full of paintings you' ve put in before. Then you close the box and ask her and if we teach Grandma what she will think there is inside a child who does not yet have the theory of the developed mind or a child with autistic spectrum disorder thea will answer paintings. However, one who has developed his social cognition will tell you that cookies, as he understands that his grandmother will be guided by what he puts in the box, as he has

not been present in the previous scene. Another classic example is Ai Sali' s test, which is used to assess the theory of the mind in consultation. It' s about telling this little comic book to the kid and then asking him where he thinks you' re going to look for Sally and the ball. When social technology fails, social cognition can also fail, for example, when it is skewed by our emotional states. Actually, if all this knowing, what the other person thinks and feels was as easy or accurate as

a mathematical operation, it would be most boring. You don' t think we' re gonna assume that we' ve fallen in love with someone and that we' re meeting for coffee. The fact that you' re not clear about each other' s intentions doesn' t hook up. Our ability to intuit the other person' s intentions will be fully operational. The problem is that our fears, anxieties and expectations can alter or skew our vision. Actually, we don' t lie to each other is that the brain works

much better with certain realities outside of emotional situations. The lack or deficit of this capacity implies social inadequacy, difficulties in emotional expressiveness, withdrawal of psychosocial deterioration, reduction of quality of life, stigma. Autistic spectrum disorders OTEA, for example, are disorders characterized by difficulties in social coc nin. In fact, people with autism fail to predict and anticipate other people’ s behaviors, which

makes them have confusing relationships and interactions. They have difficulty understanding that others may have feelings different from their own. That' s why it' s hard for them to lie. It is thus clear that this capacity is key to understanding and adapting to our very complex social reality, an ambiguous reality, changing and full of implicit and nonverbal codes. Social cognition can be trained. Working with social cognition is one of the main therapies that are applied today to patients

with tea and some of those suffering from schizophrenia. But we can also work them without having any deficits in it. And if I also told you that there' s a hormone that' s very related to this, you' ve heard of oxytocin. It is the hormone that stimulates the production of breast milk and the link between the mother and the baby and that also receives the

name of pregnancy hormone. Well, today we know that oxytocin is a very well preserved neuropeptide on the evolutionary scale, which plays a fundamental role in our social behavior and is key in attachment to fidelity, generosity and trust in others. It is, therefore, at the basis of our relationships, which are based on mutual trust, we release it in sexual relations and in many other situations involving physical contact, caresses, massages, etcetera, and that makes us

feel more connected and confident. Plus, it' s been shown to reduce stress You can imagine everything we could do if we had her on pills. Some researchers have already raised this issue and, in fact, many studies with oxytocin and inhaled were launched, in which participants were placed in various situations.

What I know observed is that oxytocin increases confidence in others to the point that, when we are under the influence of this hormone, we are willing to give them our money or our most valued secrets, bearing in mind that we know natural ways to stimulate oxytocin, sexual relations, hugs and physical contact through the meditation body by sharing experiences. Perhaps we should think more about this when we want to stimulate the economy. You knew we weren' t far from

getting confidence through a nasal spry. To talk about trust means to talk about the famous oxytosin. This hormone that is produced in the hypothalamus and affects the emotional regions of our brain. Amigdala is especially known because it is released after delivery and during breast- feeding. However, it has many other functions, such as strengthening the emotional ties between the mother and the baby and between the

parents themselves. In fact, from an evolutionary point of view it is often said that if sexual desire is the one that guarantees the reproduction of the species. Attachment is the one that will allow the couple to tolerate and endure enough time to guarantee the upbringing of the children. I don' t mean to take romanticism away from love, but it has always caught my attention as love

transforms over time. That is, when we have spent years with a couple, we pass from a phase in which we do not stop releasing dopamine that substance that we usually consider more addictive to another in which oxytocin, the calmest love, attachment, etc are much more present. In fact, it' s very important to know this to understand a little bit more about partner relationships.

But it is also considered that oxytocin is the social glue that contributes to enhance social relations and promote the behaviors of closeness or proximity among unknown people. This hormone aroused enormous interest, even among economists. When researchers like Cosfeld and his colleagues began to study how it stimulates trust and generosity with other individuals, in fact, they observed that people risked more in betting games that implied trust

between two people. Paul sac director of the Center for Neuroeconomic Studies at Clerman, has researched and written a lot about it. By conducting some interesting experiments with individuals who received oxytocin and inhaled and others who did not receive it. He noted that the former were more generous in their economic donations when dramatic social scenes were exposed to them. Hence, this hormone is presented as the lubricant

of the economy. Although these studies have not been without controversy, they have opened up a very interesting way of study in the field of mental health, especially in those disorders where the social component is compromised. But in reality, the economy can also be stimulated by investing in everything related to mental health. In this sense, the study of oxytocin can provide interesting advances in this field, since the social component is one of the most committed in much of the

patients we attend in psychiatry and clinical psychology consultations. Anyway, we don' t have to go to the consultations or to the troubles. It is enough to review our day to day to realize the enormous application that this knowledge can have, because let us not forget that physical contact improves life. However, it is surprising that, if traditionally the embrace and the company have been one of the best therapies for their psychological and tactile benefits and for their ability to

stimulate oxytocin, we hear more and more about Leave Me. I need to be alone and we gladly reject one of the best aids. Maybe the next time a friend or a loved one tells us something like that, we can answer him with a let me insist. I want to be with you, or I think I can help you Let me, unless I hug you. We may be able to help you by decreasing your defenses, increasing your success.

Emotional contagion, the magic of mirror neurons. Emotions are spread much faster than a virus, precisely in a matter of microseconds and fundamentally through our facial expression, thanks to the more than thirty muscles that we have on our face. If you smile the world smiles at you. This beautiful phrase can be valued or criticized as banal or exponent of an easy positivism. Although it is true that we cannot take the crack board or apply it to all situations,

it cannot be denied that there is much truth in it. To begin with, there is even a Euroscientific explanation for it and it is in our mirror neurons and in the effect that it causes in our mind the contraction of facial muscles. Let' s start with the mirror neurons. They were discovered unexpectedly by Gia' s team as Risolati five thousand, while studying the brain of

a group of monkeys. In my case, I discovered these neurons as I trained as a specialist in psychiatry and was fascinated by their name mirror neurons. I found that very funny, attractive and fascinating. What I didn' t know then is that years later I would be lucky enough to meet this researcher in person and put them in practice. Infecting me with his funny smile.

It has been observed that when we see someone performing an action, for example, taking a glass of water, we are activated by the same motor regions of the brain as if we were actually doing it, that is, we reproduce in our head the scene that we are seeing to finish understanding it,

and this makes it possible. The famous mirror neurons or Mrnorans are the cells of the nervous system that are at the base of emotional contagion and allow us to explain phenomena as curious as the contagion of a yawn or a smile. If you smile the world smiles at you. You knew that the gia team like Risolati and his collaborators, the efogaz and yuve Gallese of the University of Parma, discovered the mirror neurons when they were studying the brain of some monkeys.

They had placed electrodes in the lower frontal cortex of the macaques in order to see how the neurons specialized in hand movements acted. The experiment consisted of feeding one of the monkeys and seeing the neuronal response. But suddenly they observed that when one of the animals was manipulating their food, the neurons of another macaque were also activated. And that had no relation to food itself, but to action itself. The latter had not moved, had no fruit in his

hand and had not imitated the gesture of the experimenting monkey. However, his brain did produce an activity identical to that of the brain. The same brain regions were activated as in the animal that was performing the action. Po s P or r N. It was found that these neurons play a key role in detecting the movements, emotions and intentions of the people with whom we interact,

because the same brain regions are activated. It was then placed in the premotor cortex, but today we know that they are found basically in the parietal regions and in the temporal furrow. These neurons work in such a fast and automatic way that it is more difficult to avoid the contagion of an emotion than to let it flow. Te. Let me give you an example. Imagine that you come across a person that you don' t like very well,

but that outlines a big smile when you see yourself. Well, it will cost you more to inhibit the smile than to let it out, as your brain will act automatically thanks to these neurons. Mirror does not smile It will require additional effort, active and conscious work, as the smile tends to spread very quickly. But I was trying to show you that the phrase if you smile the world smiles at you was true. There are two more arguments. On the one hand, the theory of facial feedback that we saw in the

previous chapter. According to this theory, facial muscle movements related to a certain emotion have an important influence on our way of experiencing it, without the need for an intermediate cognitive process. Thus by smiling under that mechanism of active reverse messaging in our brain. What we receive is a message from this and well, before that the body relaxes. In addition, brain communication with the face plays a very important role and has a greater impact than it does with the

rest of the body. Finally, we can say that it is true. For something far less scientific than all of the above, for the simple fact that we are attracted to the positive and if we are hooked, it is because it gives us pleasure. When someone smiles makes us feel good, it makes us feel comfortable if we like it there that you have more chance of success if you smile at life than if you don' t, even when

you think you have no reason to. We could also interpret it as a form of self- fulfilling prophecy, as an optimistic attitude always brings more benefits than a pessimistic one. But care should never be taken to think that we can treat certain mental health pictures. Telling the affected person who smiles at life.

It would be like thinking that the patient is going to cure arterial hypertension just by stopping eating sweets, Although sweets can influence tension, they are just one more ingredient of a complex picture that requires a much more complete approach. The magic of mirror neurons to give you an idea of everything you' d miss. If we didn' t have this advanced nervous system. Without the mirror neurons, it would make no sense to create plays that make us cry

or movies that make us tremble. You get a sense of the scope and impact they have. These neurons. They are responsible for emotional contagion, tuning and empathy, and therefore play a primary role in learning. And it' s just that we spend our lives imitating, copying. We cannot help it since we were born our learning is either imitation or vicarious learning, as Canadian psychologist Albert Bandura described. Mirror neurons explain much of all this and are the

ones involved in the famous empathy. They allow us to live the emotion of the other as if it were ours and help us to understand it. We could say that the discovery of these neurons is as relevant to the field of mental health as that of DNA for biology. You knew that mirror neurons one are millennial In fact, they were discovered in the decade of nine hundred and ninety by Giacomo Risolati' s team. Two have a lot of primitive.

It is discovered NS experimenting with monkeys of the maccanemestrin type. They have an evolutionary sense of survival. For example, if we see someone running in a scary face, we' ll run, too. Three are very brainy. They are located in the Cortex, in the premotor zone specialized in planning, selecting and executing movements. They are activated quickly and automatically. Four are copious, as they are responsible for learning, by imitation, emotional contagion and empathy.

Five are sensitive. They can be activated both through the auditory, visual and behavioral pathways and through the execution of an action. Six are artistic. Without them, there would be no sense in a play that makes us laugh, a book that makes us cry or a movie that makes us shudder. Seven are magical. They are really fascinating, because they are responsible for not our capacity for empathy, to put ourselves in the other' s place in their shoes. When we' re in love, imitation is much bigger.

We already know that these neurons are activated when actions are visualized. Well, they also allow us to understand the process of action itself, as well as the underlying motivation, the why of behavior. These neurons are therefore key in empathy, imitation and synchrony. Something that is fascinating to observe in our body is how we interact with other people, curiously adopting a position similar to that of the other. Unconsciously we tend to imitate what he does or to infect

ourselves with his emotions. This is what has been called mirror infection. It ' s a way of telling the other person that we like and look like her, naturally. If the person is attractive to us, intellectually or physically, this contagion effect will be greater. If we were in front of two lovers and tried to analyze their body movements, we would appreciate how their bodies

communicate and dance in a synchronized and unconscious way. Her feet and legs would be facing each other, her torsos would not appear covered by her arms, her eyes would meet, there would be an exchange of smiles and they would move their hands between them as if they were hooked by threads. When we ' re in love, imitation is much bigger. So you know if you want to know if you' re as interested as you are in paying a

little attention to how your body moves. Learning by imitation, learning vicarious will do whatever you do, but whatever you tell them to become vicar comes from Latin I see what it means to transport all this contagion and imitation. It will not be surprising to us if we think of young children the tendency to imitate others we carry it as a series of sns of our tenderest childhood.

You haven' t noticed that your child knows how to ride skateboards without you having to teach him or that he suddenly says or repeats a mean word that

he only heard you say is the vicarial learning of imitation. Hence, your children' s learning depends more on what you do than on what you tell them to do our little ones learn from the older people around them, who are called models, that is, parents, grandparents, and other adults around them, will be the examples of behavior that they will observe and imitate learning.

From the imitation of these models it is called modeling. In other animal species a similar type of learning is given which is called impronta or imprintin described by the physician and zoologist with Coam Matlorenz, thanks to which the offspring are more likely to survive. It is an innate behavior that occurs hours or days after birth and causes the young to identify with the creatures around them and follow

their parents at all times without prompt filiality. Another side is therefore a behavior that promotes the survival of the species humans. We observe that others make mistakes and this allows us not to commit them ourselves, that is, not only do we start from the results of our own conduct, but we also lead by what we learn from others. Likewise, there are behaviors that we know by intuition that we do not need to experiment to know their consequences. As

kids. We learn not only from our parents, but also from other people. And what it depends on if we imitate one another more than others. Generally, children imitate people who perceive themselves as similar, friends of their age and gender, who generate greater interpersonal attraction or who have greater credibility and success

in their behaviors. Finally, the behaviours implemented will reinforce them negatively or positively, which will determine that they will be maintained or repeated in the future. For example, if the child shares one of his toys and the father tells him well done you have been very generous, the behavior will have been reinforced by the approval of the parent. Witnessing how they punish a classmate for misbehaving will be another form of behavioral learning. To take note, to learn something,

it is not necessary to experience it. For example, we don' t need to test heroin to know it' s risky behavior with negative consequences. Much of our children' s education depends on what we do, not what we tell them, they will do what you do, not what you tell them to do. If you want your comasan son, do it, you' re not guaranteed he' s going to be, too. But if there will be a greater probability, because almost unintentionally he will have begun

to imitate you. Taking positive behaviors can help us feel better, as they tend to radiate and imitate each other. If we appreciate a behavior in another person that makes us feel comfortable, it is much more likely that the Reproduce the social and its protective function can be obvious, but we are social beings and relate is for us almost a physiological necessity. Without this tendency to form groups or tribes we would not even have survived as a species, because our

evolutionary success is due to our ability to interact in large groups. Sometimes we forget the fundamentals, perhaps because we live in an increasingly individualistic and faster society. However, the pandemic has been responsible for reminding us that it has stopped us dry when we were going at full speed. It' s been a lesson, some say a wake- up call because we weren' t on the right track. During house confinement we have been physically more separated, but

more united than ever in emotional terms. We' ve realized we need each other. Today we know that social isolation has a negative impact on our physical, cognitive, emotional and behavioral health. People with less quality social contacts,

the main component being the subjective experience of loneliness. They present greater alterations in the immune system, higher level of stress, alterations in sleep patterns, etc. And even casino, one of the psychologists and leading researchers in social neuroscience emphasizes that the feeling of loneliness is something very different. Being only weakens the subject physically and mentally. It is a state of aversive discomfort that pushes us

and mobilizes us to seek out others and relate. That is, it has a survival function, as it leads us to want to be with other people. On those group relationships depends our ability as a species. Social support is one of the most powerful tools against traumatic stress experiences or everyday disagreements. Sometimes the hug of a loved one, the contact of his hand in our lap or his availability to listen to us is enough to calm the psychic pain.

Two studies have shown that the positive effects of social relations on health occur in both sexes and in different races and environments, both urban and rural. Its effect has been comparable to that of other variables, such as smoking, obesity or physical activity. People with few social relationships are more likely to die than those with many a trend that is analyzed by age, gender, and health

in general. What' s the point of a child learning math and history, speaking several languages, or getting the best grades, and not being able to regulate their emotions or manage themselves in society. This relationship between isolation and poor health is not necessarily due to stress. There are many lonely people and

hermits who greatly enjoy their way of being. However, it has been observed that this relationship could be mediated by lifestyle factors, such as the fact that these people may be less likely to take medicines and more likely to eat pre - cooked foods or to smoke in excess. In the same way that the social acts as a protector, asking for help also does. In fact, it is considered a coping strategy, and it is that knowing, asking for

help or learning to do so involves effort and courage. We can say that the social and the emotional are fundamental in our ability to succeed in life or on the road to happiness. What' s the point of a child learning math and history, speaking several languages or getting the best grades, if he ' s not able to regulate his emotions or manage himself in society, why do we take for granted abilities that seem increasingly absent in today' s society.

The social media trap you used to be. What you had now is what you share. Got Fred Bogard. Social networks began to use in the nine hundred and ninety years in the hope that they would be an opportunity for a society that evolved towards the individuality chosen and gave signs of alarm at the unrest generated by loneliness, something chosen by many. However, it has been observed that passive consumption of these networks can reinforce the feeling of loneliness and disassociation,

and has even been related to the increase in depression. Social networks have revolutionized the way we interact and conceive of our reality and have grown in a

dizzying way over the past two decades. Virtually eighty- five percent of the population that has access to the Internet uses some social network, a percentage that rises to ninety- three percent among young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty- four, many of whom are digital natives, that is, they have not had the references that may have marked those of generations prior to the decade of nine hundred and eighty, who have grown up with one foot in

the age of perfumed paper letters and another in that of messages full of emoticons that smile and dance. We are immersed in a revolution that has advanced so quickly that we are not yet ready to respond to it. Many parents forbid their children to use social media and do not know if they should let them carry a mobile phone. One of the debates of greatest concern is that of

the optimal age for the beginning of the use of the networks. Some parents fear that their children will be excluded from groups of friends if they do not have a mobile phone. But let' s be honest. You' d think the same about cannabis or other drugs. You' d really be willing to accept your son using a drug so they wouldn' t get caught from

the group. Perhaps it is not exactly the same, but it does seem necessary to take appropriate measures in the case of social networks, we will not be able to try to convince them not to dare them, as we would do with a drug, but at least to make a responsible use and wait for the right time to allow it to be used. In case we'

re not able to wait. Some child psychiatrists and psychologists, alerted by the flood of consultations of parents and young people who suffer from all kinds of psychological disorders related to the use of social networks, are already recommending that parents sign

contracts of commitment and responsibility with their children. These are contracts proposed by the Social Media Group of the National Police to have parents and children under age set in writing basic rules on the use of mobile phones, tablets, computers or devices connected to the Internet safe, private and respectful that they will agree with

each other. By this means. We are giving responsibility and autonomy to our children, while alerting them and informing them of the risks involved in using electronic devices on social networks. Life serves to show it, not to enjoy it. Some may consider the exaggerated, an act of excessive and useless control. Others will think that you simply don' t have to give a device until

you' re eighteen. However, the truth is that it should be something mandatory, because if we do not inform our children of everything we already know about mobile phones they can make pathological use of them. Besides, even if we don' t buy your mobile phone, they' ll always have some way to use it. In the same way that we warn you about the

risks of drug use, we can also do so about technology. In reality, it is as if we were giving him an even smaller sophisticated scientific apparatus that still does not have the full cognitive and moral capabilities to use it. I am referring to those of the famous prefrontal cortex, which is not yet sufficiently developed. We are living something unprecedented and the consequences will only be seen in the long term. As animals, we need to be accepted into the

group. We need to belong to social media. Such acceptance is marketed in the form of IX. I like it and what' s the problem. They' ll say some. It is not, at the end of the day, another form of belonging. There have always been some people more popular than others. The problem is that now the popular and the non- popular, belonging and rejection have no end. They can be perpetuated in a way that we are not able to anticipate. We have no control over it,

nor can we anticipate the consequences. Both good and bad can be transformed. The rules of the game are changing and building patterns. It gets extremely complicated. Lives are shown that do not correspond to reality. The networks are full of idealized Joes that only show a selected part of themselves. Life serves to show it, not to enjoy it, and some young people surely think that

if we cannot show it, it is not a life worth living. The social networks have come to stay, have beset or set a trap for our brain. We' ve been hypnotized and that makes us not think, not reflect, we don' t even have dead times to do it anymore. The few minutes you wait in a queue go by metro for a pedestrian pass or that is in the bathroom have become occupied by our mobile device, largely by social networks. There is no longer any need to give bread and circus

to the population. We seek it ourselves, because now the amount of entertainment stimuli is infinite and we would need several lives to be able to read and see everything that circulates through the networks. Some will be thinking that perhaps it

is a very alarmist view or too dramatic. Each generation has suspected the same with the technological development that it has had to live the same ramón and casall Criticized the development of the high speed in the railway industry, since it considered that moving at such speed, you could not appreciate the reality, neither build a mental map of the trip nor contemplate the landscape. I was afraid the consequences might be negative. What cognitive abilities, such as spatial vision, would

be diminished by atrophy. However, this time it seems different the brain areas involved in the use of social networks are those of our most primitive brain, those of pleasure. Therefore, the lack of control is much greater. The most successful courses in the coming years were those that taught to disconnect from the mobile phone and filter connected information. I' ve got it controlled just one more scrool let' s recognize it We don' t relate like ns to

face than on screen. On social media, everything flows differently. It' s faster, it' s shallower. The flattery becomes banal, we have left the IX to give and false compliments to exchange everything in order to swell a little, the ego, the narcissism. This extends to all relationships, including loving ones. The change is such that an endless number of terms have

already emerged to designate new patterns of behavior or ways of relating ourselves. You knew that the new way of relating through social networks has brought with it a

genuine dictionary of new terms. Let' s look at a small, distraught display of a tendency to feel braver and bolder when we send messages that in person Gousting ended an affective relationship, cutting off all contact with the person, disappearing from the map liana relations, consecutive relationships without leaving time for mourning.

After the last break, sending messages of erotic content through technological devices, creat trom Bin comes from breadham breadcrumbs is a way to keep someone else interested when you really don' t want anything with it. The way to do this is by sending the minimum signals so that the other person thinks that everything is not lost and that there is hope. Gas. Lichting in Spanish, gas light consists of making the other person doubt his own sanity to subdue her katfishing,

creating a completely new identity to start a relationship. Kervin, when it intentionally takes longer to answer someone else' s messages in Spanish, it would be equivalent to begging or playing the interesting Benchin when someone has you on the bench. It' s about keeping someone' s interest alive. Something similar to the Reatrommbin. In loving relationships we move in an ocean of opportunities and

options that generate dissatisfaction. We go into the ethereal, the ephemeral or the liquid relationships that sigmun Bohomen says when we get bored or feel bad, we immediately turn to the mobile phone and we mentally say just one more crowl. This may be one of the phrases that the new generations most repeat and notice new ones. When you lift the head of the device it' s been 30 minutes, then you look in the mirror and think why you' re

like that. That' s the effect social media has on our brain, which makes us free a lot of drugs. Huy, I mean dopa yes, dopamine, the main neurotransmitter of pleasure, which, when we lack abstinence, makes the body sing that of giving me more dopa thousand dina, I want more dopa midinina. Our relationship with social networks is similar to that of

an addiction. The networks appeal to our most primitive brain regions to those of the reward system, in which dopamine, the neurotransmitter of pleasure, plays a primary role. The networks provide us with an inexhaustible flow of information, interactions with others. The IX in short, rewards. Besides, they have the novelty factor, because we don' t know what we' re going to find. A like, a positive comment, an interesting post, a new

photo of your croscho of the person who has caught you. This type of variable and surprising reward makes the networks even more addictive. In other words, here DOPA is achieved quickly and easily. Why try to get it by reading a book or doing a more expensive task. The more time we spend on networks, the harder it is for us to get involved in tasks that require

concentration and effort and the harder it is for us to disconnect. Although other activities also make us free dopamine, they do so in much less amount, so our brain keeps asking us for more of the other. All this increases addiction, i e, increases dopamine release and, in the long term, facilitates habit formation. While we are hypnotized by social networks, we stop getting involved in other tasks, we give up other things because we want more DOPA.

It fulfills the addiction to social networks. Criteria for an addictive disorder. The problems caused by the use of the mobile phone are of such magnitude that there are already those who talk about the need to do mobile abstinences or dopamine fasts, because they consider that the dependence and abstinence they can generate are very similar to those of a drug. In this way, it has an impact on the benefits of voluntary and temporary abstention from something that generates pleasure like new

technologies. It is a question of recovering our time and allowing a mind to rest when saturated by the incessant bombardment of stimuli and accumulated microdoses of mine dopa. But it is correct to use this terminology to refer to substanceless addictions, such as that caused by the mobile phone. What are addiction disorders? Let us review the main criteria. Control over the chosen activity is lost and continued

despite the negative consequences. There is an increasingly pressing need for pendency consumption and, in this case of using the mobile diagonal bar technology you need to consume more and more to feel good or to get the same tolerance effect It is the effect of before I got drunk with two beers and now I need five to catch the dot. The same applies to technologies. More and more time

is spent submerged in them. If you do not consume, symptoms of lack of concentration, mood disturbances, restlessness or s h ns et abstinence appear, symptoms also observed in technology addiction. All of them are met in the case of excessive use of technology and social networks. The added problem is that it is not socially seen and that the consequences are not as serious as the use

of cocaine, heroin or alcohol. That is why one does not have the motivation to abandon this type of repetitive and addictive behavior, which makes them more

dangerous. Perhaps we have minimized the potential risk of these substanceless addictions because we do not perceive an immediate negative impact on our organism and the indirect impact of time spent on them, for example, neglecting other aspects of isolation, etc. One of the most striking effects is how it affects our interpersonal relationships. Here the impact is more difficult to perceive, but the consequences can be devastating

and not only on an individual level, but also as a society. Perhaps all the time we spend on these technologies. We' re not drawing him from our relationships with others. We are not taking it away from sharing quality time with others. In addition, much of the time we spend using new technologies does not take advantage of it to think and reflect. As much as we want, our brain is not prepared for a continuous bombing of information.

If you belong to the generation of digital natives, you may not even have had the opportunity to value other aspects. We run the risk of becoming a society numbed and dragged by the immediate and infinite gratification of our mobile phones. In the digital world we will always live with the sense of infinity, because there information flows endlessly. It has even been named for purposes derived from the use of social networks. Thus, terms like Thomo Fiorre mesenea that in Spanish

we could transur as map fear to miss something are already used colloquially. That is why in the coming years it will be our turn to face a great challenge. We will have to know, to resign, to know how important it is to realize it in time, because our most precious asset is the time worth redundancy, a time that fades away in the opening and closing of networks. How to combat infoxication in networks. Twenty years ago, the Internet

presented itself as a way of evading from the real world. Today, the real world, for example, nature is the way out of the Internet. Not only are we hooked to the mobile to the point that it has become an extension of our body. It' s just that the cell phone' s got us caught and trapped. We' re full of information. We received thousands of inputs a day. We do nothing but open the mobile phone to receive basepps, notifications, e- mails, social media alerts. We

' re having a hard time disconnecting. It is like having a background noise that leaves no time for ourselves, to settle concepts, to think, so that our mind can discriminate and discern. We' re in the age of multitaskin. We read the news in the bathroom at the same time as we brush our teeth. We talk on the phone while cooking and listening to podcasts, while we exercise. What' s next? Checking the networks while you have sex more than one will have already done so. Too much information,

with all its accessibility and immediacy, can overflow us. The information has invaded us and we love to consume it as if it were a drug, otherwise we have the feeling of wasting time. We don' t let the mind rest, we don' t paradoxically disconnect the greater the amount of data available, the less our ability to discriminate relevant lons from the irrelevant and the greater the uncertainty and confusion when we get carried away by the bombing the information floods.

The ship spreads. This is why this phenomenon has already been named information fatigue syndrome, also known as infoxication or information poisoning. When it is excessive, it undermines our ability and causes us anxiety, blockade, difficulties in concentrating and confusion, that is, it affects our mood, generating restlessness, insomnia, apathy and decay, among other things. You knew how to make better

use of technologies in the age of infoxication. Try to set schedule to screens, use them a proportional part, but to be able to be small of the time you have available and in specific preset schedules, disable notifications and activate the limit of motionless use and tablet. Turn off your mobile when you' re working and don' t have it in sight Scientific studies have shown that having it visible makes concentration difficult. In the face of not having it try

to listen to news a limited time a day on social networks. Be sure to be selective with the accounts and topics you choose. Make sure that the mobile isn' t the first thing, that you look at raising priority other activities, study, exercise, reading, cultural activities, socialization. In fact, we forget that not always more information amounts to more knowledge nor does it

make us freer. This is what psychologist Bershwortz talks about in his book of per Doux of Choes, in which he explains why less is more according to the paradox of choice, the more diversity and greater alternatives the human being has at his disposal, the less satisfied he feels is the sense of blocking that we feel when, for example, we go to a store and have multiple products to choose from. The ability to choose between so many options increases the

chances of being wrong or not choosing. What best fits certain factors, for example, the ratio of quality, price, needs, which causes us greater discomfort. Hence, having more options does not necessarily correspond with greater happiness. Again, we are adding stress factors to the mind and body itself as by dripping almost imperceptibly, but chronically and repetitively. As we have already seen, this sustained stress that we overlook ends up manifesting in our body in one way

or another, in the form of tiredness, muscle aches, etcetera. That is why it is important that we pay attention to these manifestations that we seek to be of body and mind present. Most of the time we disconnect to be able to connect more information does not amount to more knowledge and does not

make us freer without n n n s SS. Some of the most important challenges that we have for the next of each pass by being able to do one thing at a time go to the bathroom without the mobile phone, accept that the messages are not answered at the moment and realize that health is not only absence of disease, but a state of physical, mental and social well - being. According to the WHO definition chapter nine, emotions through the body body knots cannot be undone a knot if we do not know how it has

been made aristoteles. The relationships between the physical and the emotional are most complex. They' re so in grenades, there' s no way to separate them. There are many examples that tell us about it. In chapter four we talked about touch and physical contact and in this chapter we will talk about psychological and physical pain. Let' s start with an example. Imagine she ' s being intervened from a very painful wound because she' s infected.

How do you think your body will be, what do you think you would do if you had a relative nearby, you' d probably be tense, you' d contract your muscles, if you' d hold on to your companion' s hand in a desperate, unconscious attempt to ease the pain, as if by straining too hard, the pain would slip away. On the other hand, it is not crazy, as more than one parturette has fractured

the hand of her partner or companion. Studies have shown that if someone holds our hand while we are experiencing physical pain, it hurts us less, because physical contact and emotional presence modulate pain, Although unfortunately, we have not reached the point where physical contact and accompaniment are able to completely replace an analgesic.

This effect is at least surprising. Our bodily knots represent our mental entanglements and what happens when those wounds are upon us to suffer in ourselves, when we are distressed and in conflict, we manifest it not only in the psychic plane, but also in the bodily, in the form of discomfort or pain. When we fail to elaborate mentally, emotions can appear knots in the body.

If you think about body knots, it may come to your mind at some time when you have felt your body contractured, for example, pain in the cervical area, stress from exams, or a move. And I don' t mean a contract for carrying boxes. And our body knots represent our mental entanglements. The problem is that on many occasions these knots do not undo on their own. If you don' t do anything, you' ll get

more crammed, you' ll get more tightly intertwined. In addition, the more we pull one of the ends without stopping to think more will tighten as it happens when we try to unwrap the cables of some helmets pulling only one of the ends. Nte requires meticulousness, patience and observation. Name emotions, identify them and recognize them in our body will be the keys to undoing these knots. A massage will provide a momentary relief, but it will not end

them. Physical pain to calm psychic pain. Car injuries. When we feel anxiety, anger, frustration or, ultimately, psychic conflict, we block ourselves.

We cannot think clearly and this conflict can remain in our body in the form of accumulated tension that, as we said before, ends up forming knots in extreme cases, when there are no more elaborate capacities available to regulate emotions, The subject can become self- injured in a desperate attempt to recover the internal balance and so it is, as some describe it as a relief or

a liberation. Self- injury is the act of deliberately harming one' s own body, intentionally inflicting damage from superficial cuts, most often blows, burns or scratches to uncontrolled consumption of alcohol and diagonal bar or drugs, a way to damage the body significantly enough to cause injuries to body complaints and to generate

bruising, fractures, scars or marks. But how can it be how someone can want to self- injure themselves when human instinct imposes survival It is certainly one of the most complex phenomena that we have to evaluate and deal with in mental health consultations. Self- harm is an alarming phenomenon that occurs more often than we think. Studies release figures ranging from four to twenty- three percent in the adult population to seven percent and forty- six percent in the adolescent

population. Although these figures vary according to the severity of the self- injury and presence or not of mental disorder, that is, one in five adults has ever done so in their lives, the problem is now much more serious because these behaviors have spread on social networks and are already talked about online digital

self injuries. Soham is a phenomenon whose risk is much greater and which consists of the use of Internet technology, social networks or mobile phone to share, post or send content that includes self- injury or that is harmful or humiliating to oneself and why it gets someone self- injured. In most cases, they are subjects with difficulties in managing their emotions and in self- regulation. Anxiety and discomfort are such that they do not know how to manage them in

any other way. In addition, they tend to tend to insecurity, perfectionism, self- criticism, rigidity, intolerance, frustration, low self- esteem, negative emotionality. In many cases difficult situations have occurred in the family nucleus during childhood. What it has done has made this way of functioning much more entrenched than it may seem externally. Self- harm is useful to the subject who at that time can feel relief from the suffering and inner battle he is

waging. The motivations that can lead to self- injury may vary. However, most patients I have been able to treat in consultation usually repeat the following sentences. It' s a way to anesthetize me. It' s a way to override psychic pain with physical pain. Thus the mind is distracted by another pain. It' s a way to feel alive, to get out of a chronic, empty feeling. It is a mode of self- punishment, usually for feelings of guilt and shame. Let us not forget that many

of the self- injuring people have experienced traumatic experiences. It' s a way to feel control over something intangible, a way to make it specific. In something specific, a pain like the psychic that the person cannot locate, becomes traceable, identifiable. Attention is redirected to the wound. It is a way of communicating despair, anger disappointment and, at the same time, a way of claiming support. Although there are other causes and triggers of self-

harm, there is one factor that should be highlighted. It is the fact that the person who performs it thinks or feels that it will relieve him that in this way he will reduce a negative emotional state. I mean, try to air a mind that at that moment is overflowing, collapsed. The truth is that some people experience pain attenuation, which has been related to the release of endorphins from our endogenous opioids, that is, those responsible for producing a

calming and euphorizing effect. Therefore, the more times these car injuries have occurred, the more likely they will be repeated. Therefore, greater will be the risk that it becomes a habit. This does not mean that they are an adaptive strategy. Self- injury perpetuates pain and, in the long term, worsens the situation does not resolve it. An adaptive strategy could make me run out when I feel like calling someone to give me a cold shower, but

not a self- injury, because it will only perpetuate the pain. In short, although each case is unique, we are faced with a conduct that, as we already mentioned, translates or symbolizes something very similar in all cases. It is a way to relieve psychic pain with physical pain. Self- harm is only the entry hole of the anthill, a social phenomenon buried behind which there is a complex life of emotions and experiences that have not been assimilated,

confronted or internalized. These behaviors generate alarm and fear among those close to them who do not know how to respond. Some will act as if nothing, ignore the conduct and dare not put into words what happened, because they have the false belief that if they do not say it is that it has not happened. It would be a way of not getting in touch with the

pain of something that scares us, overwhelms us or displaces us. Others will react by alarming, calling the emergency room, shouting, crying, despairing, recriminating the injured person, and they may, without realizing it, be reinforcing their behavior. None of these attitudes will be useful. Someone who is self - injuring needs help and has not been able to express it in any other way. What can we do? Listening is the best way to calm down.

It must be an active and serene listening, without alarmism, dramatism or guilt, but without falling into denial or minimization. Someone who is getting hurt is someone who has serious difficulty managing in life, even though he does not always recognize it. It will be important that we propose to consult with a specialist. If the person learns to self- regulate in healthier ways, he

will not fall into such harmful ways of turning against himself. If young people learn to talk about emotions, their own and others, to connect with their body, to apply stress management techniques, or to use other ways of releasing endorphins, for example, through physical exercise, they may not have to reach the end of the self- injury, although entering into the alternatives to self

- injury gives way to the objectives of this book. If we know how endorphins work, we can better understand the internal mechanisms of our organism and think of healthier options than those of injuring the body' s opium endorphins. Endorphins, discovered in a thousand nine hundred and seventy- five by John Hus and his collaborators, constitute a group of neuropeptides also known as endogenous opioids, so called for their similarity to the derivatives of opium heroin and morphine in terms of

their performance and chemical composition. These neuropeptides occur in the brain region, where the pituitary gland and the fineal gland are found, that is, in the area in charge of regulatory functions such as metabolism, growth, maturative development, etc. These molecules have analgesic and pleasurable properties, so they provide emotional well

- being. Their ability to inhibit pain is fascinating. We could say that endorphins act as short- circuit security and give an adaptive response that can save our lives. Suppose we' ve been injured by a predator and we' re trying to escape or we' ve suffered a road accident. Our car

is on fire and we have to flee in record time at first. The almost immediate release of endorphins will cushion the pain and allow us to escape, because that pain does not paralyze us, it does not prevent us from fleeing. This will only appear when the body has relaxed. I' m sure it makes you experience a similar sensation in more everyday circumstances, like a fall after a stumbling block, but the effects of endorphins on pain don' t

end here. Today we know that they have a fundamental role in emotional psycho pain, that is, they also cushion the psychological pain associated with traumatic or stressful situations, for example, sexual abuse, endorphins will inhibit pain at the

psychic level and will also block our memory. This would explain why, when we have suffered a traumatic event, we have difficulty remembering and we have mental gaps, or why, in certain stressful situations appear omatic symptoms, bodily manifestations such as pain or discomfort of any kind, when the stressor has already disappeared

or the conflict has been resolved. Finally, endorphins are involved in other key functions, such as strengthening the immune system and what natural methods are available to stimulate endorphin generation. One of the best known and we have already discussed in chapter seven is physical exercise, but love, sex or a good session of laughter will also make us free them. The pain and brain of how psychic relieves physical pain. The pain receptors are spread throughout the body and transmit their

information to the spinal cord and then reach the brain. But the brain does not act as an exact pain meter, devoid of all its objectivity. As if an algeometer or a painometer were involved. Pain may vary according to certain psychological variables. For example, the reception of good news often decreases its intensity

in reverse. Psychological discomfort can make physical pain markedly worse. Examples of these variations are found in war wounded, where the positive experience of surviving and having suffered only one leg injury, for example, rather than a fatal injury, was an important psychological painkiller. More everyday examples are found in sportsmen, as endorphin endogenous opioids play a key role in their case. Who hasn' t seen a football player suffer a major injury during a game and keep playing as

if nothing. In fact, these endorphins are the same ones that explain the placebo effect to which we refer in chapter one. For example, administration of an injection analgesic has been shown to have a greater placebo effect. This is due to the release of these molecules. And proof of this is that, if the receptors of these opioid IX are blocked, for example, with loxone, the placebo effect does not take place to perceive rejection in the other hurts.

And pain isn' t just psychic, it' s physical body pain. We also know that the process of acceptance lessens pain, while the tendency to catastrophism worsens it. We cannot deny the impact of our thoughts and emotions on our perception of pain in general, on all physical health. Finally, there are pains that are purely of psychic origin, such as a headache after a family conflict. In short, a wake- up call from our body

about unprocessed emotions. Therefore, on the basis of the available scientific evidence. We can say that pain is to some extent modulating. Hence, pregnant women are trained in breathing control so that they can mitigate pain during childbirth. Relaxation exercises, full attention, music therapy, etc. They' re targeting that pain reduction. Now, more still you will be thinking the same as I blessed epidural, because I do have to give birth only with the help of

endogenous two mechanisms. Social and physical pain share neural networks. Continuing with the pain, we cannot stop talking about the fascinating relationship that exists between social pain and physical pain. But what you mean by social pain, you' re wondering. I am referring to all those situations arising from interaction with others that cause us emotional discomfort rejection. We need to be accepted into the group. It is a survival mechanism and is part of our evolution. As a species,

perceiving rejection in the other hurts and pain is not just psychic. It is bodily, physical pain, something that has been demonstrated by various scientific studies. You knew that Neomi Agenrover, an American psychologist and researcher, designed an experiment with a computer game called Sibrbal, in which a few volunteers participated. While the brain was being examined with an MRI team, it was observed that when one felt excluded, the anterior singulated cortex, i e, the brain

and LR region was activated in physical pain. In addition, the level of activation was higher in those who felt most rejected. This researcher considered that the predisposition to pain was associated with the mutation of the oprm I gene, which is in charge of modifying our reception of the opioids and makes us more prone to depression. That is, psychic pain is also physical, it shares brain networks with him and has been associated with gene mutations that make us more prone

to developing depressive pictures. In fact, people with an oprm gene were more sensitive to physical pain and, after surgery, needed higher doses of morphine. This is not surprising, as many of the people who suffer from chronic pain have experienced traumatic experiences in childhood, which has been strapled into difficult situations or day- to- day discomfort. It can amplify the warning signal and put the pain net to work. Human beings, as they evolved, created a

link in the brain between social connection and physical discomfort. Since we are mammals, we need to be socially connected, something that is essential to be cared for and, therefore, for our own survival. That bond has long been in popular culture. Hence, expressions like my heart has broken or I have sat like a punch in the stomach to describe the discomfort generated by an experience

of rejection or infidelity. Remembrance or remembrance of the situations experienced can reproduce certain physiological states, such as, for example, that small puncture in the heart. Some of these situations can overwhelm the person' s adaptive abilities and make

him unable to properly regulate himself. If this is maintained over time, it can cause alterations in the immune system that, in turn, generate adverse conditions that can be harmful to health, for example, that we are more vulnerable to certain conditions such as dermatitis, ulcerative colitis, etc. Some authors have observed that even infidelity, as a lack of commitment on the part of a significant person in our life, can produce symptoms associated with post- traumatic stress

disorder, as the subject may develop a psychological state that alters the balance of the body and manifest anxious depressive symptoms similar to those of the disorder. Perhaps the avoidance of the pain caused by the rejection or infidelity of someone is at the base of the liquid relationships, both loving and friendly, referred to by the Polish sociologist Sigmund boom In, when he explains our new way of relating,

characterized by a great fragility of the bonds. This author describes them as relationships of use and throw, in which, on the one hand, we seek to bond, but, on the other, we prefer that the bond be weak enough to run easily. If things don' t go well, a way to avoid compromises, responsibilities and two pains, both psychic and physical. Then it would make sense to take acetaminophen for social pain, either to

the surprise or not of the reader. The truth is that there are studies that have tried to assess the effect of paracetamol on emotions and have shown that there is a modulatory effect. Those taking acetaminophen instead of placebo saw negative images with less intense emotional reactions. However, these results are not yet conclusive. If today there is no painkiller that can relieve the pain of a betrayal.

Although physical and social pain share neural networks at the cerebral level, it seems that there are differences when experiencing these pains, which also manifest in the neurophysiological plane, for example. Among these differences, it has been observed that feelings of social pain can be experienced again even after a long time has passed since

the event that triggered them. In fact, we are more likely to remember the painful experiences related to intense emotions, the betrayal of a friend or a couple than the pain generated by a fall or a physical wound, since the latter cannot be easily revived once the painful episode disappears. On the other hand, physical and psychic pain, in addition to activating common brain regions, also

activate other neural systems. In reviving social pain, there is a greater activity in the regions of affective processing of anterior, dorsal and anterior simulated cortex pain, while in the rememoration of physical pain there is a greater activity in the

sensory and discriminative system, primary and secondary omatosensory cortexs and posterior insula. In addition, in physical pain there is a greater involvement of peripheral pathways, that is, the part of the nerves that travel through our entire body and at this point it is possible that it will be one of the main differences. The body as a place of penance incorporates healthy, said juvenal in his famous

satires, in the imperial rome, that was taken as a joke. Its original meaning is that in order to have a balanced spirit in a balanced body, one must pray. Therefore, they have nothing to do with the sense that nowadays is given to the phrase healthy mind in a healthy body. The original Latin citation orándums your healthy citmen and incorporate healthy say it a few times.

Maybe it' ll help stimulate your brain synapses. Since ancient times, the body has been the scene of sin and penance, the place where to atone for guilt to purify the soul, for example, through asceticism. Therefore, pleasures and the satisfaction of the needs of the body were renounced by way of fasting, chastity, control of sexual desire and modesty before worldly facts as a commentary on beauty. On the other hand, a close connection between beauty

wave and goodness was established in classical Greek medicine. The human being had to be beautiful and good at the same time, as it was understood that the body is the mirror of the soul. Thus, a body that was exercised, well, nourished and in harmony with nature. It was a beautiful body,

as we already anticipated in one of the first chapters. The body has two fundamental dimensions, which makes us think of it as a body scheme, drawing or figure of the body seen from outside, something like the packaging or, the silhouette of the subject, its spatial aspect, its three body coordinates refers to subjective reality, the internal body, experienced and perceived from within that of psychic life. The integration of these two dimensions is what gives us a

complete sense of ourselves. But today' s society seems to forget about one part, because the look enters into the body scheme in the aesthetic and hedonistic part, the one oriented to appearances, to beauty and pleasure. This can lead to an excessive cult of the body, but only of the outside, not of the inner body. Hence our obsession with certain beauty canons that damage our body image and self- esteem and sometimes lead us to the limit of

the disorder. Much of the moral beauty is achieved through good actions that people can perform. This is the foundation of a thought based on values, a morality that exalts society and the universal as superior goods. The main damage of the excessive cult to the body of the last decades comes through the media or social networks that alter the pyramid of values and priorities of each one. In addition, there are hours left to time, to reflection and to reading.

Two of the foods that nourish the body, but above all the soul. Four of you knew what aspects to consider in the age of excessive body worship. One. It' s not so much about changing the body as modifying the look at this two. The image we transmit has a lot to do with how we feel about our body, and this is one of the things that we can work most. Three. Beauty is in the balance of the beautiful and the good, as the Greeks said. Four, the body is

not to punish him, but to take care of him. When we don ' t like ourselves as people, we don' t feel valid, we reproach ourselves or feel guilty. It is possible that we do not like our body image and that this discomfort with our way of being we address the body that represents what we do not like. This body rejection is often seen in

people with anorexia eating behavior disorders, for example. For them the body becomes the worst enemy and in a space where to dump the discomfort, at the same time, they can feel disconnected from it they dissociate what makes it difficult to regulate their emotions. In these patients it will be important to seek such reconciliation with the body, for which the distortion of the image is worked and they are taught to regulate their emotions by having the body as an ally,

not as an enemy. The body presents itself as a place from which to connect, where to feel safe and take care not only of the physical, but also of the emotional. Punishment through the body eating behavior disorders tc to tell me I feel empty, it is a way to corporalize an emotion that we find bad, because we are not able to enjoy or feel like before to fill that void. Some people turn to food in order to feel full, another metaphor to describe a state of well- being and fullness in relation

to the body and food. Many times eating behavior disorders five are but a way of saying what cannot be expressed in words, a way of fighting and fighting from the outside when it cannot be done inside. Many of these cases include a history of traumatic experiences, abandonment, poor family emotional management, or other traumatic experiences. These are situations that are engraved with fire in the mind and in the body and that can give rise to the same psychopathological phenomena.

There has been much discussion about the distortion of body image in people with eating disorders, one of the criteria for classification of the DSM, and about the biological causes of excess or deficit of control over food. However, today we know that in many cases, these symptoms are secondary to a disregulation or difficulty in emotional management that, in turn, has its roots in early life experiences.

You knew that in emotional disregulation there is an alteration in the ability to give flexible and organized responses that are adaptive to both the internal and the external environment. For example, when I manifest an exaggerated discomfort and end up having

an explosion of anger that I am not able to control. This emotional disregulation can have its origin in constitutive elements, that is, biological, in inter - current experiences that depend on how we relate to our caregivers in childhood or on a combination of both. The ability to self- regulate is crucial for the internal and interpersonal functioning of the individual. Most psychiatric disorders can be observed

from the prism of emotional disregulation. Both bulimia and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can be understood from this approach. Hence the importance of external regulation in the early stages of life. And if it has not been done well, it is essential that we at least be able to identify the problem and work it out

in time. The voracity that can be observed in people with bulimia could translate a need to fill a void, the feeling of emptiness that I speak of below, so that the food of our psyche is replaced by tangible material food, as in an attempt to satisfy a hunger of life with hunger for food or perhaps a way to seek reward, love or affirmation through the body.

On the other hand, in people with anorexia, some authors consider that there is an alteration that not only prevents them from distinguishing hunger and satiety, but also their physical sensations and more intimate emotions, which are often unable to describe lexitimia. These patients have an enormous effort to gain control over themselves, a control that is obtained by extreme abstinence, as in an act of punishment or

penance. In fact, in other times anorexia was associated with the asceticism of some saints, a kind of search for contact with the divine that was only achieved with sacrifice, abstinence from pleasures, etc. That' s about apparently opposite behaviors. Food restriction as well as muggings and vomiting seem to be associated with an emotional evil, a negative affection and present themselves as a strategy of

distraction from a negative emotion. Both translate a difficulty in emotional regulation with a greater tendency to less functional strategies, such as avoidance, escape or denial behaviors. If there is one thing that became clear to me after spending several years studying eating behavior disorders, it is that eating would be just a phenomenon of something much more complex and that anorexia was not cured by eating or bulimia by

stopping vomiting. The therapeutic goal is much more global. Disorders of food behavior influence both sociocultural factors as well as emotional components of personality and biological that also vary in the course of the disease. In the image scheme, feeding would be seen as secondary the visible part of a disorder that remains invisible. If we look at the outline on how you can start and maintain a CT,

we can see a series of phases. The beginning of these can occur due to the influence of current beauty canons pressure fashions, as well as as ascetic behaviors in another patient profile. All of this, usually in more vulnerable ages, such as adolescence, can involve the exit gun, flirting with the restriction vomiting, etc. Added to this would be factors related to personality, emotional factors or related to the body' s own chemistry and physiology, which would

act as a breeding ground for the maintenance and advancement of CT. Likewise, these dietary behaviors could, at some point, function as an effective strategy of emotional regulation reinforced in the family dynamics itself. In the last step, as with everything that is repeated, this behavioral pattern can become habit with an addiction - like functioning. Thus, many patients become dependent on food restriction, as failure to respect fasting makes them feel guilty. They spend much of their time

thinking about food in what they will restrict or vomit out their lives. It begins to revolve around the body and food, and its activities are limited. At this point, behavior is automated and can be detached from what generated it

at its inception. This is why much of the therapies are aimed at emotional regulation and reconnection with the body in order to integrate and elaborate certain psychological difficulties and conflicts that are at the origin of many of these cases feelings of emptiness. We have all ever had a sense of emptiness for not seeing the meaning of things after the loss of something or someone loved, a family member, a job, the person loved by our future, uncertain or by certain interpersonal

relationships. It is a feeling that invades us and that makes the body like an empty box, it usually goes with as accompanied by spirit under feeling of loneliness, disinterested by what once attracted us, etcetera. This feeling of emptiness is often observed in people with limited personality disorder, a disorder characterized by poor emotional regulation, impulsivity, instability of one' s identity, low tolerance of

frustration, etc. Although with different characteristics. In these subjects, the feeling of emptiness acquires a chronic character and is related more to one' s identity than to external aspects. These patients often describe it as a feeling of emptiness in the stomach, as if it were a bottomless well that nothing could fill

it, like a black hole. This can lead them to try to fill it or avoid risky behaviors that also often involve substance abuse, self- harming behaviors, sex cuts, muggings, etc. As we said above, it is a way of feeling that brings everything to the physical, regardless of the

particularities of this disorder. When we have these feelings of emptiness, the most usual that everything is boring, that we find no pleasure in what we do, that we feel insecure, we distance ourselves from others, that we lose the sense of responsibility and commitment and that we fall into unhealthy behaviors, eating compulsively, smoking non- stop, consuming toxic, etc, that can lead

us to a spiral from which it can cost us to get out. It is important to identify these situations in order to stop them in time and learn from them. To take note of some key aspects in the presence of feelings of emptiness, try to analyze the situation. Try to imagine how someone else would feel in that same situation reflect on your strengths and the tools that have allowed you to face difficult previous situations. Push you to do things you wouldn

' t normally do. Try to get out and relate, even if you don' t want to, like you have to go to rehab. If you' d broken your leg, you wouldn' t go too hard, but you would. Try to put things in perspective. Think about what' s really important in life. Don' t try to make sense of everything and try to appreciate the little moments. Chapter ten, disease through the body, dangerous inertia. We' re going through fast- paced life. We repeat that I' m stressed or I don' t have time several times

a day and we become the generators of many of our problems. That is why the Soo movement has been so successful in the times that it has been our turn to live. We are witnessing a rapid growth of self- help books, focused on slowly going to courses, focused on the maininfelniz, on contact with ourselves, on having time for me. But it turns out that we make things even worse because we want to be alone to focus on ourselves.

I, I, repeat over and over again I have to learn to say that I don' t have to think about myself anymore, I have to put limits and so we isolate ourselves more and more and we value less and less the social, without realizing the importance that others have in our well - being and happiness. In a way, we are generating pockets of stress that reduce our quality of life and then provide us with new needs. That

' s how we get into an endless loop. We stop walking to work, we go by car or by electric skateboard instead of walking or cycling, and then we sign up for the gym. We fill the time with all kinds of activities because we are not able to be alone with ourselves to compensate for the stress that generates us. We sign up for relaxation classes, we do ten things at a time, because this is the age of multitasking, high resolution, productivity, and then we pretend that our brain relaxes and turns

off to sleep as if it were a switch. If you don' t do it the first thing we' ll think about is taking something, because there' s no time to waste. Paradoxically, you don' t believe the well- known. I think I exist later. We should add I ' m a paradox, then I exist. If we paid more attention to the body and had more knowledge of how it works, perhaps we would take

it more seriously. By way of example, when our neurons are activated, because we are reading the news on the mobile and we are subjecting them to a constant and changing stimulus throughout the day. What we' re doing is

we' re quoting them what translates into electrical activity. They are able to connect at great speed, but all that brain activity that we have generated we cannot suddenly turn it off just as if a switch of a diagonal bar of is treated to this energetic inertia of neurons are especially sensitive the cones of the retina photosensible neurons. It' s a nice metaphor I heard once about this.

A plane takes a few minutes to take off. However, to land it takes at least half an hour, simply because the aircraft' s engines, due to their own inertia, need more time to brake. How emotions are expressed in the body. All our emotions are inscribed in the body Boris Cyrilni exhaustion is not only physical, it is also psychic. When we are tired or psychologically exhausted, for example, because of stress, we block ourselves. We can' t think properly. It' s hard for us to

make decisions or come to conclusions. But when we speak of exhaustion or rather of psychic conflict, it turns out that it is not only manifested in the psychic plane, but also through the body. We could say that the mind speaks through it, especially to capture our attention. When we are not lending you what we have not been able to elaborate and put into words through reason

and language. We do it through the body. The body operates on many occasions in an automated manner and many of our battles are fought between what we know and what we feel, perhaps not always as a disease, but as a symptom, as a more form of language. Gastrointestinal headaches, muscle aches, chronic tiredness. There are countless symptoms that do not have a specific cause. Pass doctor in doctor and test until, suddenly someone suggests you go to

a psychiatrist and then horror. But if I am not crazy, many repeat when arriving at the consultation after a time, when they begin to establish a possible association between the physical symptoms and the purely psychic, they ask, it will be mica. I' ll be making it up. The answer is no. You' re not crazy and you' re not making it up, it' s just somatizing and what that nuanced in a generic way.

This term refers to the expression or bodily manifestation of a psychic conflict. Thus, small spasms in one eye the day before an exam or the gastric discomfort we experience when we have problems at work are quite common. But these symptoms can go further and lead to a somatization disorder that in the DSM five is called a somatic symptoms disorder, which is characterized by a multiplicity of physical or

matic symptoms that cause discomfort or can cause significant problems in daily life. Moreover, these disorders are not easy to diagnose. People who present them consult with many specialists before reaching the psychiatrist. They go from one doctor to another because they are convinced that they have a digestive or nervous system problem. And the

specialists themselves are trying to find some proof to ratify such intuitions. One at the first step is to rule out what we know as organizationality, that is, that there is not a physical illness that is causing the psychic problem two, although we should not forget that the psychic is also real and that it also produces physical changes. That' s why the psychiatrist' s consultation should

be taken as a further step as normal. Valuing the psychic, either as a modulator or as a unique cause of what happens to us is fundamental, because just knowing it will reduce our discomfort. The symptoms are there, they are real and somatizing is not inventing anything or going crazy, but just one more term that helps us put into words, what happens to us, what we don' t solve in our mind, we solve in our body. Nothing' s wrong with him. It' s psychological. It' s

all in his head. We started the first chapter by talking about phrases like you are, in which we even occasionally fall the doctors themselves, drawing an insurmountable wall between the psychic and the physical and taking away relevance from the former as if this was not a matter of medicine, which indirectly would be to

say that it is not a relevant component of health. How many people will have heard any of these sentences when they have gone to a consultation to tell their physical symptoms and no concrete cause has been found to justify them, as if that headache? Those gastric discomforts or that accelerated bowel that constantly makes us go to the bathroom. They were not real as if the mind were on the one hand and the body on the other, as if we were not

legitimized to complain or find ourselves wrong. If there is no medical cause that can be labeled and tested. We cannot avoid this artificial division between mind and body. And yet the body is one and the mind is also body. We have already commented that the homeostasis of the organism is influenced by brain processing, that is, by psychic activity. In fact, the idea that mental life inevitably impacts physical health and determines the development of diseases exists from the dawn

of human culture. All the pathologies we see in medicine are in some way psychosomatic, because in all our mental state influences. But there are also conditions of presentation with physical symptoms whose main origin is in psychological factors, both in its beginning course or treatment. Known psychosomatic disorders when doctors try to explain this to patients who receive in consultation automatically, are assaulted with the classic question of

but then it' s all in my head. What is clear is that if it is in the head, it is also in the body. Some cases very well reflect this intense relationship or dependence between mind and body. States with two vus of anxiety can manifest themselves in a wide variety of ways. Squamoleonic anxiety can reproduce any condition and camouflage itself by taking the form of any

symptom or disease. To those of us who work on this, we are no longer surprised that a medical student who opposes for the examination of access to the specialty in medicine from good to first, presents a sudden blindness the days before the exam or a picture of dizziness with falls to the ground. The

student will end up being studied in the hospital. He will be given all kinds of tests in search of the most dramatic diagnoses, a brain tumor, a tumor of the optic nerve, will wait as the student, enters the door, because he will have taken care to review all the associated symptoms and will have even manifested them, so that he himself urges the doctors to look for the supposed tumor, the one that will never give his face, but

that will take all of the health heads, family and student. After a few days you will be discharged, along with an appointment in psyche that this student ends up attending our consultations. It will depend on the general culture of mental health and the level of stigmatization. It' s quite possible he' ll do it sooner rather than later. I' m sure that many years later we enter here in the field of what is known as the meddling picture,

in which psychics are manifested mainly through neurological symptoms. There are striking cases that we see in consultation, such as epileptic pseudocrisis, i e epileptic seizures, no neurological focus, no cerebral scar, no known cause, no convulsive waves in the electroencephalogram neurologic test in which we can study the waves of brain activity and which is commonly used to study subjects with epilepsy, the patient becomes convulsed and has all the symptoms of a seizure, but in a much more

contaminating and variegated way. Usually, the patient does not bite the tongue, pee on or move the limbs in a repeated and stereotyped manner. All these clinical clues will guide the neurologist to the psychological component of the crises and proceed to referral to psychiatry. It can then move the body unintentionally only by a

psychic conflict. This is exactly what we see in what in many cases ends up being catalogued as a conversive disorder neurological symptoms for which there is no medical explanation. Let' s see how it happens under normal conditions, a physiological process before an emotion is usually filtered by the prefrontal cortex is the one that controls the execution of such movements in a conscious way, giving rise to motor

behavior. But when our prefrontal brain fails executive control, the control we call top- down, the motor process can take place without a conscious process. Finally, other striking cases that we see in consultation are those related to dermatology. I still remember a woman attending a consultation who had lost all her hair to the universal opez because of the stress and shock caused by the sudden loss of her child in traumatic circumstances. In these cases, the physical appearance itself

also plays as a stressor and perpetuator of symptoms. In short, when the mind takes over or, we should say, loses it, the consequences on the body can be devastating. It is an excess of energy that cannot be put into words or that it is not enough to express in that way a surplus that needs to go out elsewhere, to explode all these cases, from the most striking to the most subtle, we see them daily in our consultations. Therefore, one of the first steps when treating these patients is to give

credibility to what they are telling us and validate suffering. If this is not done, the patient will not be consulted again and the therapeutic failure will be guaranteed. The symptoms that the patient exposes are as real as toothache from an infection. Are we judges of the different ways of suffering? Are not all equally valid. Who judges, who decides what is normal, that there is

no measurable physical finding means that the disease has no cause. As we have already said, the psychic can produce physical symptoms and vice versa, and normality is only a statistical concept that cannot clarify the difference between the physical and the mental. You knew that there are numerous studies that have tried to find the

variables that determine psychosomatic pathologies. The most researched are set out below. One experience that marks the most documented risk experience is physical or sexual abuse in childhood or neglect. At this same stage it has been shown that they are a frequent biographic history in subjects with unexplained somatic symptoms, conversion disorders or post-

traumatic stress disorder. These experiences seem to have a disorganizing effect on emotional regulation, on the balance of the organism and on the link with the other two structural psychological characteristics alexitinia inability to put emotions into words. People with alexithymia three have difficulty in introspecting and putting emotions into words. In addition, they have

a limited imaginative and non- verbal communication activity. The style of conduct is characterized by social isolation and by the tendency to action as a coping strategy, that is, as there is difficulty to reflect internally on emotions they are taken to action they act. This does not mean that there is an inability of sense to empathize, as happens to subjects with p CO PSS traits, but that the person with lexitimia does not know how to put into words their own

emotions or those of others. This makes it difficult at the emotional level and in its ability to relate to others. In fact, close ones can have a feeling of coldness and loneliness when they live with those who suffer from lexithynia. In addition, individuals with lexitimia tend to run away from excessively emotional reflections, romantic language and double senses, because their thinking tends to the concrete and

the literal, and all that makes them feel uncomfortable. Scientific studies also show that there is a higher prevalence of allexitimic characteristics among patients with unexplained somatic symptoms, eating behaviour disorders and consumption of psychotropic substances. Megaphone style is also known as somatosensory style and is understood as a more temperamental psychological variable, that is,

more related to the biological and genetic component of personality. According to Barsky, it is characterized by a tendency to excessive attention or perception and hypervigilance of the signals coming from the body, with a predisposition to select banal and uncommon sensations and to react to them in an alarming way. Neuroticism is a dimension of personality that describes the tendency to respond to stimuli from the environment with intense

and lasting emotional activation. It has been related to the activation of the sympathetic axis, the sufrarenal one of stress, so it increases the likelihood of discomfort, anxiety and bodily symptoms, tiredness, loss of appetite, pains, etc. It also tends to experiment with negative emotional states and mood swings like the

previous one. This is a genetically determined temperamental dimension that until recently had been considered, based on studies, the most potent psychological variable in the prediction of depressions, anxiety disorders and unexplained bodily symptoms. A recent in- depth analysis has shown that it is intolerance to uncertainty that most predisposes to affective alterations four, hostility, tendency to emotional responses of anger or anger and the display of

aggressive behaviors. This has traditionally been seen as part of what is known as a standard pattern of behavior that had been considered a decisive determinant in the risk of coronary pathology, for example, myocardial infarction, which is currently in question.

Hostility has also been associated with indirect psychosocial variables. For example, people with more hostility and aggressiveness lack social support because they tend to drive people away or are more likely to not feed well, smoke or drink too much, all of which influence cardiac risk factors. Five negative affectivity, trait or personality variable that speaks of a person' s predisposition to more intensely experience negative emotions.

Six. It is not a permanent condition or mental alteration, but a trait that will influence and modulate our adaptive abilities and our greater or lesser tendency to somatize concealing emotions does not work. People with the greatest tendency to have psychosomatic pictures are often also those who have the most difficulty expressing their emotions. They usually tend to cover them up, deny them, or hide them. The only idea that the cause of how much happens to them may be of

emotional origin does not like an apex. They prefer to think that they have a medical problem for which there will be treatment, as this is much more tolerable to them. Trying to hide emotions, suppress them, ignore them, or avoid them is like trying to submerge a balloon full of air under the water. It will end up reaching the surface one way or another, so the next time you try to drown your sorrows. Remember this phrase of frid kahlo I tried to drown my sorrows, but they learned to swim. The

inhibition of a particular emotional state is counterproductive. Studies by James Cross, a psychologist and researcher at Skenfored University showed how inhibition of our emotions leads to greater activation of the sympathetic nervous system. That is, suppressing the expression of emotions magnifies the accompanying physiological response of ordained planners. Among the most appropriate strategies are, for example, observing, trying to regulate in its absence, accepting emotions

or thoughts. Some experiments show this, as it has been seen that people who have a greater capacity for compassion and kindness towards themselves are less likely to use suppression mechanisms exercises such as full attention. It is precisely in that, not to suppress negative thoughts or emotions, but to let them flow and accept them. We can modify our body' s response through mental exercise in order

to deal more successfully with stressful situations. When we are facing a difficult or stressful situation, it is our body that reacts and gives us an emotionally unpleasant feeling. Some studies show that awareness of these reactions or exercises such as full

attention reduce the peripheral response of the body and the response to stress. Walliam James said that our best weapon against stress is our ability to choose one idea before another, referring precisely to that ability we have to modulate the body' s responses through the mind. While it is true that this might sound a little fantastic. Mr. Wonderfod, we can use them as tools to prevent

stress. It can be said that when there is no fluid dialogue between the mind and the body, this relationship is altered, becomes unbalanced, increases stress hormones or values that indicate inflammation. The TNF or the now known PCR seven, weakens, the immune system, etcetera. If we suddenly start with a picture of irritable colon or accentuation of a soriasis and try to put the solution

where it is not at all. For example, by focusing only on psychic manifestation, it is possible that the condition not only does not improve, but is chronicled. The body mind relationship is of double direction and the balance between the two will be key to maintaining the homeostasis state of the organism, constancy of the properties of the internal environment of the body. The degree of affectation of diseases such as irritable colon decreases when we are able to understand that the

mind and body do not work as autonomous or separate entities. When we understand how our emotions manifest, how to regulate and synchronize them with our cardiovascular and respiratory system, when we practice relaxation technique or acquire healthy, physical and mental habits to cope with anxiety and stress. To take note, first of all, it is important to distinguish stress from anxiety, as they are often used

interchangeably. Stress is usually of identifiable origin, a move, a divorce process, etc. And it has an external cause, while anxiety usually has a diffuse origin and its origin is internal. In stress the main mediator is worry,

while in anxiety it is fear. Stress, in an ideal situation, should disappear when the stimulus that has given rise to it ceases, for example, at the end of the move, while anxiety lengthens over time, stress can be managed in a more immediate and accessible way, since we can put limits to the situation that is generating it. Stress can cause anxiety, but

it can also lead to depression, dissociative pictures, etcetera. Strategies to manage stress, care for good habits, sleep seven or eight hours, avoid toxic consumption, exercise, etcetera. Practice acceptance. Many times we' re stressed

out because we don' t want to give up anything. We refuse to accept that we cannot do everything and that sometimes there is nothing left but to accept certain losses, to have clear priorities in life, to practice exercises of relaxation and meditation, dissociation when body and mind are separated, when we are

faced with a limit situation. When we fail to adapt or face a situation that overflows our resources, a mechanism known as dissociation can also appear, in which our mind disconnects something like distance or separate to cushion the blow, so as not to feel the emotional pain that can become unbearable. This process leads us to amnes o o o or RNAr Do not remember what happened, makes us distance ourselves or separate ourselves from what we have felt and does not allow

us to distinguish what is real from what is not. It is, therefore, an adaptive mechanism that is activated at the unconscious level and that we observe in situations where the person feels that he cannot escape his maximum representation. We would find her in cases of child abuse or ill- treatment. The subject remains paralyzed as a prey that remains motionless before its predator to prevent it from hurting, harming and even ending its life. He is in a state of

emotional anesthesia, faced with a situation that exceeds our psychological coping resources. Our mind, disconnects from the body, escapes from the present and reality. There is a division of our identity that will cost to keep integrated. According to international society for the study of trauma and dissociation, the term association refers in particular to disconnection or lack of connection between elements that are usually so associated with

each other. Conscience, memory, perception and identity. Thus, gaps in memory, emotional anesthesia, depersonalization and derealization can appear. In the face of a traumatic situation, the release of endogenous opioids is triggered that will play a

key role as natural anesthetics of physical and emotional pain. It increases the stress hormone cortisol, which can alter the functioning of the hippocampus, which is the brain structure responsible for the various memories and which allows us to give meaning to our life history. In addition, there seems to be a disconnect between the brain regions responsible for our conscious behaviors, the frontal areas and the regions responsible

for the emotional limbic system. All these changes allow us to explain why in the face of a state of dissociation, for example, after a traumatic experience, we present gaps of memory with respect to what happened. It is difficult for us to reconstruct history in its entirety, or we are unable to connect with the emotions of pain. A lack of integration of different aspects of the individual, of his emotions, of his bodily sensations, of his cognitions,

of his identity. One of the types of dissociation that we can often see is what is known as depersonalization, in which the individual can feel like an observer of the situation, like an automaton. You don' t feel connected

to your body, you have a feeling of strangeness about yourself. You may feel that it is observed from the outside and does not recognize yourself or perceive that some parts of your body are often changing co- exist with derealization, in which you give an altered perception of the environment with a sense of unreality. Both are experiences in which oneself or the environment appear as changed strangers,

as if we were in a movie or in a dream. The subject may feel that he is going crazy not to understand and not be able to explain what happens to him, although it is not serious or dangerous situations for the person who suffers them, without being distressing, disturbing, confused and generating a

great discomfort. Hence the fear of experiencing them again. Unlike what happens in a psychotic picture in which there is a loss of contact with the reality of lilies or hallucinations, Here the person is aware that perception is not real in

serious cases. Failure to properly process traumatic situations can lead to post- traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety disorder, dissociative personality disorder, dissociative psychosis, etc. The elaboration of what we have not managed to process the dissociated is a delicate and painful process that will require specialized help. However, it is not necessary to have experienced serious trauma in our life to present moments of dissociation.

Almost half of the population has ever had dissociative experiences in high- wave situations of anxiety or stress, for example, when we have to give a public talk and the nervousness and fear we feel suddenly make us see ourselves talking like an automaton without really connecting with what we are saying. In addition, substances such as LSD and marijuana can also cause these experiences. The alter ego and the different identities. The concept of alter ego eight has been used to

call the other self as if it were a personality modification. Unlike dissociation, the alter ego does not imply trauma, amnesia, or significant alterations in identity, nor does it imply a decrease in the activity of the tonsil or hippocampus. In the alter ego, the same individual is able to experience himself in different ways. This term has been widely used in the world of the arts,

especially in music and literature. We can find some interesting examples in the musical arena, such as that of the famous rock singer of the sixties, Jeanes Japlin, described as an introverted person. He was so eager to get on stage that an alternative character named Peall was created to be able to face

the public. Pearl was very different, a wild and poorly spoken girl, who didn' t care about criticism Yannis Joplin had suffered rejection and bullying in childhood, something repeated a few months before her death, when, during a school alumni meeting, she wanted to teach her former companions how she was the rock star she had become. Surprisingly, he again suffered the same rejection he had experienced as a child. We don' t know if it was related

to his death or not. But the truth is that a few months later she was found dead as a result of an overdose one more star of the 27- year- old club, such as ccobn, Amy Winehouse, Jemosen, etc. Nine David Powe developed not one but several. Alter ego at the beginning had been described by the BBC label, with which he had tried to get a job as a boring guy to succeed or to impact the audience. However, Bowiy kept trying and not only got a contract, but became

an icon that transcended the musical. David Bowiy incarnated four characters that he gave life to for years in the Segis Saras arenas in Saint Major trum of Ten White Yout that combined the androgine and extravagance as signs of identity, although the last one was a more measured and elegant alter ego. This is how many artists have managed to develop and cultivate other facets that were not able to fit

and deploy from the self that they had formed over the years. A typical example is the one we have described, in which a very introverted person can come out of different social situations through the new character that has been created. The alr e or becomes a way of overcoming fears or social anxiety. It is a way to get in touch with experiences, situations and people that would

otherwise be very difficult to get to know. If this alter ego is created from a solid and integrated self, that is, if it is able to see and recognize itself as a complete and unique being and without split parts, parts of oneself that are not recognized, it can enrich the person who will be able to dare to experiment in other fields. Here the concept of identity comes into play, that is, we have an integrated view of ourselves that

may be altered, for example, in dissociative and personality disorders. We all have within us a potential artist or a curious divulgator who, due to the circumstances, we have not developed, but who can always come out. Consider, for example, a successful lawyer from a New York law firm who suddenly decides to unleash his passion for music or a serious administration of a powerful company

that presents his works of abstract art in a street exhibition. Creating an alter ego can be a way out of the boundaries that we set ourselves and that are often based on our own stereotypes. Getting out of the usual self could serve to achieve goals with less effort, like when we put on the superhero costume as kids or when in therapy we do bodviile exercises. In colloquial terms,

it could equal the fék denhodumeket fingelo until you are. However, many will be thinking that it is not an easy field, because in social networks we very often see people who make up their alter ego as a character far removed from their real self and that it is not always functional. And it is that if this alter ego develops upon a diffuse personality with a fragile self, as happens on many occasions, these different facets can create an even greater

void in the person. This will either hinder integration and promote personality diffusion, all of which will generate more anxiety and confusion, as well as the feeling of not knowing who I am. The extreme case can be seen in severe childhood traumas that can lead to the above mentioned dissociative identity disorder known as multiple

personality disorder. How then to distinguish the alter ego from a dissociative disorder, although they are not strictly scientific but rather features that we present as curiosity, we could establish the following differences. First, the alter ego develops in a conscious way, that is, the artist creates a character with a specific purpose, for example, to behave in a more seductive and attractive way on stage or to represent the character of a novel. Author' s alter ego.

In dissociative disorder, these processes are unconscious and the invented characters control the person. In the dissociative disorder there is also a loss of memory amnescia with respect to that character, which can be total or partial. In the alter ego, the subject has consciously created a new personality and there are no memory failures, dissociative escape episodes or lack of continuity between thought, memory and action.

It could be said that in the alter ego there is a continuity, because the subject feels himself, while in dissociative disorders, the subject has the feeling of being separated from himself and his emotions, or perceives the environment in a distorted way and with a sense of unreality. Under this prism, the alter ego could allow us to come into contact with emotions and experiences that would cost us much longer to reach. Perhaps it can be considered a healthy and healthy

way to help some patients change like a Bob Hine. Or, on the basis of this concept, it could be achieved that those patients who have parts that have not been able to integrate could do so through the figure of the alter ego of hysteria as an evil of the uterus to the functional cadres.

It is possible that, after the above, you still create confusion to some of the terms mentioned, such as dissociation, conversion, somatization, etc. Patients with physical and mental symptoms without organic cause have always been a great diagnostic and therapeutic challenge for medicine. Hysteria was one of the first disorders studied and

was an account of the importance of mental conflict and body representation. It was understood as a disorder characterized by psychic changes and emotional alterations that were accompanied by physical pictures such as seizures and paralysis, without any apparent cause this is but an objective medical cause. Beyond the psychological, in ancient times it was attributed

to the malfunction of the uterus. Jean Martin Charcot, father of 19th century neurology and master of Freud, was one of the great scholars of hysteria. In fact, he was the first to reject the hypothesis that hysteria was a disease of the uterus and to point out that there was an underlying neurological problem in those patients suffering from paralysis, analgesia or hypersensitivity. Likewise, Janet and that Freud pointed out the secondary psychological harm to sexual abuse in childhood of many

of these patients. The hysteria study established very fruitful connections between neurology and psychiatry, as it revealed the relationship between the psychic and motor conditions. But today it is still a mysterious, complicated and difficult disease to solve. Hysteria is considered by some as a condition that cannot be defined and will never be followed. Hysteria is chameleonic, that is, its symptoms vary with the culture and

the time the patient has had to live. Its mutability makes it very difficult to narrow down. It evolves according to the culture, society, fashions, medical knowledge and attention given to it at each time. Throughout the 20th century the classical manifestations of hysteria were decreasing in the Western world until they ended up

being replaced by those we now know as functional somatic syndromes. Fibromialge, chronic fatigue syndrome and irritable bowel syndrome, among others, in which biological phenomena similar to those of hysteria were observed, but transformed into their clinical expression according to the sign of the times. The most important factors that have contributed to the evolution of these functional syndromes are summed up very well by psychiatrist Luis Caballero in

his book A Gift from Julia Diez. On the one hand, the disassociation of family life and the consequent loss of sense and instrumental utility of hysterical symptoms in family psychodrama, that is, from a psychological and unconscious point of view, the symptoms presented by the patient served him to avoid confrontations and confrontations and

so allowed him to avenge grievances. On the other hand, there is the increasing sensitivity of the Western population to bodily discomfort, which is generally attributed to better- accepted physical than psychological illnesses. Eleven. Today, the term hysteria has fallen into disuse by its pejorative and sexist connotations and has been replaced by that of histrionism, without it offering any clear advantage, either from the clinical

point of view or from the semantic point of view. In addition, the functional term twelve is used to refer to a whole group of syndromes in which there is an absence of identifiable medical cause. Some of the terms that continue to be used are somatomorphic or physical symptoms that refer to bodily symptoms without psychosomatic organic justification, which is synonymous with the former in that physical symptoms appear without

a demonstrable organic pathology. But here the symptoms are accompanied by damages of some physiological system, e g, stomach bracelet, by conversive stress word indicating the relationship between physical manifestations of psychic origin, but which reproduce symptoms of the order of neurological or dissociative, term indicating that the disorder arises at an unconscious level

and that there is a disconnection of the mind with the body. However, these terms continue to generate some confusion and are inaccurate when it comes to account

for all the factors involved in such tables. However, progress in neurosciences and techniques that allow us to explore brain activity with extraordinary precision, for example, functional magnetic resonance imaging has allowed us to observe that certain brain areas of patients with hysterical paralysis are different from those of healthy subjects, who in an experiment

pretended to have that same paralysis. Perhaps if in the medical field we have kept the functional word to refer to the symptoms ns without an organic cause identifiable in more colloquial terms, we can continue to use somatization to encompass all of the above and show that there are mental symptoms expressed through our body when attention

to the signs of the body is excessive. If I asked you to try to think of a disorder where there is excessive attention to the body, it is possible that the first thing that came to your head were eating behavior disorders, since in these disorders an exaggerated importance is attached to the image and body silhouette. But curiously, in these patients too we find a lack of connection

to their own body. Now I am not referring to this kind of concern, but to the excessive tension towards the signals of the body, that is, when the signals of the interoceptive interior are magnified, as happens in hypochondria thirteen. In these subjects, any sign of the organism can be interpreted as indicative of a disease. Moreover, these signs confirm a great fear of the

patient. I' m sure I can feel this burning because I' m sick because I' ve contracted the H I. Moreover, in times of pandemic, the term hypochondria has become fashionable, has gone viral and has started to be used with the same lightness as we say. I' m stressed out. We have all experienced some time of concern or concern about our health

since the outbreak of the pandemic. However, to this concern somewhat greater than usual in the pandemic context, we might well call virochondria, but understand it as a fear in the range of normality and proportional to the situation that we have had to live only when that fear is irrational and excessive maintained in the limitless time. Yes, for example, it slows me down and prevents me

from maintaining my usual daily activity. We can think in terms of a disorder in the hypochondria about an exaggerated concern about suffering or contracting a serious illness. The person misinterprets normal physical variations or sensations, such as the presence of all or normal changes in heart rate. There is a misprocessing of body information accompanied

by a sense of defenselessness, which triggers anxiety for health. In addition, uncertainty and a need for absolute certainty are often highly intolerant in these people. When this discomfort occurs in an excessive and lasting way more than six months it interferes with the functionality of the subject. We speak properly of disorder, but in times of pandemic, it may be nuanced that hypochondria may appear as a symptom associated with depressive and psychotic states. In other words, they would be

transient hypochondriac symptoms that experience subjects exposed to crisis situations. In addition, there is another term that should be distinguished. It is lansophobia, a picture that is easily confused with the previous one, but that belongs to the field of phobias and has different characteristics. You knew that not all your concern for bodily symptoms is hypochondria. Most of these symptoms will be normal, but they could

also be nosophobia. Let' s look at the differences between one and the other to understand the subject with hypochondria We' ll call it H and densophobia. N One H is convinced of having a serious illness. For example, a cancer ne does not think it has the disease, but has an exaggerated fear of contracting it. Two H. It is based on symptoms and body sensations that it exhibits to confirm itself that it suffers from the disease in it.

He doesn' t usually have body symptoms. Three H and Peranalisa study and interpret body symptoms. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. What characterizes him is the no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

excessive irrationality of thought. Four hours. It cannot be removed from the head that has contracted a terminal illness. N leads a more or less calm life, provided it stays away from health centers that can confirm the disease. Five hours goes from doctor to doctor Stapher Schapin waiting for one to confirm the disease. Ne never goes to the doctor. By equivalence we could call him dapter Boydens six h is megaphone style or amplification of symptoms and their diffusion. Or

he shares it. N is ostrich style, that is, prefers to hide the head and live without knowing. These people are nato concealers. Seven h is a detective. He attends talks, searches everywhere for information about the possible disease. N is a avoider. He doesn' t see or read anything he can identify with or remind him of illness. If you don' t identify with either n or h you' ll just have a normal concern and

proportional to the situation I' ve touched you. Living as much as the other limits us or in our day- to- day lives, because we are short of time, they prevent us from being productive in our work, they reduce our social relations in general diminish our quality of life. To take note if you' re one of those who tends to hypochondria here you have

some healthy ways to deal with it. Try to remove yourself from the symptoms, avoid searching for diseases on the Internet, identify the limitations it creates, face fears and admit alternative views. Try to test reality, for example, by writing something on the basis of information provided by professionals. The real possibilities of our fears or worries, etcetera. Pay attention to the limitations it creates and consult with a specialist. Chapter 11. The body and the passage of

time aging only have one body for life. Ideate it. That body struck me, it became fragile, weakened by the passage of time, wrinkled, bent with a decrease and slowing of the bravisinence movements of those who have suffered hostomuscular injuries. There, in the small hall of Acts of the University of Zaragoza, were Mario Bunge, at the age of ninety, one of the most important contemporary philosophers. Little did he know about his philosophy at the time.

So what first caught my attention was something that seemed incongruous of that body already punished for the years. One of the most lucid and eloquent speeches I have ever heard came out. The words sprang up in an agile manner, the associative capacity was overwhelming and the sense of subtle, elegant and fast humor. At that time, I was a victim of the prejudices of my stereotypes about the old age of Dadasism and they were very unaware of what is happening

at this stage. My work put outside in psychogeriatric consultations allowed me to realize this reality. Today, many people over the age of 90 enjoy full cognitive abilities. Like everything in life, old age is also relative in psychogeriatric consultations where those over seventy- five years of age arrive. A The only ones we consider to be elders are those of ninety- five. Upstairs, those in the 70s or 80s are young and those in the 80s are older.

That' s what we' re talking about. Among those who dedicated ourselves to this field has come a young patient of seventy- seven years of age with a depressive picture. We can say that the title of elder in our consultations is not reached until the nineties are over. In my experience in this field there are several false myths that I hear frequently and that usually bring my patients' relatives to consultation. With age he has lost many cognitive abilities.

Some say it' s older and it' s normal that I have some dementia, others point and the more widespread among the patients themselves I' m too old to do those things, or it' s too late to study a language. Older people can not only learn new things, but must. All these myths and false beliefs come from the negative stereotypes that exist about old age and that imply that it is no longer considered as an expression of experience and wisdom, but is associated with a loss of abilities and decay, so

experience loses value. Negative cliches lead to what is known as ageism or age discrimination, a term coined in the 1960s by Robert Butlan, a type of exclusion that makes older people have less access to jobs than young people who are treated in a discriminatory manner or even who are treated childishly by the population. With the latter, I mean what othertop has been called talking about childishing the

elderly person. Let' s look at an example of how these little pills are being taken by everyone, or the healthcare professional addresses the relatives directly, ignoring or leaving the patient in the background. Paquita is also a professor and emeritus professor at the university and is at a time in her life when she is able to enjoy more than ever, travel and devote time to social relations. But she' s still treated like she' s an incompetent person.

We have this kind of stigma so internalized that some older people as soon as certain disappointments appear or do not find the word they want to say, start to fear that they will develop a dementia. Many times they get to consult about it, without realizing that these memory failures are often related to an accelerated and stressful pace of life or to having too many things in mind. When

this happens di s gno innuyes the level of attention. One of the cognitive functions that facilitates memorization young people who feel old and old people who feel young. The most weight factor when you think about aging is age. However, it is important to note that there are different types of age, chronological age that we have according to the calendar Biological age, which has the body,

which will vary according to what we have treated or cared for. Physical age, which we appear to be by our physique, our lifestyle, etcetera. Psychological age, which we feel, social age, which corresponds to us by our social group, by our environment. There are very young people who surround themselves with older people and vice versa. If there' s an age we can change, it' s definitely the psychological age. It comes through our

attitude, well through a healthy lifestyle. It' s been s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s Young people have more to do with s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s

s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s

s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s s that psychological age, with continuing to be curious about things and about life, with greed, with continuing to learn, with facing difficulties with creativity and with moving away from the stereotypes of old age. Sometimes we strive to fight the passage of time, against the chronological age, trying to artificially change the biological,

resorting to all kinds of aesthetic touches and even surgical interventions. We try to patch the body and I am not trying to convince you not to resort to these techniques, although perhaps it is worth remembering that their use must be accompanied at least by the acceptance of the passage of time, because otherwise we will enter into an endless struggle and without senses, entry into the external aspect of the body, while we will forget the inner one or spend less time

with it. Having a full life and enjoying it implies enjoying the way and accepting that the passage of time is inevitable and a complete privilege spoilers of the eight stages of psychosocial development. We all consider anyone mortal, except ourselves Sigmund Freud. With aging, a series of anatomical, functional and physical transformations take place that take on the greatest importance in the person. While we said that often the body goes unnoticed, for many elders, the body can come to

a constant presence and with a negative connotation. The body weighs or feels lacking in energy, contact is made with the fragility of human matter. Death ceases to be something impersonal and distant to become a real and inescapable fact, both for others and for oneself. Other changes also pose a psychological challenge for the older adult, a repeated loss of family and friends. Therefore, there can be impoverishment of the relational and social fabric and a greater number of griefs for

loss of people and significant ns in life. A major change in the factors that provided recognition, power or sense of usefulness, such as work, a sense of defencelessness in the face of economic aspects, pensions that do not always depend on personal effort, but on political decisions, greater institutionalization. Moves and changes in your usual home are stress generators. There is a greater tendency for

interiority to review one' s life and seek meaning for it. The ability to overcome these changes will depend on the acceptance of the passage of time, as well as the ability to adapt and live a meaningful life. Some of these aspects may vary slightly depending on the time it has come to live in the person or culture in which he or she has grown up, since in some Eastern cultures old age is linked to wisdom and ability to contribute to others

and older ones have authority in families in Western societies. However, this can be seen as being provided with many of the support that it had at previous stages. Reaching this phase of life in which they unite past and future implies accepting and adapting to it. For much it will also be time to enjoy

relaxation, to enjoy the time to continue cultivating your passions. The way we face this stage will depend not only on the circumstances that accompany us, but on our attitude, on our ability to adapt to a stretch of life in which we are forced to contemplate death closely. The renowned psychoanalyst and Erikson has pointed out that there are eight phases in the psychosocial development of the person,

from birth to adulthood. Late. It is not my intention to carve them all, but to emphasize one last one, that which, incidentally, we should bear more in mind. Each of the stages described by this author is based on the successful completion of the previous one. They are all characterized by a psychosocial crisis of two opposing forces. If we successfully overcome these crises, new strengths are added to our self that enable us to overcome the next stage.

Stage one, Trust in mistrust, zero to eighteen months of age. Stage two. Autonomy in the face of shame and doubt eighteen months, three years, stage three. Guilt initiative three to five years. Stage four, laborious versus inferiority, five to thirteen years. Stage five. Exploring identity in the face of the spread of identity thirteen to twenty- one years. Stage six. Intimacy in the face of isolation, twenty- one to forty years.

Stage seven. Generativity in the face of stagnation forty to sixty years, stage eight integrity of the self in the face of despair from the sixties. Integrity refers to the ability to evaluate one' s life, give it meaning, consider everything it has deserved, the worth of being lived, to take responsibility for and accept the different experiences and to have been able to elaborate the losses or to face with creativity the disappointments of life, all of which in

order to accept one' s own finitude and death. People who have transcended their own being through the care of children, grandchildren or other human persons or collectives and who have contributed something in the emotional, relational, labor, scientific, etc field, no matter how little it has been, reach a state of integrity and accept their life as unique and unrepeatable. However, many of these qualities may be compromised by the subject' s physical and psychological conditions or

adverse circumstances. It will not always be easy to maintain the feeling of personal well- being. In fact, feelings of despair may appear because of the fear and anguish that death causes. The person may have the feeling that he or she is not able to rework everything lost, that he or she has no life left or time to go back, etc. The feeling of loss

is then imposed. There is no doubt that the reality of old age is complex and sometimes they offer models of generalists and simplistics that are inadequate to address ageing because they are based on an disproportionate cult of youth. Perhaps one of the most important keys is to take the reins of life in time from very soon so as not to live drifting or alien to the passage of time, without taking responsibility or accepting the reality that is imposed on us. Knowing these

stages and knowing what is in our hands. Changing us will be a big help. It will make us more likely to arrive with integrity at the last stage. At the same time, becoming aware of our limits will allow us to live more responsibly and fully with ourselves, appreciate the little things of life and get excited about what the passage of time in our body is all about. What really happens in our body with the passage of time, when do

we begin to age? Everything happens in a very slow way and the changes we have to look for first in our cells, As they age, their functioning deteriorates and in the end those aged cells will die something typical of the functioning of our organism. There is a kind of programmed death of arachirius or cell suicide, which we call apoptosis. Many cells are programmed for it and this comes encoded in their genes and in turn, determined by the age of

the cell. In this way, the aged cells will die to leave room for the new ones. Cells may also die from other factors, such as the fact that there is an excess of cells or that some are injured by harmful substances, such as radiation, chemotherapy drugs, free radicals, etc. On the other hand, the cells of our null body die on their own, because they can only divide a limited number of times that is inscribed in their genes. When a cell can' t keep dividing, it gets bigger

and dies soon. The mechanism that limits this cell division is directly related to a structure that we have on chromosomes and is called telomere. Telomeres are the ends of chromosomes and are composed of short and repeated sequences of DNA that guarantee genomic stability and that are shortened in each cell division until they become so small that chromosomal stability is endangered, something like cellular chronometers that carry the countdown.

Over time, telomeres become so short that the cell can no longer be divided. That' s why some talk about a programmed senescence that takes place when the cell stops dividing. To remember it more easily, telomeres have been compared to the ends of shoelaces. The proper functioning of our organs depends on the proper functioning of our cells. If they age and function worse or die and are not replaced, as in some organs, the total number of cells will

gradually decrease and alter the corresponding organ. However, not all organs age at the same speed. In the testicles and ovaries gonads, the number of cells decreases markedly with age. Other more exposed organs, such as the skin, will show the first signs of aging. Passed to the twenties when the first wrinkles appear. Most internal functions also decrease with age. Shortly before the age

of thirty, a gradual but steady decline begins. In this field, the brain presents itself as a special organ, since here aging is much slower, to the point that, if the person is in good health, his or her brain can reach practically intact to the advanced adult age. When aging begins. Strictly speaking, it could be said that we have grown old since we arrived in the world. In fact, if we measure biomarkers like telomeres, we will see that in the newborn they are much longer than in the young

child and that they are shortened accordingly. We' re doing years. But this is striking and very paradoxical. Not why one would expect aging to start just when growth ends when we finish developing. If we take into account that the development of the brain goes in parallel with that of our superior cognitive abilities, our reflexive, ethical and moral capacity, we could say that it coincides

with the culmination of the development of the prefrontal cortex around twenty years. It is the moment when we have full mental powers when we can be legally held accountable because we are held responsible for our conduct. You knew that there are several biological markers that have been studied in relation to aging. The telomeres mentioned above, those ends of chromosomes, whose wear indicates an increased risk of cancer

and whose shortening has been associated with aging. DNA methylation is the process by which methyl che three groups are added to DNA, which impacts gene transcription. For example, deactivating that geni causes patterns to form that allow us to stimulate how quickly or slowly we age in relation to our chronological age. This process, in fact, is the basis of the epigenetics that I will talk to you about in the following pages. It is an important predictor of the risk

of getting neurodegenerative diseases such as alcheimer, cardiovascular diseases, or cancer. Immune biomarkers. The presence of some specific types of our defense cells, lymphocytes, has been associated with an acceleration or slowing of aging. Just be born. These markers are the ones that largely determine aging, but as we turn out to be years old, it is the ambioma that becomes heavier because of its

cumulative character. It seems logical to think that when we are just born, it has not given us time to interact with the environment and, therefore, almost everything depends on what we bring from factory into our genes. Fortunately, it seems that this is reversed with age and that, therefore, we can influence how we age, that is, that we can modulate, accelerate or

slow it down. Our lifestyle, environmental noise, pollution, food, stress, and genetic heritage interact with each other and shape our health and quality of life. Although there are factors beyond our control, such as having been born in a country at war or having experienced traumatic events in it, childhood there are other environmental variables that, if it is in our hands, change,

for example, the stress, the food, the air we breathe. In short, what we do for our health, the brain is the New Saxy every human being. If you propose, you can be a sculptor of your own brain. Santiago Ramón and Cajal said that not all organs age at the same time nor do they lose the same number of cells. The brain is the best example. A healthy person who reaches advanced adulthood does not have to

have lost a lot of mental ability. However, in Alzheimer' s disease, Parkinson' s disease or in a stroke or other diseases called neurodegenerative diseases, there is a progressive loss of neurons therefore of functions. A person who does not suffer from disease would not have to have cognitive impairment, that is, a decline in his or her higher cognitive abilities. Language, memory, attention, concentration, executive functions, etcetera. There' s no excuse.

We can have an old but young brain at the same time. Maybe that ' s why most people repeat I often feel the same as when I was 20 years old trapped inside a wrinkled body. The brain has more neurons than it needs to perform most of its functions. This is called redundancy. This property, along with the ability to establish new synaptic connections through brain cells and the ability to neurogenesis form new neurons in some brain areas, makes the brain

able to compensate for the passage of time. In addition, the brain works largely under the ema yus of odo to be used or disaster of it. The more we drive this organ with new stimuli, such as the learning of our own narrowness, the greater the number of neural synapses connections that will be established, that is, new paths, new pathways, new paths in the

brain, brain circuits. The more we have, the greater our ability to adapt and resolve conflicts, because we will be able to come up with different options to solve a problem. However, if we always do the same thing and do not introduce any new change or learning, our brain will get used to thinking the same way, to always going the same way and as if a path on a snowy mountain, it is. The more we go through it, the easier it will be for us to move. As long as

we open a new path, we will have to do much more. And here we have to talk about the famous neuroplasticity, that property that the brain has to establish new connections, therefore, to modify and mold itself. Like it' s made of plasticine. We could say that we have the potential to sculpt our own brain from interaction with the environment. Our brain is not a muscle, but it' s plastic and that' s why we can also train it. The Nobel Prize laureate eirt tends to whom we owe this

wonderful concept. He said that our brain is constantly changing and that even the same therapy produces brain changes. You knew our brain was much more flexible than you think. In fact, it' s plastic or rather neuroplastic. Today we know that the brain is able to generate new neurons in some regions and even to modify both functionally and structurally. Neuroplasticity occurs because our neurons activate and

transmit information to each other. When this simultaneous activation is repeated, with a certain frequency, the neurons themselves undertake an intense process of union between them by creating neural ramifications that modify their microstructure. They will thus be much better prepared to send information and to activate at the same time. Hence the well- known phrase in the scientific world of nova hanstei fires and the neurons that are

activated at the same time remain connected. Neuronal plasticity therefore shows the faculty of our brain to restructure and cope with certain cognitive impairment lesions, tumors, etc. It will be a matter of time before knowledge of this fascinating capacity can be used to cope with certain neurodegenerative diseases and disorders. Synaptic plasticity was demonstrated by scientist erect Kendall, who received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for his research

on strengthening neural connections associated with long- term learning and memory formation. In fact, it was observed that London taxi drivers learning by heart routes to obtain the license had a higher amount of gray substance in the right hippocampus, area related to space navigation and that, on the other hand, jugglers present more grey substance in areas related to motor and visual activity. Similar studies are being

done with people who meditate and the findings are very promising. This neuronal plasticity makes our ability to adapt to circumstances very high, so it' s important to keep it in mind and not waste it. But then we can talk about brain changes shared by all older people. Generally speaking, these people can have the same brain performance as younger people. Differences write that older people react and perform tasks more slowly, but if they are given a little more time,

they are able to perform them correctly. From the age of seventy, some mental functions, such as processing speed, executives and level of attention, may be diminished and affect other functions, such as memory, secondaryly. Hence, as we said before, it is so common that with age people begin to fear that they are developing dementia insofar as they are not so memory failures that they are actually the result of other functions and not directly from memory.

Finally, neuroimage studies show a greater intervention of concomitant brain regions to achieve the same result as if the brain had to use more resources and make a greater effort to reach the same point. However, if they have reached adulthood safely and have the necessary time, older people can achieve the same results as younger ones. We must not forget that accumulated knowledge gives us another perspective and a

good associative capacity. The key is to continue to surprise us and stimulate our brain with some of the factors that are scientifically endorsed as drivers of the table improve our cognition, such as physical activity, cognitive enrichment and social relationships. Aging can be slowed down. Luck favors the prepared mind. Louis paster. Ageing is understood by most of the scientific community as a natural and inevitable process.

Large companies have launched themselves into an irrepressible race to find the elixir of eternal youth and there are even those who see aging as a disease that can be treated and cured. However, with data from current science, we cannot make such an assertion about aging. Let' s just say we' re not in a position to refute Wentston Churchill' s famous phrase. There are only two things safe in this life, taxes and death, at least in

all its extent, as more than one uses trickery to evade taxes. Now, if we cannot cure death, we can always delay the at least modulate it. And to talk about this, we need to talk about epigenetics first. What is epigenetics? We are the result of a beautiful dance between our genes and our environment. If I asked you what you' d rather have

the genes or the environment, which one you' d choose. Genetics would be something like the seeds that one sows under the ground to plant a tree, while the environment would represent the land that surrounds it its geographical location, the direct or familiar environment, where it is located, the fertilizer and care it receives, etc. The environment represents the most moldable part, although in the first years of life it also comes to us imposed, for example,

if we have been born in a country at war, and it will also be decisive in the germination of those seeds. You may not see it clearly, because it may seem as important as what we inherit on our chromosomes, as the environment around us. Now, the genetic gene is not as immovable as it may appear. In fact, an emotional, intense or traumatic experience

could modify our genes and reach our offspring. This is explained by epigenetics, the science that allows us to understand why two identical monozygous twins develop different personalities or present different medical conditions despite sharing the same DNA. The reason lies precisely in this modulation of the expressiveness of DNA, which is mediated by the environment.

This modulation is exercised through the placement of pins on DNA and which are known as methylation, chemical markings that, placed on the genetic material, are capable of activating or deactivating the expression of DNA. In short, our environment can lead to changes in ADN. From this point of view, the potential of what surrounds us and what surrounds us is multiplied. We have the potential to influence both what we have received by genetics and what we have had in

environmental circumstances. At least to a certain extent. You knew that epigenetics comes from the Greek EPI which means in ozobre and genetics refers to the study of the mechanisms that regulate the expression of genes, without there being an alteration in the DNA sequence itself, the functioning of the cells implies that the gene sequence can be read and transformed into proteins, which are precisely the ones that make the cell function effective. When on this DNA we add a marker like the

known methyl groups, we can block or suppress gene expression. And these are the epigenetic mark of how the environment influences and can modulate our DNA. A DNA vetilation. These mechanisms are at the epicenter of many of the most novel research in oncology and neuroscience, as we can intervene and influence the genome by reducing the weight of the genome in our lives. In fact, there is

talk of positive or negative epigenetics. Tobacco, stress, excessive consumption of alcohol or solar radiation are examples of a negative epigenetics, while healthy living habits, such as physical exercise, would be a type of epigenetics that we might call positive. Some researchers consider that progress in this field will reverse aging with what is known as cellular reprogramming, which consists of eliminating all epigenetic markings, broaches

or methylations of DNA that we have accumulated throughout our lives. Raúl de morales. It summarizes epigenetics in a beautiful metaphor suitable for all those scientists who lead science to couple relationships. Which is epigenetic and you ask me. Epigenetics you are the brain savings the elixir of eternal youth. If he' ll ask you what your savings are? I' m sure he' ll be able

to answer me perfectly. But if I told you I meant your brain savings, how long you' ve invested in your brain, how much you' ve saved. If you are reading this book, it is very likely that you are one of those who have raised this question or will raise it in the near future. And it is that there is much talk of investments and savings to obtain material things or to stop the external aging, that of the body through surgeries and plastic and aesthetic interventions. But, little is said about

the reversal in neural terms, you know the concept of cognitive reserve. The cognitive reserve is one that will allow us to cope with the passage of time or the small aggressions that we may suffer. High blood pressure or cholesterol can lead to small micro- infarcts of the brain that would be equivalent to the ability of the brain to continue to function optimally. Despite the damage or injury.

In a more colloquial language, the cognitive reserve, we could call it brain savings because they allow us to cushion the negative effects of unexpected and unexpected damage. Today we know that in the face of a brain injury or aggression not everyone responds the same with the same deficits and deficiencies. Imagine that we could scan the brain of all people, for example, with an MRI and

choose an age group, say the seventy- year- old. It is possible that we found brains rather intact and others with many microlesions, i e microinfarctions, accumulation of amyloid, etc. Well, in case there is the same brain damage, those people might show very different mental abilities. One would present manifest deficits and the other would be perfect. How this is possible is due precisely to that cognitive reserve or brain savings that we have accumulated throughout life.

In this way, the realization of activities that initiate our cognitive abilities, reading, calculus, socialization, exercise, etc, can protect us from premature aging and cognitive deterioration. Two types of cognitive reserve, the brain reserve or passive model and the active model have been described. The first refers to the anatomical substrate from which we depart, something like what we bring from factory,

since not all brains are exactly the same. The second, which is the one that interests us the most here, is the one that refers to the ability to adapt and the flexibility of neural networks and circuits, which is what makes them more efficient. This brain reserve or brain savings is what we can stimulate through physical activity, study, social relationships, etcetera. That is to

say, that is precisely what we must invest in. This requires a healthy lifestyle, although both models will determine that we can more or less successfully compensate for a brain injury or that we can recover from it. The second is the most accessible. The degree of physical and cognitive stimulation that our brain receives throughout our life is going to be in direct relation to that cognitive reserve and

what are the main ways to stimulate it. Knowledge, education, studies, the most repeatedly mentioned factor in research as predictor of cognitive reserve, work the more stimulating, better leisure activities and social relationships, languages, learning new rules of language physical exercise thanks to stimulation of neurotrophic factors, food of the brain

and reduction of stress. As we saw in chapter six healthy habits. Beyond the above, it is often said that healthy habits for the heart are also for the brain. These healthy lifestyles are well known, balanced diet, rest, enough hours of night sleep, physical exercise, staying intellectually active, not consuming toxic, tobacco, alcohol, etcetera. Incorporate strategies to cope with stress,

maintain social relationships, etcetera. As they represent a global benefit that is also in our potential hand, they will always be in our best allies. Physical exercise, for example, has been shown to have important beneficial effects on our brain and cognitive abilities. Some studies have even found that people at higher risk of developing Alzheimer' s disease, carriers of the gene poe four with exercise, acquire brain protection mechanisms that allow mitigating the sequelae of this disease.

All these habits have an element in common. They take us away from stress, one of the greatest enemies of our balance, or or on when it occurs in excess or surpasses us. Stress can be a great ally if it stimulates or keeps us in tune to perform, for example, in an exam, not to face a challenging situation. However, if we get past the west stress it stays in time, it can get to block us. Stress increases the release of hormones such as cortisol, two capable of weakening our immune

system and favoring our predisposition to some diseases. It acts as a virus that is socially accepted, a virus that advances stealthily in our organism and takes away energy vitality, ultimately physical and mental health. Some of the long- term stress damage includes brain changes. More specifically, we have scientific evidence that stress reduces the size of the hippocampus, the most prominent region in memory processes and

the prefrontal cortex. It directly affects the respiratory cardio system, that is, it puts our body in an alarm situation, so it tries to distribute oxygen more quickly throughout the body through the blood. Blood vessels will also narrow to carry oxygen to the muscles and allow us to flee if necessary. It weakens the immune system, which predisposes us to catch colds and any type of viral process. It forces the liver to produce more glucose in the blood for more

energy, which has harmful effects added by the increase in the body. It causes changes in the digestive system, poor digestion, gastric reflux, ulcers, diarrhea, or stress. It weakens skin and hair. We have all been able to observe as other seasons of stress, all of a sudden we present some gray hair or a skin with a more weakened appearance that tell politicians, which of them has not left Moncloa with the tiniest hair. In short,

stress produces all kinds of havoc in the same organism. You' re even stressed out to read this, but be able to anticipate negative news helps us lower your levels. In addition, we have even more powerful tools to counteract its effects, such as the already mentioned healthy lifestyle habits that we all have at our disposal. By the way, I have forgotten to mention an important factor that should be included among these habits of life, hugs. These are

able to reduce our stress levels. In some studies in rats, if they received caresses and physical contact during the early years of life, less glucocorticoids were added to stress hormones in adulthood, which in turn had a protective effect on aging processes. This also happens in humans, because, as we have mentioned in chapter four, the sense of touch is impressin nle in the early stages

of existence and continues to be relevant for the rest of life. Although we may not be able to cure aging by hugging, we do have an undeniable potential to modulate it. Finally, being satisfied with life, accepting the passage of time, as well as feeling respected and needed during the last stages, will play a very important role. A matter of attitude. Aging is inevitable, some will say, and it is true. It is an inevitable and complex process, but on which we can influence, not only with habits,

but with our attitude. And it' s not toxic positivism. There are studies that indicate this. Our conception of old age influences our own life expectancy. A more positive perception is linked to an increase in the time lived seven six years and the other variables are controlled. Stereotypes about old age begin to acquire in the early years of life and have been seen to influence certain aspects of older people' s mental health, so that in many people they end

up becoming self- fulfilling prophecies. The impact of these stereotypes reaches a very

interesting phenomenon that I take advantage of to tell you right here. It is the prahaimind effect and prime influence of exposure to certain stimuli in our behavior studied by Barbi and his collaborators, who showed as individuals who had been exposed to words related to old age, but without being aware of it, they walked more slowly during the minutes following the exposure than those who had been exposed to

other semantic contents. You knew that, in an experiment carried out by Johan Bart and his collaborators, a group of young people between the ages of eighteen and twenty were asked to form four- word phrases with a group of terms, for example, yellow in find it instantly, but some of the young people had been interspersed with words related to old age, oblivion, wrinkles,

desire, etc, without ever mentioning the word old age. At the terminal they were asked to go to another room to perform another experiment in an office that was further away to the one they would have to walk. That short distance was precisely the objective of the experiment. As Barca had predicted, those who had been exposed to words related to old age walked more slowly through the lobby, that is, the set of words related to old age had enhanced

a behavior such as walking slowly, which is associated with the elderly. This study is a classic example of how the Prahimindi effect works and how the information received can modulate our behavior. The internalization of social stereotypes about the elderly and negative attitudes underlying social exclusion are acquired during the early years of life. These

stereotypes and attitudes raise age as the key element of old age. In addition, they are reinforced and supported by various groups, including health professionals through Uther Chuck. However, today we know that the advanced age of a subject is not a sufficient indicator to talk about his or her state of health and function,

intellectual performance, integration and adaptation to changes. Therefore, it is important to get rid of stereotypes about old age, to understand well the effects of the passage of time on our body and brain and to have an optimistic and realistic view, since all this will make us live more and better. On the other hand, studies indicate that levels of self- satisfaction do not decline

with age. The middle- aged adult usually defines himself as a healthy subject, even if he has guidelines between three and eight, different pills put more wrinkles into life. Try to live as if you were going to die tomorrow and learn as if you were going to live forever. Maatma gandhy. If we could translate with some kind of gauge the number of brain wrinkles and make

an equation, it would be something like that. Experiences experienced more knowledge, more habits of life, equal to the number of brain wrinkles, the ability to retreat over itself that our brain has has been related to its ability to establish interconnections, which seems to differentiate us from other species in some way. The more wrinkled and folded the brain, the more mental capacity it seems to hold. So those wrinkles, both feared in other parts of the body,

turn out to be dear to our brain. Brain wrinkles, circumvolutions, and grooves or fissures allow the brain to occupy less space. In fact, if we could extend it, it would measure about two point, five, zero, zero square centimeters. The size of a small table of IKEA, the absence of brain wrinkles is what is known as licencephaly, a condition that causes a serious cognitive and motor delay in Alzheimer' s disease, for example,

reduces brain tissue and widens the grooves. In addition, the ventricles, that is, the chambers of the brain that contain cerebrospinal fluid are markedly enlarged. A greater number of brain creases or wrinkles have been associated with higher cognitive abilities,

such as those of humans versus other species. However, even though the species is considered the most intelligent, some animals have brains with a greater amount of twists, for example dolphins, elephants, etc. What does seem clear is that the more brain folds, the more likely there are to be synnapsis neural connections. So you know don' t take wrinkles out of life and put more life into giving wrinkles, because I' m sure they keep track

of everything lived, learned and enjoyed. In fact, to the rhythm that we go with the aesthetic touches according to a whole series of very marked canons that lead us to increasingly similar faces. In the future we will bind more by our brain wrinkles than by the absence of facial wrinkles. Wiseness or attraction

to the intellectual will have the open way to generalize. You imagine a future where augmented reality allows us to visualize the brain wrinkles that we face to take note of how to get a sexy and wrinkled brain invests in your old age and I don' t mean pension plans, but the good habits that we ' ve talked about. We are obsessed with prolonging life and yet we do nothing but shorten it, speeding up time, taking care of it, without

knowing how to take advantage of it. If you' re still here reading these lines, it' s already on the way to reading this is assuming a passive role, understanding the next step is to put it into practice, to learn it, to achieve it, imagine new situations and take them to practice. Learn new things, practice, exercise, enhance social relationships, learn to regulate your emotions. I' ll talk to you about it in the next few pages. Chapter 12. Adversity as an opportunity what is your degree

of tolerance to uncertainty. The species that survives is not the strongest or the smartest, but the species that best adapts to changes. Charles Darwin, every time a crisis takes place, the first thing we do, besides worrying, is anticipate. All the media are launching to send us figures, tests estimates,

statistics and forecasts about the funto a hard socio- economic. We spend our lives planning the future and trying to predict it to control uncertainty, but we witness illusions of prediction, as we are not able to foresee what will happen tomorrow. In fact, if we could predict it, we' d be continually planning white swans. Yeah, the opposite of Black Swan. If you haven' t read the book of the same title, I invite you to do so. The concept of Black Swan was developed by Lebanese philosopher and

researcher Nassim nechol Stallam. It refers to events of very low probability, but of very high impact. It is a metaphor for how an unexpected or surprising

effect that is going to have great repercussions could have been anticipated. Of course we know that later when we look back at it, it refers to signs that would have gone unnoticed for most of the population, a real collective blindness that would explain events such as Hitler' s rise to power, facts that we could only see and analyze a posteriori in the logic of the Black Swan is more important what we don' t know than what we know. So let' s get ready between this and the I just know I don'

t know anything. I' m afraid we won' t get rich. But imagine something worse. Think not of everything you don' t know, but of everything you don' t know you don' t know. Tolerance to uncertainty is associated with some traits of personality, but in it, as in almost everything, there are degrees from those who do not tolerate it at

all to those who adopt it as a philosophy of life. Thus, while the former use all cognitive resources to resolve uncertainty, which can lead to high degrees of anxiety, the latter are lost in it and sometimes even sin unrealistically If we could measure intolerance to uncertainty with a thermometer, it would be something like what is shown in the image. Measured in rolls of toilet paper,

object that should become unit of measurement. Since the crisis of SARS Cobeit two, the former would have the house full, while the latter would improvise and throw napkins and what they would find at home when it ran out. That is, while the former would have collected toilet paper, the latter would not have been very concerned. What other characteristics are present in subjects with low uncertainty tolerance. They need to check things over and over again. They tend to

indecision and avoidance. They have difficulty delegating. They need to have control They overestimate the negative The probability of something bad happening. They worry too much, they tend to anxiety if you recognize yourself in many of these definitions and feel

that your levels of uncertainty tolerance are low. Some of the suggestions I present on this page may also be helpful to take note of accepting uncertainty as part of life and as an opportunity to accept what cannot be changed to analyze what leads us to experience uncertainty and differentiate it from other similar situations in our lives.

Imagine different scenarios and responses to the problematic situation. It can be done together with a family member or friend to help us look at it with perspective. Trying to do different things, for example, practicing a sport or a discipline that we consider does not match our way of being can surprise us to look at the situation with curiosity, try to live the present uncertainty, need to believe and conspiracy theories. Uncertainty accentuates our fears, our concerns, without

our need for control. When we have no answers or explanations about what is happening in our environment, we seek them at all costs, even when they are most absurd, all in order to reduce uncertainty. Hence, situations such as those of the pandemic are the ideal breeding ground for conspiracy theories to emerge,

that is, theories that go beyond empirically proven facts and data. In a way, they resemble the delusions we see in some mental disorders, since the content of such proposals is not part of the empirical evidence and is not shared by most people, and the arguments against them may end up intensifying polarization. Factors such as stress, social media and infodemia, a term coined by the WHO to refer to the epidemic of bulls and false news in the networks

influence the increase and transmission of such conspiracy theories. These kinds of theories have always existed and do not indicate pathology. When we find an explanation about the world about what happens to us, we identify with it. Well, to the greater identification of the greater motivation to defend it once we have adopted a

belief, finding contrary evidence causes us discomfort. It is what is known as cognitive dissonance and how we overcome this dissonance by seeking information that confirms these beliefs and allows us to reject the opposite idea. Thus, our minds will pay more attention to what is in line with our ideas and will discard the others. This is known as confirmation bias. Commented on in chapter five, where

I speak of cognitive biases. As we strengthen our belief and become more involved in it, the pressure to sustain it is greater and it will cost us more to get rid of it. If it spreads and is shared by more people, we will feel better about fighting these kinds of beliefs. It is not an easy task when we want to convince someone that he is wrong, the more arguments we find him, the more we strengthen and intensify his beliefs, since for every argument that we offer him his mind will work on one

of a contrary character, which will increase polarization. Perhaps a more effective technique would be to ask the person to argue the ideas and reasons for his belief, as that effort can cause him to question himself by not finding sufficient reasons for his defense. In general terms, a broad and rich education that enhances the development of critical thinking will help to mitigate the spread of bulls and conspiracy

theories. Usually, people who believe in conspiracy theories often believe in several at once. It is common, for example, for such people to believe in horoscopes, which are also based on the need to believe. It' s what' s known as a barne effect, or a fender effect. You knew that the horoscope has a lot of meaning, but that the one who developed it did it as well as the one who dismantled it. Let' s put the horoscope in the nude and see what it' s about.

You have ever heard of the foure or barnem effect occurs when we identify ourselves with generic and vague descriptions such as those of the horoscope, that is, descriptions that can easily be attached to all of us and that come mediated by our expectations desires and need to give meaning to vague explanations. Here comes the confirmation bias that takes place when we read or see something that confirms our beliefs, gives meaning to one of our experiences or appeals to our own hopes or

illusions. Who is not for a more tired season or wants to be part of a new project. Besides, the horoscope doesn' t clarify whether you ' re talking about a big project or a small project, so it' s easy for everyone to have projects at any time. Another example, if you' re down. Suddenly, the horoscope predicts that you' re going through difficult times, but you' ll get over them. If they will be a springboard for a new project that awaits you Who doesn' t like

to think this. This phenomenon was studied in the nine hundred and fifty years by the American psychologist br Four, who conducted the following experiment, gave a personality test to a group of students to whom he later gave the results with his corresponding analysis. He gave himself to everyone, but they didn' t know. He then asked them to give an opinion as to whether those results really fit his personality. Zero minimum coupling, five maximum accuracy scores. Well,

the average scores were four twenty- six. In other words, most of the students considered that the results of the test reflected very well their way of being. What they didn' t know was that those results had been extracted from a horoscope. In addition, some factors intensify this effect, for example, when positive aspects are included about ourselves, when the evaluated person gives authority to the evaluator, when, in appearance, the result is personalized.

This explains the success of certain disciplines of doubtful or no scientific evidence. It ' s not anxiety, it' s worry. The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to go through as High William James. In the face of uncertainty, fear is also accentuated. Worry appears, anticipatory anxiety. These are factors that put our mind and body in check, which can

alter their state of homeostasis or balance. But what anxiety really is and what difference there is to worry, worry is what happens when we spin something concrete. For example, you' re worried that you won' t have time to finish a college or work assignment. Concerns activate our resources to try to resolve them if they are the mental component of anxiety. Anxiety, on the other hand, is a natural adaptive mechanism that allows us to alert ourselves to

stressful events. It arises in the face of fears that we do not know how to specify and includes both a mental element and a bodily response. We are accelerated heart and breathing, our muscles contract, etc. That is, while worry occurs in the mind, anxiety occurs both in the body and in the mind. Excessive and sustained concern can cause anxiety, but both anxiety and

anxiety can be positive and adaptive. For example, moderate anxiety can help us stay alert in an exam or in the preparation of oppositions, but if we get over it, it can play us a bad pass, block paralysis, etc, and cause us some of the conditions we usually see in consultation. As the Chinese philosopher said, the or C anxiety is an excess of my future while living in the present is living in peace. A good one. The phrase is not exactly like that. It actually also speaks of the past,

referring to depression as an excess of the past. A nice metaphor about some aspects of depression, but for which there is no scientific evidence, what does seem to be something very widespread and which is a focus of repeated stress is the fact that we live in a society that tends to forget the past and lives continuously worried about what has not come, and that much of what happens to us and what we fear has to do with the constant anticipation of

what has not yet happened. We get anxious, anticipate, worry, despair and try to speed up the time running after him. However, we should slow down more often and remember the past is our source of knowledge and learning, the future is our source of motivation and energy, the present is our source of reality. It' s the act and now where we really live and we' re building memories and building the future. Maintaining a balance between

these three times is key. An excess of any one of them takes away quality of life to understand it. Just ask yourself the next question. If in a week I was diagnosed with a serious illness or lost to a loved one, I would like to see myself doing what I am doing, identifying the situations that increase our concerns and focusing and getting to work on the things that we can change, makes the mind rest and focus on more productive tasks.

To take note of what are our best tools to deal with anxiety, the ability to establish routines and habits because they structure and give us emotional stability, include rests in those routines, do physical exercise, lead a balanced diet and guarantee night rest, avoid the consumption of alcohol and other toxic agents, cannabis, etc. Because, paradoxically, everyone can generate low mood anxiety and insomnia. Keeping social contact, writing down on a paper what concerns us.

Using the waste time technique sets a time to think and reflect on what causes anxiety, for example, every day from five to six in the afternoon. Yeah, this will look artificial to you, but it works. It is a way for circular worries and thoughts not to appear spontaneously all the time. Avoid avoidative behaviors, accept uncertainty as part of life and as an opportunity to engage in new activities, for example, study every day twenty minutes a new

rule language of gold, optimism and responsibility and opportunity. And all this doesn ' t work. There are many relaxation exercises that you can practice on the net and countless of them. Deep breathing, diaphragmatic, deep inspirations over several seconds that are followed by air retention and sound exhalations also of several seconds. Progressive muscle relaxation of jacobson tension exercises, relaxation of the different muscle groups of

the body. If you still feel that you are not able to manage discomfort, consult with a specialist, but above all do not meditate on your own to avoid avoidance. This section deserves special attention. Today we know that the mere repetition of certain behaviors modifies the relationship between them and the response or activation

of stress that occurs in our organism. A classical research with paratroopers showed that the first time they jumped out of the plane they were terrified and this was reflected in their body completely on the levels of noradrenaline and glucocorticoids stress molecules. However, when they repeated the experience, several times there was a process of habitation that limited that first response, thus reducing stress. But there' s

no need to talk about scientific studies. Most parents tell this to their children when they want to encourage them to lose fear, to something, without needing to know anything about psychological or physiological processes. My parents, for example, when I was a student and I asked them my doubts about whether to choose a surgical or medical specialty, because of how stressful operations seemed to me they used to say to everyone they used to get used to. My father,

in particular, used to always set the same example. If one has no choice but to work by catching crabs for the first three days he will have a hard time, but the fourth will do the same as any other. I liked that and have applied it all my life, although the truth is that in the case of medicine, I ended up studying psychiatry and not surgery

coping strategies. What tools you have to solve problems on social networks. Some joke and answer I debate myself between self- destructing me with drugs and alcohol, starving me, eating until I burst or isolate myself from humanity. The coping strategies are those capabilities that we set in motion when faced with a difficult situation, challenge or problem. They are largely modulated by our experiences and by

everything we have learned throughout our lives. In a way, the more varied and numerous these resources are, the more likely we will be to emerge successful or strengthened from a situation so that we can adapt. However, the coping capacity is not only about the practical resolution of the problem, but also about our ability to manage the emotions and stress we present in the face of this setback. In addition, we value whether the situation we face is yielding to

our resilience or our resources. Essentially, there are three types of coping strategies. One focused on the problem. The person focuses on dealing with the situation by analyzing it and looking for possible solutions. Two focused on emotions. The person tries to manage the emotions triggered by the stressful situation so that they don ' t get rid of him. Three based on avoidance. The person postpones active confrontation, avoids it and tries to do other things not to think about

it takes time. For example, a person who has suffered a couple breakup may be drawn by discomfort, frustration, misunderstanding, impotence. While it is true that any loss leads to mourning, some people can block themselves and get stuck in an extreme way and fall into a rumiative and repetitive thought about the

SNS moses of the breakup. On the other hand, that person can adopt a resilient attitude and consider handling his emotions more effectively, cognitive reassessment, seeking the support of friends, doing some new and exciting activity, going out to do physical exercise, etc. Careful, don' t confuse this with thinking that going out for a run or asking for help, we can cure a

depression. Here we always refer to the preventive that, in that continuum between the normal and the pathological, we can stop in time behaviors or patterns that, if they happen repeatedly, can evolve towards the pathological. Resilience doesn' t mean without scars. When we cannot change a situation, we have an

obligation to change ourselves. Victor Frantole. The term resilience is a concept that comes from physics, from the ownership of materials to recover the initial state when the disturbance to which it had been or was or are n two in a living being has ceased. It is the ability to adapt to an adverse agent or condition or situation applied to humans. It is the ability to cope with an adverse situation and get out of that situation strengthened our ability to adapt successfully

to the stress, trauma or difficulties we may experience. It is also a question of using such adversity as learning at the neuroscientific level. Some studies have shown how in the brain of Visiliens, the elevated levels of adrenaline, noradrenaline and cortisol that appear in threatening situations are quickly regulated downwards when the focus of stress disappears. In addition, it showed higher levels of neurotransmitter dopamine of pleasure

and reward, which could facilitate regulatory processes. On the contrary, in the brain of the less visilient people he observed the persistence of high levels of adrenaline, nora, adrenaline and cortisol, which could explain their difficulties in regulating themselves. You knew that some personality traits contribute to resilience, ability to self- observ, to weigh that part of the problem we can change and that part we don' t. Which part has to do with ourselves and which one

doesn' t. Aspect related to the control eyes mentioned below. Ability to self- regulate openness to experience. This includes fantasy, aesthetic sensitivity, attention to one' s own feelings, preference for variety and intellectual curiosity, curiosity

and creativity. If we are able to create and use side thinking, we can find adaptive alternatives, self- confidence to develop vital activities, such as decision- making, power- taking, etc. One of the key factors in resilience is bonding, intense affectation between two people we have received in childhood. Thus, secure relationships and a supportive social circle will stimulate a more resilient attitude towards life and difficulties. On the other hand, those who have experienced

traumatic events at early stages will have a harder time facing the world. Seen in this way, it might sound deterministic as if we came as a serial with a good or bad resilience. However, we can learn and develop resilience from new life experiences and thanks to the neuroplasticity of the brain I told you about in the previous chapter. New situations, the question of schemes and attitudes to which we are accustomed, among others, help us to make more visiliens.

Daniel Boleman, the great promoter of emotional intelligence, and Genyo Connomen, psychologist and Nobel Prize winner in Economics, already pointed out that our social interactions play a key role in the remodeling of our hebro cherry, thanks to their neuroplastic properties, because repeated experiences are creating new synaptic connections. Our key relationships

may also be shaping certain neurological circuits. Thus, being emotionally nurtured by someone we spend a lot of time with over the years can reconfigure our brain. Therefore, relationships have subtle but powerful impacts, among other things, can help us in repairing psychic damage, also translated into physical that we have suffered previously. Eye that resilient doesn' t mean without scars we can get some,

but come out strengthened. A nice metaphor for this is found in the Japanese art of kintsushi, in which powder, gold or silver is used to highlight the crack or break rather than hide it, which increases the beauty and value of the repaired object. This supports several readings. On the one hand, when something is broken or has suffered, they become more beautiful. It is proof of the fragility of matter, but also an example of resilience in how

to recover and become stronger. It is an invaluable experience in the construction of the human that we should adopt as a philosophy of life to take note before reading the factors that I expose. Then try to think about how you imagine a resilient person and then check it out. If we have agreed on any of these points, they accept reality, neither minimize it nor magnify it. They maintain a positive attitude. They are optimistic, they show a willingness to

learn. They have developed a good capacity for emotional self- control. They tend to see adverse situations as an opportunity. Persevere when faced with a goal or a difficulty. They don' t give up, they contemplate taking risks as a way for ab to take care of themselves, they use a sense of humor. They know themselves. If they' re tested, they can ask for help. Finally, a good way to train resilience is with the superpower to do a little every day the defenselessness learned as a type of virus.

There are people who have not had the opportunity to develop resilience because they have suffered, for example, very adverse situations in childhood. We' ve all heard someone close to saying that there' s nothing I can do. It' s impossible to change it. Nothing will get better. Verbalizations such as these translate a situation known as undefense learned, that is, the person sees no way out, sees no alternatives. It is said to be learned

because the person learns not to be able to defend himself. This defenselessness would be related to depression and other disorders in which the nascent person lacks control over a situation. There' s nothing I can do to change it. You knew that Martin Seligman and his collaborators studied in nineteen hundred and sixty- seven

the defenselessness learned in an experiment with dogs. Although this study, like some that we have already mentioned, would not meet the ethical criteria that are required for such research today, it provided important information that is worth knowing. The experimenters selected a group of dogs who were subjected to an annoying electric shock on

the legs through the floor of the cage where they were locked. The dogs had the chance to escape simply by jumping into another compartment where there were no

discharges. During the experiment it was observed that some did nothing when receiving the discharge, except groaning and waiting for the adverse stimulus to cease, that is, they were not able to learn or adopt a simple escape response after a specific situation discharges And precisely the dogs that did not run from the discharge were those who had previously participated in other experiments in which there was no option to

escape the pain. Therefore, they had learned that nothing could be done to keep trying them if they could not cope. Something similar is observed in people exposed to a stressful situation for a long time and unable to relieve stress in any way. If you think you do what you do, things are going

to stay the same. He ends up throwing away the towel, the subject feels that he cannot control or predict the events of his day- to- day life, and this has a lot to do with our learnings from the past, which condition and modulate our attitudes and behaviors, both present and future. In other words, this arises when the person has repeatedly faced situations in

which his acts had no effect. As a result, she has a feeling of impotence, because she is convinced that she can do nothing to control or modify her environment. Even if you get the desired result, you end up thinking that it has not been the result of your actions, but pure chance. Indefensiveness can act as a virus on our emotions and provoke a series of

internal events culminating in complete blocking and cancellation. A classic example we see in animals that have been subjected to harsh training conditions, elephants in zoos or locked in a cage for a long time and then no longer want to escape for what to fight. The same is common in children who have experienced abuse, neglect or gender- based violence. The little one learns that anticipation or change is not possible and that he will have to live in that situation without actively

fighting or submitting or paralyzing. It is also observed when the person has been subjected to negative assessments labels throughout its development, internalizing you are clumsy what yours is not studies, etc. Who has been exposed to such assessments internalizes them and will be far less likely to fight to change, than to do so. If nothing' s going to change it. Faced with the lack of defense learned, one tends to throw away the towel, does not feel like

fighting, decreases its proactivity and this leads to apathy and abandonment. There will be a blockade and a freeze. Faced with sites that require rapid response. There is a tendency to avoid uncomfortable situations, to run away from problems, the inability to help oneself. All this leads to low self- esteem and lack of motivation and even anxiety and depression. It can be unlearned. The defenselessness learned, the good news is that yes, and one of the main

strategies will be to unlearn your own defenselessness. It won' t be easy, because something we' ve developed over so many years will cost us a lot to change. We will have to begin by detecting the beliefs and ugly thoughts that consolidate our defenselessness. They stand out and they have us immobilized. Detecting them and discovering their origin will cause them to lose strength. It will try to learn alternative behaviors to those who caused the problem. To make a

note. Here are some behaviors that allow you to work and unlearn defenselessness. Try to strengthen your self- esteem, reviewing your strengths and not just focusing on your weaknesses. Learn to persevere in the face of adversity identifies areas where you feel that you have control and strengthen them to serve as a springboard to venture into others. Accept what cannot be changed. Learn that right now you are not living the same situation as in the past. The current one is

different and you' re not the same. Ask yourself the style what happened then, what happens now, what I was like then, what I am now. It works on problem solving, because with each solution found and successfully implemented increases self- confidence. With the solutions not found, a huge knowledge

is acquired in search of control madmen. Where do you have your control freaks, oh better said, to what degrees do you feel that you have control of what happens to you in life both in everyday situations and in major problems. People can feel that we govern our destiny when we consider that our decisions and abilities matter, or we can consider that we have no control over anything and that everything is the result of external agents, such as luck, karma

or God' s command. This is known as control freaks, a term introduced by Julian mud in nineteen hundred and sixty- six as part of his theory of social learning. It refers, therefore, to the outcome that we

attribute externally or internally to a given situation. This will depend on very diverse factors, such as the subject' s personality, previous experiences, expectations, etc. In the ocus of internal control, the person attributes the success or failure of an event to something proper to it, for example, to its abilities and effort. That is why he understands that the result is controllable and

that it is in his power to modify it. In this way you can motivate yourself and focus on empowering those skills that help you achieve the desired result. There will therefore be a greater tendency to take appropriate measures to take care of themselves, protect themselves, etc. Control freaks here work under the motto. I have the power to influence my future or to make things happen.

On the contrary, in the case of external control locus, the subject attributes the outcome of an event to external factors beyond his control, such as random fate or other people' s decisions. This is how people can feel that nothing can be done, as circumstances are beyond their control. It works under slogans like throwing balls out. Bad things only happen to me. There' s nothing I can do. This way of looking at things takes away responsibility

for the actions or decisions we make. Therefore, the way we perceive the situations and the causal explanation we give them are the elements that will largely mark the success or failure of our decisions. As in almost everything, the key is at the middle point to be aware that we have the ability to take the reins of life to get what we propose and be active and responsible agents for what we do. At the same time, we must be able to

recognize that there are situations beyond our control. Troubleshooting and divergent thinking. My life has been filled with terrible misfortunes, most of which never happened. It is possible that if you have ever been immersed in a great dilemma that you did not know how to solve yourself, you have posed as you might think differently, in a generic way. We can divide thought into two types. One On the one hand, we find a conventional thought that goes from top

to bottom and is linear. It is the vertical or convergent thought. It is based on a sequence of ideas. It is logical and deductive thinking and in it every step must be correct and indispensable. It is the kind of thought with which we have been taught to study and learn. Besides, it ' s analytical thinking. Repeat known patterns and schemes, explain and interpret,

create categories and classifications. It' s replicable two. Divergent thinking goes in other directions, can make leaps, and the ideas that arise need not appear in the same order, nor are they indispensable as a whole. It is the thought in which we generate several alternatives from a given information. According to j F. Gilford, it' s thinking of new possibilities, thinking without filters. According to some authors, it is the basis of creative thinking.

A classic example would be brainstorming or brainstorming. An exercise of putting forward all possible options without censoring them or judging them. Unlike the previous one, it does not create categories or, in case of having them, they are permeable and mutable. It is a probabilistic process in which one does not always reach a solution and always to it scientific language would not exist replicability, that is, we would not always arrive in the same way at the same result.

I like to imagine it as the suspended particles that can be seen through the sun rays that enter a room and that, as we move through these, move and collide between them. From that collision would emerge ideas. Divergent thinking is also very useful in problem solving. In the process of finding new paths, it plays a key role in our ability to adapt to change and overcome adversity. It turns out that we have been taught to think of the convergent

or vertical thinking model, but much less of the divergent one. That' s why it costs us so much and it' s curious because it' s precisely the children who use this last type of thought all the time. However, over the years and the educational model based on the most analytical thought, we build scaffolding and mental schemes from which we find it very difficult to

withdraw. Fortunately, there are already many schools that are paying attention to this, trying to foster a mode of learning that favors divergent thinking through project work and the promotion of activities such as the plastic arts, which are much more transversal than other types of teaching. However, although creative thinking has traditionally been associated with divergent thinking. The truth is that logical thinking also participates in this.

According to Robert daub iw Basberg Two, creative thinking also arises from essay and error, feedback and reflection. However, to understand each other, we will try to distinguish them. Most situations in life require much more of the second type of thought of the divergent, which will allow us to find alternatives, which makes it easier to think to sada he bucks or outside the box.

People who have difficulty adapting to a more closed and inflexible lifestyle have a greater experience of injustice, greater frustration, greater stress, hostility and discomfort that can in turn boost the depressed mood. The lack of this flexibility of thought is what we know as cognitive rigidity, something we see in patients with autistic spectrum disorders, such as asperger or in the evolution of some patients with schizophrenia.

They often tolerate bad changes because they make them feel insecure and can even create anguish and anxiety. They need to have a sense of control, and that' s why they respond badly to uncertainty, to modifications in their usual routines, to context changes. Hence its tendency to move in monotony and its lack of interest in introducing new activities. In fact, if we have a familiar friend or partner with tea knowing, this will make it easier for us

to interact with him. Cognitive flexibility is therefore the human ability to maintain a mental openness, to accept things, to observe without judging, to feel compassion, to be here and now, to generate and acquire habits consistent with our values and aspirations. In short, our ability to adapt, to take note.

Like almost everything in life, divergent thinking can be trained. Let' s look at some points that can help you, for example, in troubleshooting, save time and space to exercise it, although you can also practice it in everyday situations. It proves to pose supposed problems or dilemmas that could occur and thinks of more alternatives than usual. Try to divide the topic in question into several parts so you can find other points of view. Practice these same

exercises with someone and watch their answers. It tries to assess the issue, the situation or the problem in question from various prisms. For example, ask yourself what I would say to a child in the same situation your teacher would have done, as a friend would have resolved, yours tests to use support

tools, using all the senses. For example, ask yourself how you would draw that problem or situation, what smell it would have, what music you would put him create, imagine and play with the various situations in different environments will be of great help. Three uses mind maps. Four are a graphic technique where ideas are connected to one another, as if the branches of neurons

were concerned. It begins, for example, with a central idea from which branches are emerging that revolve around that idea and after each branch new ideas are emerging. In the end a composition is generated from which secondary ideas can most easily emerge. Try using this template to guide you mental map add your text emotional regulation. Emotions are like waves on a beachshore. If no one teaches the kids how to surf them, the waves will come and they won'

t stop sinking them. Dany hel Homeostasis, the state of balance of the body, when it has a healthy functioning, can be measured through various variables. The glucose levels and temperature of our body. They are some of them, but there is also a psychological homeostasis, a balance between our needs and

the satisfaction obtained between our body, our emotions and our thoughts. So when we say I' m okay, we don' t mean being content with a concrete emotion, but a global state that includes from emotion to our body

somatic sensations and our thoughts. The ability to regulate emotions is incorporated from our earliest childhood, as we said in previous chapters, thanks to the light of our caregivers and development of our limbic system or soft part of the brain, be in coordination with the outer layer of this and more specifically, with the deep sea of the brain. Sometimes, due to the exaggerated stress that has been maintained for a long time, this homeostasis can break and the person is

no longer able to return to the point of equilibrium. Even if the situation has been resolved, then the symptoms of anxiety, depression, etc appear. We already know that emotions and feelings change our thinking. In addition, suppressing them has an impact on the physiological level. For example, there has been an increase in blood pressure in those who tend to suppress emotions and even changes in the effects of a treatment due to the patient' s expectations about himself.

That' s why it' s important to learn how to regulate emotions. I mean to regulate and not to control, because control can end up leaking bad pasts and it doesn' t really respond to what we want to explain here. Other verbs that we can use to refer to these processes are to manage, modulate or transit. Emotional regulation can be defined as the set of internal and external processes aimed at monitoring, evaluating and modifying our emotional reactions

in order to achieve our goals. Be conscious or unconscious, for example, to reduce a negative affective state that has become very intense and lasting, we are blocked, we feel a lot of discomfort and anger at a comment that

has been made to us by a co- worker, etcetera. But it could also be that we had to regulate a positive affective state because of the social context, for example, because it could be inappropriate, as it could be if we were particularly euphoric and happy to have received good news, but we had to accompany and support in the pain a friend who has suffered the sudden loss of a loved one to take note. Emotional regulation encompasses the following.

Ability to inhibit inappropriate behavior due to their extremely intense pleasant or unpleasant emotions, to decrease physiological activation, heart acceleration, breathing, sweating, etc, derived from these emotions. Ability to reposition our attention or to direct it beyond triggering stimuli and emotions, something like learning to diversify our attention organize emotions towards

achieving goals and long- term well- being. You knew that, in reality, emotional regulation is a key issue in almost every aspect of life at the brain level. It is the result of a balance between the deeper, primitive and automatic brain regions, which, in turn, convey all the information of the body, and the more superficial brain regions, such as the prefrontal cortex recalls the cerebral faggot that exerts self- control by stimulating or inhibiting the

information received from the previous regions. In neuroscientific terms, one could talk about top bland mechanisms from top to bottom in the regions of regulation of emotion, for example, when our cerebral faggot slows us down so as not to say a barbarity, when we get angry at the inverse of barmac mechanisms from bottom

up, when our emotions mold or nuance our thoughts. A typical example of emotional disregulation is seen in what the neuroscientist Jos influenced to the so- called kidnapping of the tonsil Amigdala daughter uncontrollable and excessive emotional reactions in which the brain tonsil of our emotional brain is overactivated, takes control and command of the rest of the brain, kidnaps it and does not let and prevents it to the most rational part. For example, when we get very angry, we can

get to say or act disproportionately. In this type of reaction, that region of our brain plays a key role. The amygdala belongs to the limbic system, the middle layer of the brain attaches to that of the hot brain. In this type of situation it is enormously complicated to activate the rational brain. The paused and reflective, the mobcondel is blocked. We are dominated and hijacked

by our most primitive brain that passes to take the reins. It' s like our amygdala is a runaway horse that the rider can' t control. This can often be seen in young children when they have a tantrum. The difference is that in his case he is a little more justified than in adults, since his rational brain and self- control is not yet sufficiently developed. The importance of emotional regulation lies in the fact that many of our everyday problems

have to do with a difficulty in managing our emotions. The intense emotional responses involved in deep brain regions have played a crucial role in our survival. From the evolutionary point of view, they have allowed us to run away when we were facing a risk to life, for example, to flee from a predator. The problem is that, in our time, the triggers of this alarm system that we have are no longer threatening beasts, but in many cases our

main threat is the stress of the day to day. Not being able to regulate or channel our emotions or be victims of this type of amygdala trappings can be disadaptative. The knowledge and regulation of our emotions should be a compulsory subject, such as mathematics, or taught as a subject of language classes, so that, from a small point of view, we practice naming emotions and their regulation through examples, experiences or stories. And all this without losing sight that

the best teaching is always the best example. I' ll leave you some notes on how to help your children move their emotions to take note of how to work emotional regulation with children. The game is a good opportunity to learn about emotions, to learn, to express, to modulate and to regulate them. You can take the opportunity to watch drawings or movies with them, continue

narrating, commenting or explaining how the characters feel. You can play giving name, shape, color and texture to emotions, for example, how you would describe fear is a dark color, has rough or smooth texture, stingy or rounded shapes. You can teach her how to locate emotions in the body by looking for physical contact, for example by putting her hand on her chest and explaining that sometimes sadness feels there like pain or tightness in the chest. Give

an example, regulating your own emotions. If we lose control, it may be an opportunity to explain that situation as well. Mom diagonal bar Dad was very angry and he didn' t do well. Next time he' ll try to do better. One way to mentalize the other, to teach about the States we have of the others to teach them to ask forgiveness, doing so also with them. It is often the children who correct us. Mom, you' ve crossed the red light Take the opportunity to recognize the mistake.

I' m sorry you' re right. Mom was lost, help them think about alternatives and choose and try one or more. For example, if your son claims to be angry with a little friend, work with him. The options you have you can try to ask him why he did that which hurt you so much to invite him to snack home and talk to him. What do you think. There are also disadaptative emotional regulation mechanisms, that is, they do not solve the problem, but make it worse. They

don' t chronicle. For example, some people turn to alcohol or some other toxic substance to calm down, not knowing that this supposed momentary relief will be followed by an imploration of symptoms, as both alcohol and other toxic things have been shown to have a direct relationship with the symptoms of anxiety and depression. Alcohol, far from being anxiolytic that eliminates anxiety as thought, is anxiogenic,

produces anxiety, that is, it worsens it. Hence, the main intervention when we meet someone in consultation who drinks alcohol on a regular basis, is to stop consumption. On other occasions, people with great difficulties in emotional management need to even take it to the body in the form of self- harming behaviors, for example, in the form of cuts with a sharp object in some parts of the body, a way to relieve psychic pain with physical

pain. As we already commented in chapter nine, other very inefficient mechanisms of emotional management would be rumination, turning the head, avoiding or suppressing. They can all be very unproductive. Therefore, in this age of so much productivity, I like to tell my patients and friends that the most productive strategy of all is to have good mental health. Getting in touch with emotions, putting them into words and regulating them will be key to our adaptive ability to the

environment and the circumstances of life. Notice that it is not a matter of giving free rein to all emotions, and more is a matter of regulating them. But we are depressed, anxious or just tired because we have slept badly. Our ability to regulate us can collapse or be very difficult to handle. Some authors have compared this ability to that of a muscle that gets tired when

used in excess. After this long exhibition, there will be those who are thinking about regulating strategies and even give us examples for the children and we do not tell us anything, because the truth is that there are many ways to address this issue, but undoubtedly the most effective thing is to transform everyday situations into therapeutics. That' s why I think it might be more useful to talk about emotional hygiene habits, which we' ll discuss in the following pages

to take note of some keys that can help you in emotional regulation. Recognize and name emotions, learn to fit criticism and use a sense of humor, learn to relativize. There are very few things that are so terrible to try to put the situation in perspective. How I will feel in ten years' time, when I think about this situation, what I would say or how my family member or friend would feel In that same context, review our strengths

to adapt and look for your own strategies. Delaying concerns will already solve it tomorrow, taking some time helps to see the matter with distance and to travel the best. Physical exercise and meditation are very effective ways to regulate ourselves through the body and mind together. Leaning on others or asking for help from a teacher to remember that first it hurts, then it makes you angry and ends up laughing. Thus close cycles, habits of emotional hygiene one, rest.

If it' s good to live, it' s still better to dream and best of all, wake up. Antonio Machado. Some will be wondering why I address the dream in this chapter. Night rest is one of the main factors of emotional disregulation. A good nemonic rule so as not to forget about it is the following. Insomnia produces the five irritability, impulsivity, inattention,

instability and inability to make decisions. So having the dream controlled will be an essential element in our ability to self- regulate that we do not forget. The day doesn' t start to count in the morning when we get up. It starts at night when we go to bed. When we talk about how we spent the day, we usually refer to the hours we have been awake and forget about the hours of sleep. However, the day we sleep very well is almost certain to have a good day. Looks like we

could do without sleeping. The dream has passed to the background and if we have to take time away from something, we take it to sleep without any fuss and so we go through life derelict, always tired instead of repairing. We need to sleep to stay awake. Sleep is a physiological necessity and today we know it plays a key role in immune memory functions. Being a baby, let' s review here what we will henceforth call enemies of the alcohol

dream. Even if it looks like it helps us sleep. Alcohol only causes drowsiness and sedation and alters the rhythms and phases of deep sleep. Various studies have shown that altered brain activity makes us wake up or have difficulty sleeping deeply, so our sleep will not be repairing and we will be tired during the day. Scythants, caffeine, protein, etc. They are in a wide variety of drinks and make it difficult to reconcile sleep. That is why we

must avoid them from midday onwards technology. Blue light and continuous mobile stimulation, tablets, etcetera, alter sleep reconciliation. This artificial light emitted by electronic devices has been shown to alter our circadian rhythm. Noise seems obvious, but we often forget that there are different types of noise beyond physical, mental, worry

and visual. A messy room, for example, when you sleep with the messy room, that' s the last image you have left in your retina before you close your eyes, and that image will make your mind a little harder to fall asleep. Lack of or fixed. If we go to bed every day at an hour, we' ll be making it very difficult for the body and it won' t be able to sleep. We have some biological clocks inside us that set a pace for us. If we alter them,

it will be much harder for us to sleep hyperproductively. That not being able to stop that feeling of wasting time is a mental trap. We believe that we can do ten things at once without exhausting ourselves, when the truth is that every stimulus, every shift in focus that we impose on the brain, involves a wear and tear, something similar to the ant decisions that we talk about in chapter five. Falling in love is a major cause of insomnia.

But if you have to jump into any enemies of sleep, please let it be this one, you knew that remember to take the train of sleep always at the same time. Why, then, because of the rhythms, not the Latin rhythms, but those that are known as ultra- dial rhythms, one less known rhythms than the circadians of twenty- four hours. These are cycles of minutes and hours of less than twenty hours, instead of twenty - four hours of circadian rhythm, which takes place both at vigil and in

sleep. His discoverer, Nethine Heimen, called it the basic cycle of activity rest. These cycles explain why in a few moments we are alert and lucid at a time, tired and numb when this happens. It' s because we' ve gone from an activity cycle to a rest cycle. These cycles tend to repeat every ninety minutes, so pay attention, because we can make

them predictable and synchronize them for our benefit. If you always sleep in the same time slot, for example, between eleven and twelve at night, your body will get used to it and make the rest phase always start at the same time, so it will be easier for you to fall asleep. So you know, try to tune in to your ultra- dainy rhythms. Finally, always have at hand a notebook and a pen, not to write down

your dreams, but to record your worries, things pending, etcetera. Sometimes, when we lay down as we' re relaxed, we remember we didn ' t send the e- mail. We haven' t called, because don' t get up and write it down in that notebook two. Physical exercise. This is my favorite. There is no doubt that physical exercise is one of the best emotional regulators and one of the best preventions in mental health, as it decreases the stress factors that act as triggers for many of the

cadres we attend. Psychiatrists and psychologists, among other professionals. It could almost be said that sport is the best anxiolytic, but above all of a preventive nature, because it helps us that this anxiety does not appear. It is not so easy to become physical exercise once it has appeared. Physical exercise is also one of the best euphorizers ahead of any pill or drug, because it lacks the side effects of the former or the negative health consequences of the latter.

The important nuance is that we are not saying that we can solve a mental disorder based on physical exercise, but it is one of the most effective tools to prevent some of these triggers and to help us maintain our state of balance or physical and mental homeostasis such physical exercise. I have already spoken a lot to you in previous chapters, so I will no longer insist on it

three, the social and regulation through the other. As I mentioned in previous chapters, we are social beings and without the social we could not live at birth our capacity for emotional self- regulation is very limited. It is our attachment figures that will help us to console ourselves and calm us straight regulation.

When a young child is playing, for example, in a park and falls to the ground or gets scared by something, he immediately runs to seek comfort from his parents, sometimes it' s a matter of seconds until the child calms down and runs out again to keep playing. As we become adults and learn to self- regulate we forget that not everything is self- regulation, but we continue to regulate ourselves in part through our peers. Emotional regulation is

a balance between self- regulation and co- regulation through the other. When we talk to others and explain our concerns. We are regulating ourselves through the active listening of others, through their gazes, their body and verbal language, the consideration of other points of view. However, asking for help costs us

a great deal. We live it as a failure, as an incapacity, and we often prefer to isolate ourselves or keep everything silent, perhaps relying on the false belief that if I don' t say so, it doesn' t exist. Sometimes we prefer not to talk to ourselves. But, as we said in chapter ten, what the mind silences very often is expressed by the body. Asking a family member, friend or professional for help is already a strategy of emotional regulation. So if you feel overflowing and you can'

t move forward. Keep this tool in mind four, forgive yourself and forgive you, anger resentment, frustration, impotence. It' s emotions we' ve all had when we' ve been hurt or betrayed by someone. Emotions that we feel throughout our body and generate a major psychological discomfort when we are harmed are linked to the other person by the consequences of the offense in a relationship that is clearly asymmetric, one feels going to or resenting the victim and,

in ideal terms, the other feels guilty the aggressor. In the most everyday confrontations or grievances, we can observe that many times we were caught up in that emotional relationship for years, we felt chained and perpetuated the cycle of resentment with unproductive and harmful ruminations for our psyche in the aggressor relationship. The first would have some authority over the second. In this context, it is

up to the victim to end the asymmetrical relationship by exculpating it. We could say that in the act of forgiveness a hybrid is produced among the following five - one mechanisms. By forgiving we give permission to the other person to clean up and make a new account to resume the relationship from neutrality. I forgive you and I free you from the blame. I give you permission to treat me again as before. That' s what we could call a managerial pardon

two. The victim is also engaged from scratch. He promised me to stop feeling angry, so what you did to me is what we would call a compromise pardon. In that ideal situation, the important thing is to start from scratch and not use forgiveness as a weapon to manipulate the other. Some time later, when we forgive the victim, the one who has suffered the wrong

is released, regardless of the intention or attitude of the other. Forgiveness could result in adaptive neurophysiological changes that would ultimately result in the extinction of rabies.

Six. While there is a wide collection of studies that observe the brain changes related to the act of forgiveness, they are not exempt from important limitations, so it is necessary to continue to delve into the issue anyway at the clinical level and perhaps refer only to the most everyday grievances, if one seems to appreciate an improvement in physical and mental health, an increase in empowerment and a

learning in the sense of hope and positive change. From this point of view, we could say that forgiveness does not make you weaker, but more free. Forgiveness can free us from the heavy chains of resentment and we must bear in mind that the process of forgiveness does not have to involve a process of reconciliation with the aggressor, but rather of personal liberation. Notice that, as the reader will already be anticipating, this can be very complicated when faced with

serious situations involving major conflict or trauma. In these cases, the path of psychotherapy will be fundamental to taking note there are many ways to forgive. Here are some steps that can help you do this. Decide a concrete moment to forgive and try to forget or park the damage, accept the damage they caused you, reduce the urge for revenge or punishment, increase compassion towards the situation. Forgiveness, stop feeling resentful of wanting to retaliate. It would be a

question of not expecting anything from each other. We can write you a letter that we don' t necessarily have to send. But not only does forgiveness of neighbor have health benefits. So does forgiving ourselves. In fact, this is the basis of therapies such as the twelve steps of alcoholism or acceptance and

commitment. Sometimes we have to apologize to ourselves because we become our greatest enemies, for example, when we demand too much for being very perfectionist or when we do not forgive ourselves or maintain a tight control over the body and food, as in the case of patients with anorexia. Guilt can limit us,

prevent us from learning and moving on with our lives. If we accept ourselves with our imperfections, treat ourselves in a kind and affectionate way and forgive ourselves, we can put the blame aside and feel valuable and worthy of respect. Five, changing so that you don' t repeat the madness is doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results. Albert Thinsein,

if you don' t change everything repeats itself. The philosopher and psychologist Powatsoe who spoke of the effect more of the same to explain the behavior of people who embitter the life entering an incessant loop of failed repetitions, in a situation that never fruitifies. These people always respond in the same way when they try to solve it and even increase the intensity of their response, rather than considering that if their approach does not work, they should not persevere in it,

but change their plan. Hence it is so important to explore in consultation the solutions tried by the patient to be able to recognize them. If you don ' t incur more of the same. Every recurring situation is an opportunity to do something different. Then why is it so hard for us to change you and not the other. When we talk about change, we refer not only to aspects that may have to do with our achievements, but also to interpersonal

relationships. Sometimes we obsess about wanting to change others. Which makes us frustrated. Trying to change others is the best way not to move forward. Why don' t you focus on what you can change. Imagine you were a drop of water and you wanted to change an ocean. You couldn' t, of course, but if you changed a little bit, if your drop got bigger or changed shape it could impact the adjacent droplets, move them, move them. The people we relate to in everyday life, such as the

family or our closest friends, constitute a system. Within these systems we tend to repeat the same patterns of behavior, that is, in a group of friends, we may be the least talking or the one who is always organizing things seven and most likely your form of behavior in the group. Shop to repeat yourself. It is something that can be appreciated more easily within the family. When we get angry, we repeat the same pattern over and over again.

For example, those who close the door of a doorknob when they get angry usually repeat the same behavior over and over again, which in turn triggers the same reaction in the other that, for example, may answer Way is already angry this one who does not know how to argue. In other cases, a teenage child has frequent discussions with his or her parents, but they

have great difficulty changing their usual course of action. The child may have had totally inappropriate and inappropriate behavior and the parents have not even managed to get him or her to listen to what they are telling him or her. You don ' t listen You' re a mess. You don' t do anything in the house. So you' re never gonna find anyone to hold you. But that same night the mother or father prepares dinner, puts a plate on the table for the teenage son and tells him to come to dinner at

least. What would happen if the guy who gets angry shuts the door, stops doing it and instead starts laughing good at first. How the brother would react and, in the case of the teenager, how he would react if that day no one had prepared dinner, would go to talk to the parents, would have at least caught the message of what he did not want to hear verbally. When one of the elements of the system changes, that change affects the rest of the elements that make it up, because that modification will

inevitably change, even if it is partially the reaction of the other. It would be the effect of a drop of water that has changed its size by falling into the sea. Hence, one of the best ways to influence others is to change ourselves. So we will influence the system to the people around us. If it doesn' t change, at least we' ll have invested in ourselves. As a nice metaphor says that I once heard if we are on the seashore and alone come to us, we cannot prevent them from

coming or choosing their size or strength. But we can modify our way of reacting to them six, connecting with one' s own body and environment. Connect with the body to free the mind, relax, dance, listen to music, observe our emotions and allow us to feel them. In the previous chapters we have seen the importance of interopceptive information, that of the interior of our body, which even influences decision- making. Connecting with our body sensations

gives us a sense of integrity and continuity. According to abeckwey this is something so relevant that the Cartesian adage of the feed then I exist, should be replaced by percent then I exist. It thus demands the role of the body, to which it presents as the material self the source of one of the deepest knowledge of ourselves, which comes from ns our viscera, such as the heartbeat, the roaring of the stomach or the expansion of the lungs, sensations

that are with us since we come into the world. Considering that throughout the book we have already seen a similar replacement of the famous phrase of discards I am looked at. Then I exist said Fongi. We could conclude that thinking, being thought, and feeling are three keys to the same thing, the sense of self without a body, a mind, and one other to interact with Possibly there would still not be seven of me to put emotions into words.

The limits of my language are the limits of my world. Ludwig Bickenstein, I usually tell my patients that just coming for a consultation, even once, and making the effort to answer all the questions they are asked already has a therapeutic effect. Why, then, because during the consultation we not only ask them about their emotions, but we also take a tour of their life and social, work, family factors, which allows us to create an individualized

and contextualized scenario. With all this story, the patient, attracted to the present, his personal situation, in a neutral space, without judgments, without questioning, has put it in context. We rarely have the opportunity to make such a detailed journey and through the word, it has been able to objectify

and delimit accurately. What he feels is as if we could materialize the abstract, as if we could touch him or appreciate the best, and this would make him lose strength or suddenly seem smaller, become more tolerable and easy to face. Don' t turn your back on fear in front of you. It' s not that scary. To put into words what we feel has

a regulating effect on itself. Several neuroimage studies have shown that people who put words to emotions showed less activity in brain tonsils than in turn was accompanied by a decrease in physiological activation of dermal electroconductance. That is, putting into words has a calming and calming regulatory effect. Well, if putting emotions into words already has a therapeutic effect on itself. It' s even more effective to

write them down on paper. As we said in chapter five, writing down helps us change and in the same way that every doctor has to do with language and knowledge in order to exercise. One of the first steps to participating in your own change is to get a good emotional dictionary to take note of a little exercise. To finish, let' s see how you' re

in emotional language. Sometimes we don' t know how to put into words the emotion that attacks us and being able to express it helps us to ventilate it first, because we delimit it, let it out and we can share it with others, which causes it to decrease in intensity. Trying to explain how we feel our brain processes and elaborates puts context pulls memories weighs emotion, so here' s a little emotional dictionary. Abulia, lack of will or

energy to do things refers primarily to initiative. It implies a lack of interest in the present or the future. Acting out for non- psychiatry psychiatry. They are impulsive acts that, in contrast to the usual functioning, are relatively insulated and present themselves as self- aggression or hetero. Self- aggressiveness towards one' s own straight toward others. Alexitimia, difficulty putting into words one ' s emotions, Anedonia, inability to experience, pleasure, apathy, lack

of motivation and desire to do things. Asthenia alludes to the most physical part of the lack of energy. It would be a feeling of fatigue and generalized ability, dissociation, alteration and diagonal bar or separation of functions of consciousness,

identity, perception of the memory environment that are normally integrated. For example, after having experienced a traumatic experience, one has the feeling of not feeling anything emotional dullness, dullness or emotional flattening, lack of emotional response in situations that, under normal conditions, would provoke intense joy or sadness and before which the

subject remains impassive. Filia taste or preference for certain stimuli or situations. It would be the opposite of phobia, a mixture of the two would have it in phylophobia or phobia to fall in love, neothymia, feelings of new appearance, such as static experience or ecstasy state of extreme well- being exaltation associated with a feeling of joy or spiritual grace. Neuroticism refers to the level of emotional instability of an individual. It is associated with high levels of anxiety and

changes in emotional status. When they experience very stressful situations, some wonder if they will not be going crazy, when in reality they mean that perhaps they are getting a little neurotic for inappropriate shyness or affection, emotional response, discordant or inconsistent with the situation lived or inappropriate for the situational context in which it develops. For example, talking about something very sad with a smile hijacking the

friend. The daughter friend refers to uncontrollable emotional reactions in which the friend the region involved in the emotional response takes control and command of the rest of the

brain kidnaps her and does not let out the most rational part. How many of these terms you knew or learned after reading this book, in the face of doubt, the middle point and sometimes you have not stopped to think about the kind of message we tend to receive, in the face of the rhythm of life that we carry, it is necessary to observe that now that everything happens quickly and without pause, we are invited to stop and stop to be

bored. A few years ago, however, the opposite was said, which had to be taken care of, not to worry if you are of high performance and productivity. The message that you will receive repeatedly and that your mind will tend to pay attention to will be that you have to stop and stop, let yourself be carried away by the SWOW movement, because getting bored is

good. It' s important you' re good enough. In fact, this book is more focused on these people who never stop than those who move on the other pole, possibly because of the aspects that the author herself tries to change in herself. On the contrary, if you' re one of the ones who gets flat on the couch, it' s hard for you to get to work or study You' re chaotic, etc. The message

you tend to receive is very likely to be quite different. What indirectly does not tell us this is that the key to success lies in the middle. So I wouldn' t want to say goodbye without remembering two things. One, the key to almost everything is in balance two. Polarized and restricted positions weaken us. But keep in mind that this midpoint is not always at our

disposal. In fact, many of the strategies discussed in this book, which indirectly imply improving our predictive capacity, enhancing the social and developing more strategies for frustration, among others, are not applicable to all circumstances, people and types of problems. However, when a journey is made, in this case the reading of this book, although many of our experiences we cannot take back home,

there is always room for learning and, therefore, for change. This change involves leaving at least a small physical and mental footprint and, most fascinating of all, that footprint will not be unmovable, but moldable and will be updated by evoking the information or re- reading the contents of this book. In the meantime, who knows, maybe we' ll meet on another trip and neither you nor I will be the same. Conclusion, the clinical case

of Ay emotional corrective experience. If you' ve come this far, I ' d like to ask you a question. What would you say to the boy I told you about in the introduction, what, at his young age, I only understood death as an exit and that I was only able to express psychic pain through physical pain. You might be tempted to tell him and

explain so many things, but that would really help him. What would you count on in an emergency intervention if you didn' t have more than an hour to talk to him, with what right, with what authority we could rush to tell him and recommend things, to give him advice. It is possible that if we did it for his mind, he would cross the idea of already giving me many advices and I do not heed them. Don'

t bother, I don' t need any more. The professionals we dedicate ourselves to mental health do not give advice, but we use other types of strategies that position the subject in an active and control role in the arduous path

that the sun will have to go through. We can act as a guide or neutral figure in front of the guide that friends and family can offer, in which the patient can look at himself, recompose himself, settle in reality, relativize and contextualize as if it were a co- pilot we are guiding and rectifying if the person leaves too much of the path she herself has set

out to go. But in addition, we will make these corrections not by offering statements, orders, or advice, but by asking questions and trying to get the person to perceive themselves from their mental traps. When this happens, when you are the person to whom you fall into your own revelations, you are incorporated and integrated much more quickly. The kind of questions we use may be how you think you' ll feel if you call back that person who hurt you so much, how you think she' ll feel, how you

' ll feel if she doesn' t respond the way you expect. Unlike other medical specialties, psychiatry has an important subjective component. However, we can still observe patterns of behavior that tend to repeat and that allow us to anticipate the evolution of the patient depending on whether the patient decides to treat them or

not. For example, a subject who tends to feelings of emptiness, who has low tolerance to frustration, instability, impulsivity of emotional regulation, dichotomous vision of things, has an operating pattern that has not been forged overnight, but its origin can be found in childhood. Therefore, in these cases the psychopharmaceuticals

will be only a support or a help for critical moments. Therapy will only work if there is commitment on the part of the patient and desire for change among other things, which has been cooked over low heat over many years. We cannot change it in a matter of days. Our behaviors and thoughts do not change overnight, although experiences do remain recorded for life, both in mind and body, and depending on the intensity of such experiences, it will be

more or less easy to achieve change. People who have experienced shocking or intense situations. An accident, for example, often relates similar experiences. That was revealing, it was even before and after in my life. It is the basis of what is known as corrective emotional experience, a concept that is used in some therapies and that is based on the potential for change provided by intense

emotional experiences. They seek to make the person live revealing situations, either through the urging in therapy or through those that arise in his daily life, an experience that can have an exceptional or disconcerting character for the person. I wonder if, in the case of that experience in the hospital so unusual, so novel for him, in a scenario and with some protagonists, perhaps something different from what he would have hoped to find, would have impacted in some way

or would have looked like a corrective emotional experience. It is difficult to predict because it will depend on many other factors and aspects that we do not know. What is very likely is that this scene will remain forever if not on a conscious level, at least in the body plane, unconscious, like imperceptible threads that run through it and make it an implicit memory. Life is full of all these small experiences and learning opportunities that are modulating our brain thanks to

its neuroplastic capacity, especially if they come from interaction with each other. If we are more attentive to them, we can make the most of them. It is also possible that one day, in some future, he has been able to help others who are in similar situations and unconsciously reproduce something of what he lived that day. It is also possible that the pandemic has been for many of us a genuine corrective emotional experience that has led us to question our

scale of values and our priorities in life. If you like this content, I invite you to subscribe to this podcast for more content like this. This was Lili' s secrets.