Never before in human history have we been exposed to so many sensory stimuli at once, and never, ever, have we felt so little. We live perpetually overloaded with screens, multitasking, demands for constant performance, and hyperproductivity. Thus, the mind remains permanently switched on, without the possibility of taking restorative breaks. And from so much noise and so little substance, a kind of permanent mental chatter arises that pushes us toward a progressive disconnection from our most basic emotions.
Current culture encourages and demands speed, performance, a violent “gimme now, gimme more.” But feeling, on the other hand, implies time, pause, and introspection. Emotional anesthesia, then, functions as an adaptation: to maintain performance, we turn off what we feel. Screens activate the brain’s reward system, generating rapid spikes of dopamine, which shift attention outward and prevent us from feeling discomfort, emptiness, or sadness. Over time, the brain loses its ability to self-regulate and becomes dependent on external stimuli.
“Emotional avoidance is silent and cumulative. It doesn’t appear suddenly: it builds up like a layer that affects the body, relationships, mental health, and identity,” explains Dr. Ángeles García Vara, a specialist in psychiatry with postgraduate training in medicinal cannabis. The main costs? Emotional numbness, lack of vitality, desire, and joy, intolerance of discomfort, somatization, impoverished relationships, and psychological dulling. Just to name a few.
“The less we feel, the less we tolerate feeling. Avoided emotions return with greater intensity. That’s why the body becomes the spokesperson, because the body speaks when the voice is silent. And that’s when insomnia, bruxism, irritable bowel syndrome, hypervigilance, headaches, fatigue, chronic tension, and pain appear,” she says.
“To avoid our own emotions, we also avoid those of others: less intimacy, less listening, more inner loneliness, fear of showing vulnerability. And …
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Author: Hernán Panessi / High Times
