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CIVILIZED MAN'S ACTIVITIES AND HIS AUTONOMIC UNDERWORLD
Author(s) -
Minc Salek
Publication year - 1970
Publication title -
medical journal of australia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.904
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1326-5377
pISSN - 0025-729X
DOI - 10.5694/j.1326-5377.1970.tb63169.x
Subject(s) - precept , arousal , judgement , psychology , autonomic nervous system , neuroscience , stimulus (psychology) , adaptation (eye) , autoreceptor , cognitive psychology , biology , medicine , political science , endocrinology , heart rate , receptor , blood pressure , serotonin , law
Precept and practice in western society determine a “civilized pattern of activity”. In this pattern, stimulus to activity is based on intellectual judgement at the expense of emotional motivation. “Inner” impulses related to basic needs and drives are disregarded, at least temporarily, in favour of long‐term planning. While the actions of the body are regulated by the intellectual cortex, its functions, including adaptation to activity, are controlled by the autonomic nervous system. But the adequate stimuli for autonomic system arousal come from the field of emotions, drives, and moods, as they did tens of thousands of years ago. This means that bodily adaptation to the “civilized pattern of activity” will often stay at a suboptimal level. Disharmony may occur in different systems, such as cardio‐vascular, endocrine or metabolic. It is submitted that some of the morbidity of the Western man of today may be due to his unemotional activity, divorced from his autonomic underworld.