When Information Brings Relief
After this post, I started wondering if there was a purpose for the information. My entire career is based on helping people understand their medications (and, at the root, their bodies). What am I doing this for? (Not in an existential crisis sort of way, although I’ve had those days, too.) Why does information matter so much?
Subjectively, I’ve always felt the information had a purpose. We’ve all known someone who struggled with strange symptoms for an extended time before they received a diagnosis. And when the diagnosis does come, even if it’s hard, there is often relief that they know what they are up against.
Or even on a personal level, if your normally sunny teenager suddenly becomes sullen and irritable, finding out that the issue is a bad grade or friendship drama—even if you know the problem is going to persist and be difficult—is better than imagining all the scenarios. Or worrying that your real child has been abducted by aliens (that’s a joke).
The Peace of Simply Knowing
That’s the pattern we see over and over. Just naming a problem makes it less frightening. Knowing what we are up against brings peace.
From Observation to Evidence
So we know that it’s observable, but what we observe is often biased. Is there any empirical evidence for this? And most importantly, what does scripture say?
What Happens in the Brain
We’ve covered the observable. But I didn’t have to look hard to find studies showing that patients who understood their illness had less anxiety and better outcomes.1
It turns out the research lines up with what we know about the brain itself. From a neurobiological standpoint, understanding a difficult situation calms your amygdala (the part of your brain that largely triggers your fight or flight response) and engages your prefrontal cortex, which is the more rational part of your brain. In other words, it allows you to respond, rather than react. It enables you to tell yourself that your biochemistry is a little off at the moment, and you should listen to your brain, and not your feelings.
Real Life Examples of Expectation
This isn’t just theory. We live this out all the time in ordinary life. If you know you’re working a 12-hour shift, you’re not surprised to find yourself working at hour nine. If you think you’re working an 8-hour shift, hour nine hits a whole lot different. So if you feel yourself start to react and wonder why this issue feels so big—or if you can’t figure out what this brain fog is about—realizing that it’s probably hormonal can help.
Scripture’s Take on Knowledge and Guidance
If that’s how the brain works, it shouldn’t surprise us that Scripture highlights the same truth.
but the advantage of knowledge is this: Wisdom preserves those who have it. (Ecclesiastes 7:12)
And:
Plans are established by seeking advice; so if you wage war, obtain guidance. (Proverbs 20:18)
Maybe it’s just me, but I think the war metaphor fits.
The Hard-Earned Wisdom of Midlife
And perhaps that’s one of the gifts of this stage of life. God uses even our shifting hormones to train us in the kind of wisdom that only comes with experience.
The gift of middle age is the wisdom it brings. But we earn that wisdom, and it’s due in part to the crash course on emotional regulation we find ourselves enrolled in.
This is part of my series on the Theology of Hormones. Read my cornerstone post here.
- Jennings CS, Astin F, Prescott E, Hansen T, Gale Chris P, De Bacquer D. Illness perceptions and health literacy are strongly associated with health-related quality of life, anxiety, and depression in patients with coronary heart disease: results from the EUROASPIRE V cross-sectional survey. Eur J Cardiovasc Nurs. 2023 Oct 19;22(7):719-729. doi: 10.1093/eurjcn/zvac105. PMID: 36351004. ↩︎
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