How do we know what we need?
STAYING IN RANGE
Just to stay alive, we have SO many needs to meet.
We need to breath every few seconds, eat and drink every few hours, find shelter and sleep every night.
Luckily our bodies have developed an “autopilot” mode for us to make sure we meet all of our needs at the right times.
Homeostasis is the process living organisms or systems use to maintain stable internal conditions (physical, chemical or social), even when external conditions are changing.
Some homeostatic processes happen behind the scenes. For example, your body needs to stay pretty close to 98.6 degrees at all times. To avoid overheating, your body naturally starts sweating, which cools the body down. To avoid getting too cold, your body starts shivering and reduces blood circulation to the skin.
The body can only do so much on its own, however, and sometimes it needs you to take explicit action to correct being “out of healthy range”.
We talked earlier about the 5 senses that collect information from the outside world. There’s actually a less discussed 6th sense — interoception — which is the brain’s ability to assess what’s happening to the body internally.
Just like taste has different categories to help you distinguish between various nutrient types (salty, sweet, bitter, sour, umami), so interoception has different categories to help you figure out what is out of range (see examples to the right).
These familiar feelings are each distinct based on the need they represent and which side of the spectrum you’re on (too much or too little). These distinctions are critical to convey information about what you need so you’re motivated to act in the right direction.
A few notes:
Some of these feelings have even more nuance: often we’re not just hungry, but we crave something specific (fat, salt, sweet), which theoretically reflects what nutrients our bodies need.
Even though distinguishing between these feelings is critical to survival, we’re not always good at it. How many times have I thought I was hungry, snacking away on chips, when I was actually thirsty?
We don’t really have associated feelings for being “just right” — because when you’re just right, no actions are required. The purpose of the feelings is to motivate actions to “fix” something. If nothing’s broken, that need is met and can be ignored
Unmet needs are notably unpleasant, even painful — they are annoying, nagging, then intense until the need is met. Remember how we said that meeting your needs is rewarding (the pleasure of that first bite when you’re hungry, a cold drink of water on a hot summer day); unmet needs are punishing by design.
