"In the year 2010, neuroscientists used advanced brain imaging to confirm what the Stoics had intuited 2,300 years ago: Our emotions move faster than our reason. Within just 40 milliseconds of seeing something fearful, the brain's emotional center-the amygdala-lights up like a flare. It's the body's alarm system, raw and reflexive. The Stoics called this the propathē-the first movement of emotion, before conscious thought intervenes."
"Only a few hundred milliseconds later does the reasoning network of the prefrontal cortex come online, weighing, labeling, and interpreting what the body already felt. This second, evaluative phase, which the Stoics called the pathē, is where judgment transforms an impulse into a response. In other words, ancient philosophers theorized that the first spark of emotion happens without our control, but that the second wave-the one shaped by our thoughts-offers a chance for mastery."
Magnetoencephalography revealed that emotional reactions precede deliberative thought. The amygdala responds within roughly 40 milliseconds to fearful stimuli, producing immediate bodily signals. Only a few hundred milliseconds later the prefrontal cortex engages to weigh, label, and interpret those signals. Stoic terminology distinguishes the initial bodily movement of emotion (propathē) from the later evaluative phase (pathē) in which judgment shapes responses. The brief interval between reaction and reflection provides an opportunity for self-awareness, deliberate appraisal, and the cultivation of emotional mastery, freedom, and inner peace.
Read at Psychology Today
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]