Today was a very long day and I feel how my energy level is below the one a worm has. Because of this, my concentration diminished and my power of concentration also (if this is a worse blog post than usual, that’s the reason). Noticing this about my current condition, I remembered that our physical condition has a huge impact on our mental one, simply because our instincts become stronger once we lack some basic needs (like food and rest).
The post I wrote about this “phenomenon” summarizes the idea that we need to pay attention and good care to our physical condition, especially when we have to make an important decision (the original post can be found here).
Have you noticed how our mood shifts when we’re hungry? That’s because one of our basic needs is not satisfied and this tries to take over our mind so we can focus on finding food. This is a primary instinct and it affects us more that we would want to, but most of the time we can control it because our conscience is in place. But have you noticed how this control drops when there are some substances in our body that silences our conscience (like alcohol or others) and we get more driven by our primary instincts? The most common example is calling or texting your ex when you’re drunk (some buried feelings pop up and there is no filter to stop them).
All those basic feelings coming from our instincts (hunger, fear, sexual drive etc.) are the best at changing our mood and I think we should be careful when acting upon them.
They say we should never make decisions when we’re happy or when we’re sad because we’re not rational at those moments. I think that the same principle applies to the moments when we are driven by our instincts.
What decisions did you make when you were driven by feelings and you regretted afterwards?