Home
28. "Rigidity" produces dissonance, the root of stress.
As can be seen from the above two maxims, for the body, being wrong can be just as comforting as being right. In fact, the body does not care about what is 'universally' right or wrong. It is primarily focused on feeling good right now. Your frontal cortex may talk you out of missing a boring meeting, but if the rest of your body had its own way, you would not be attending that boring meeting -- you'd be doing something more immediately pleasurable and satisfying for your body. Being at the boring meeting will be a cause of stress for you, and it was your own rigidity that brought on that stress. Other animals don't regularly cooks themselves with stress and pressure. In this way, human adherence to our own cultures creates stress for ourselves in a uniquely human manner. Current psychology and neuroscience both tell us that we seem to be creating too much stress for ourselves. We stay in the rut. However, knowing about this may help teachers and students better deal with stress, and may help foster less stressful cultures in the future.
Q. Do you know rigid people? How do they make you feel? Relate this to classroom teaching.
As can be seen from the above two maxims, for the body, being wrong can be just as comforting as being right. In fact, the body does not care about what is 'universally' right or wrong. It is primarily focused on feeling good right now. Your frontal cortex may talk you out of missing a boring meeting, but if the rest of your body had its own way, you would not be attending that boring meeting -- you'd be doing something more immediately pleasurable and satisfying for your body. Being at the boring meeting will be a cause of stress for you, and it was your own rigidity that brought on that stress. Other animals don't regularly cooks themselves with stress and pressure. In this way, human adherence to our own cultures creates stress for ourselves in a uniquely human manner. Current psychology and neuroscience both tell us that we seem to be creating too much stress for ourselves. We stay in the rut. However, knowing about this may help teachers and students better deal with stress, and may help foster less stressful cultures in the future.
Q. Do you know rigid people? How do they make you feel? Relate this to classroom teaching.
