Thoughts on Hyper Stimulation
By vishwa on Health
May 19, 2014
What is hyper stimulation? It is an exaggerated version of a stimulus to which there is an existing response tendency. Take for example what Richard Jeni, comedian, says about pornographic movies. He says, “Things that will never happen to you in your lifetime.” Yes! We fantasize sex when we watch a pornographic movie to be a whole lot better than what actually it is. To further elaborate about hyper stimulation I will present an excerpt from the book titled Change your Body change the World: Reflections on Health and Human Predicament.
”The study of hyper-stimulation started with ethologist Niko Tinbergen, winner of the 1973 Nobel prize in biology for his research on instinctive behavior in animals. Tinbergen devised a series of dummy objects, specifically designed to surpass the power of a natural stimulus. For example, he found that many bird species preferred plaster eggs that were larger than their own and that were decorated with exaggerated colors or markings. Some species will even ignore their own eggs in favor of over-sized fakes. Songbirds will abandon their pale blue eggs to mount a huge gay-glow dummy egg. When a graylag goose is given the choice between its own egg and volleyball, it chooses to sit on the volleyball.”
Wow! This is a ground breaking finding. Moreover, it seems hyper stimulation is natural to us–an instinctive act. I now understand why most of us fall prey to advertisements that claim “ 6 pack abs in 6 weeks” or the statement that you can lose 1 5 kilos in 30 days. We all like to be hyper stimulated. Also, on the flipside, you may finally come to find out that possessing is a six pack is gut wrenching similarly losing oodles of fat is laborious. You complain and abandon the plan. Nonetheless, the idea of a supernormal stimulation is so comforting that we are carried away by it.
However you should know that as Frank says “When it comes to making substantive changes to minds, bodies or lives, easy doesn’t work. Easy doesn’t transform. All easy does is grease the path from impulse to a shallow gratification. Easy doesn’t save time; easy is waste of time.”
I believe we have to firmly stand on our ground and know the difference between real and unreal. Unreal is surely comforting but it can be disastrous. So get stimulated not hyper-stimulated.