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Zusammenfassung von Good Reasons for Bad Feelings

Name: Good Reasons for Bad Feelings
Rating: 4.2 (117 reviews)
Author: Randolph M. Nesse

Randolph M. Nesse

Insights from the Frontier of Evolutionary Psychiatry

4.2 (117 Bewertungen)

28 Min.

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What’s in it for me? Get a fresh perspective on the timeless question of why we feel the way we do.

We’ve all heard about how humans have evolved over time to become increasingly successful at staying alive and reproducing. But have you ever wondered why our species is still coping with so many dysfunctions that getting through a typical day can feel like an epic struggle?

If so, you’re not alone. This is exactly the question that author Randolph M. Nesse sets out to answer in Good Reasons for Bad Feelings. As Nesse explains, there are plenty of good reasons for all the messy emotions we have, as well as the troubling dysfunctions we have around things like food, sex and drugs. So what may appear to be inconsistencies with the science of evolution are actually helpful examples of both the internal systems we’ve developed over time, and the ways in which these systems may be in conflict with modern life.

Sometimes our feelings may seem to hold us back from living fruitful lives, but there are in fact good reasons for even the most unpleasant emotional responses. Understanding these reasons can help us to feel better about ourselves.

In these blinks you’ll find out

why jealousy is useful for our genes;
why sexual satisfaction isn’t an evolutionary priority; and
why the bliss you get from drugs is more dangerous than other pleasures.

Natural selection and our modern environments have given us great advantages and great vulnerabilities.

Through countless generations, the process of natural selection has brought us an array of advantages, such as opposable thumbs and sensitive vocal cords. When paired with our evolved brains, these traits allow us to create handcrafted wonders and to communicate our most profound thoughts.

But despite the many triumphs of human evolution, we are yet to develop immunity to many of the physical and mental diseases that plague us. While we’ve made certain ailments, like infected wounds and polio, less life-threatening than they once were, we still fall victim to cancers and chronic depression.

This is, in part, because our environments change with us and consistently introduce new dangers, like processed foods filled with dangerous amounts of sugar, salt and saturated fats. Once upon a time, these ingredients were rare, so our bodies had a healthy craving for them. But due to their relatively sudden abundance, our bodies are ill-equipped to deal with them. And so we find ourselves facing high levels of obesity and heart disease, as well as eating disorders like anorexia and bulimia.

At any rate, there’s little chance that natural selection will help us overcome such issues, since health and longevity are not what natural selection is concerned with. Ultimately, natural selection is all about emphasizing the traits that lead to better chances of reproduction. If you’ve ever felt the desperate desire to have sex with someone of the opposite gender, regardless of any problems this may create, then you’ve likely experienced this process in action.

Natural selection also has limits and trade-offs that practically guarantee continued imperfections.

For example, humans have a relatively strong sense of sight, but we certainly don’t have the kind of telescopic vision that an eagle has. Theoretically, we could develop new eyes that address our imperfections, but this would take thousands of generations, and the process would result in our vision getting worse before it got better.

Any evolutionary improvement in eyesight or brain power would come at a cost. If we were to gain more telescopic vision, it would mean that we’d lose the peripheral and color vision we currently enjoy. Likewise, if we were to develop bigger, more powerful brains, this would require larger heads, which would increase the risk of death during childbirth.

Of course, there are certain traits that we’d like to lose, such as feelings of stress and anxiety. But this would also come at a cost. As we’ll see in the next blink, these bad feelings help us to sense danger and stay alive.

Emotions help us survive and pass on our genes.

When we feel physical or emotional pain, we may go to a doctor to ease these sensations or stop feeling them altogether. But what if there are important reasons for feeling pain, or even jealousy?

Few people want to experience romantic jealousy, but there’s no denying that it’s a powerful emotion. In fact, between 1976 and 2005, 34 percent of female murder victims in the US were killed by a romantic partner.

Understanding the reasons for anxiety and panic attacks can be helpful in treating them.

Anxiety can appear in many different forms. It can creep up on you during your morning commute as you question whether or not you closed the refrigerator door. Or you may succumb to panic attacks at seemingly random moments during the day.

These days, around 30 percent of people worldwide will face some form of diagnosable anxiety. So let’s take a closer look at how anxiety can be useful, despite being hard to cope with.

Depression can stem from a dysfunction in the regulation of mood.

Most of us are familiar with the debilitating effects of depression, either through first-hand experience or through someone close to us. In fact, according to a 2013 study published in The Lancet, depression is the cause of more years lived with disability (YLDs) than any other disease.

But despite the familiarity, depression is notoriously difficult to diagnose. When does being in a bad mood cross over into depression? And how long is a period of grief following the loss of a loved one supposed to last before it qualifies as clinical depression?

An evolutionary perspective can help us treat the real causes of depression, not just the symptoms.

Unfortunately, there’s no limit to the number of ways our modern world can sink us into a state of depression. It could be due to feeling helpless over a loved one who’s addicted to drugs, or to spending years working for a company that continually passes you over for promotion.

And then there are times when depression is the result of a malfunction in people’s ability to regulate their moods.

Psychiatry can be improved by taking a more personal and individualized approach.

We’ve made great strides in understanding the world thanks to the scientific method, which rigorously tests a theory to make sure it’s repeatable and predictable before creating a law that can explain some natural phenomenon. But what works in one field of science doesn’t always work in another.

When psychologists attempt to find a general rule for something, like why people get depressed, this is called a nomothetic approach. The experts look at large swaths of the population to find correlations, such as females being twice as likely as males to experience depression early in life.

Kin selection and social selection may explain our altruistic and selfless natures.

Clearly, we all have the capacity for experiencing pain and mental anguish. But despite it all, we also have a remarkable aptitude for loving and caring for others. In fact, sometimes we can be so focused on helping others that we’ll do so even if it puts our own well-being in danger.

Unselfish behavior like this can be considered a form of altruism, and evolutionary scientists have asked how it can be that potentially self-destructive behavior has ended up being passed down.

Our capacity for love and caring also comes with feelings of worry and grief.

Our ability to form deep and caring relationships may seem like a profound and beautiful thing, but there’s also a price to pay for these emotional connections. Indeed, our capacity to care for one another means we also care deeply about what other people think about us.

After all, we may want to be seen as desirable sexual partners so that our genes will live on after we’re gone. Consequently, we might end up doing whatever we can to please other people. In fact, a good reason for the bad feeling of low self-esteem is that it can make us aware of when we’re not doing enough to please others.

Reproductive efficiency comes at the cost of sexual satisfaction.

If anyone’s told you they have a flawless sex life, they’re probably in denial. Nearly everyone has problems related to sex. Maybe you’ve never been sexually attracted to your partner. Maybe you’ve never been able to experience an orgasm or feel like anyone will ever understand your desires. Whatever the issue may be, unsatisfying sex is all too common, even if most people prefer not to discuss it.

From an evolutionary perspective, this may seem unusual. Since sex is at the heart of making sure our genes are passed down, why isn’t it always satisfying for everyone? Well, as sad as it may sound, natural selection has prioritized effective reproduction over sexual satisfaction.

Our current access to food and drugs is at odds with how we developed.

If you’ve ever tried to exercise more, stop smoking or cut down on junk food, then you know how hard it can be to do things that are unquestionably good for you. For many of us, it’s such a struggle to get fit that we turn to self-help products. In 2013 alone, the US market for weight-loss products was worth over $60 billion.

The reason we have trouble shedding unwanted pounds and keeping them off is actually rather straightforward: the mechanism we developed for regulating body weight is ill-suited to the modern world.

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Worum geht es in Good Reasons for Bad Feelings?

Good Reasons for Bad Feelings (2018) bridges the gap between evolutionary biology and psychiatry by answering some pressing questions about why we feel the way we do. By focusing on our evolutionary development, we can better understand where many of our most instinctual feelings, moods and emotions come from, and how we can better treat our disorders when they arise.

Bestes Zitat aus Good Reasons for Bad Feelings

If only emotions always benefitted us! Alas, they were shaped to benefit our genes.

—Randolph M. Nesse

Wer Good Reasons for Bad Feelings lesen sollte

Anyone affected by mental disorders
People who want to better understand how the mind works
Students of psychiatry and medicine

Über den Autor

Randolph M. Nesse, MD co-founded the field of evolutionary medicine when he co-authored the book Why We Get Sick in 1994. He is also the founding director of the Center for Evolution and Medicine at the University of Arizona, a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the president of the International Society for Evolution, Medicine and Public Health.

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