Newsletter
Diseases of (Over-)Reactivity2025-04-21
“The cover-up, more than the initial wrongdoing, is what is most likely to bring you down.”
—Madeleine Albright
Reactivity, along with activity and with connectivity, are the holographic trinity of biology, and beyond. Over-reaction to danger and trauma, whether psychological or physical, leads sometimes to more long-term harm than the original trauma. The reactivity mechanism is designed to be useful and constructive, but can be destructive if it lasts too long, is too intense, or goes after the wrong target.
Some examples: allergies, autoimmune disorders, chronic inflammation, plaques in blood vessels in atherosclerosis, plaques in the brain in Alzheimer’s disease, hypertension, Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
The solution is to dampen reactivity in such cases, but the scars it left do not go away by themselves and are hard to reverse, unless proactive physical measures and/or psychological measures to do that are found and implemented. The practical conclusion is that prevention would be best, but once a disease of over-reactivity has manifested, medications to dampen over-reactivity are not enough, actual (micro or nano) surgery and/or comprehensive bio-socio-psychological measures are needed for complete recovery. That is the approach we have taken for mental health and wellness https://mindxsciences.com/.