How are you?
When people, or indeed yourself ask "how are you?" then this can get answered in a number of ways dependent on the context of the question: a formality in a business meeting, a probing\challenging question in a fraught relationship, a welcoming intimate invitation to connect in a friendship or maybe a checking in with yourself at the end of a day.
Here I wanted to look at what are the components to answering this question. I am interested in this as I guess there are many misinterpretations in terms of how someone is, where an emotional understanding may be made when there is a more physical explanation, or indeed vice versa. Indeed for this reason you might see people eating when they are actually tired (I certainly do this) or thinking they’re sad when actually they are sleep deprived and have some digestive problems ( I can do this).
The components to the answer seem interoceptive and psychological.
Your interoceptive experience is all the sensation from all your internal physical systems. The systems comprise the homeostatic systems which cycle around, for instance, sleep and digestion. Out of these systems there might be an experience of being sated, or deficient, pleasure or pain, intense or calm.
Then there are the biological systems of breathing, and blood circulation. Here you might notice an experience of breathing, beating quickly, or slowly. As you become aware of that then there will be an affective state that rises out of that.
There is also the nociceptive system, which is comprised of all the receptors that register chemicals, pressure, and heat damage, that is used to generate pain responses. What information are they firing and how does that feel?
Then there are the chemicals that you have in your neurological, hormonal, and immune systems. In short, we have several chemicals that we have different feelings from, for instance oxytocin (calm) or adrenalin (energised).
Now these physical systems will be influenced by your immediate past, present and future. For instance if I have felt attacked at work, my body might be hunched trying to protect myself and the internal systems likewise in a defensive formation. As I come back home this might be modulated by a sense of relaxing as I unwind mixed in with the anticipatory anxiety of a friend coming around.
I will also interpret my interoceptive information and will affect psychological systems. For instance, I might notice interoceptively a feeling of lowness, and think I am sad I should stay in today. You might notice the fast beating heart and think “I’m panicking, god I’m having such a hard time”. The statements and behaviours that arise from this interpretation again will have an affective outcome.
Psychologically what do you bring from your past, what has just been happening, what memories are still resonant with you and how is that affecting how you see yourself and the world currently? How does it affect your perceptual bias, what “coloured” glasses do you look at the world with today? How does this past and present then affect your view of the future.
As much as psychological activity brings affect with it, as you imagine\remember and perceive in certain ways. It also brings with it motivation of physical engagement, are you preparing to run, approach, engage, feel, disengage, or hide?
The content of cognitions produces affect as you experience your thoughts and there is also affect produced from the process of cognition. Is there a fast movement between thoughts, or a repetition, is there a changing of topics or the same topic, are the thoughts increasing in intensity. Again with this process of cognition will arise certain affect.
So in summary, psychological affects comes through cognitive content and process, which will either relate to the outer or inner world. This in turn will affect how the body and internal systems prepare in light of this information.
We also have internal systems that can generate affect, either homeostatic systems or chemicals
So, within this complexity, with this interactive dynamic process emerges a complex affect, and that you might say is how you are!
Bibliography
Interoception: The Eighth Sensory System Paperback – Illustrated, 30 Jan. 2016
by Kelly Mahler (Author)
How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain Kindle Edition
by Lisa Feldman Barrett (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
