Karen Restivo
In other words
Run for your life - It’s the End of the World - Get Out of Dodge!
Recently we’re hearing a lot about artificial intelligence’s (AI’s) seedy address - 4377 Darkside Way, occupied by none other than Darth Vader. But for this article, let’s think of AI in a positive light.
Recently, reader email/text responses on my articles have generated considerably more engagement from previous years.
A common thread in the remarks question how my algorithm in social media research is certainly more insightful and philosophical than their every-day doomscrolling.
For once I can give credit to the algorithms used by social media.
Most people think algorithms only track what you “Like” or “Share.”
In reality, Dwell time (how many seconds you pause on a post) is one of the most powerful signals. Philosophical texts and complex concepts inherently require more time to read and digest.
When you slow down scrolling to process a complex thought, the algorithm registers that pause as massive engagement and immediately queues up similar content, a time-saving quality in my case.
To be truthful, it creates a bit of a rabbit hole; just ask the Sentinel what time in the wee hours of the morning my articles surface.
This algorithm issue resides more closely to you than you realize regardless of the amount of time or no time you spend on your computer.
A regular contributor to my news articles @Soulmindhub gave me pause when reading through research last weekend.
It referenced a psychoneuroimmunology team at Harvard Medical School that ran an experiment that sounded absurd.
They told volunteers to talk to their own bodies, out loud saying things like, “You’re safe.” “You’re healing.” “You did well today.”
One patient with chronic pain changed a single sentence.
For the first time she told her body thank you instead of sorry.
Within days her muscle tension had dropped by half.
Gratitude had switched off her alarm system.
Her doctor put it in one line: “She stopped fighting her body, and it stopped fighting back.”
The Harvard researchers gave it a name - Affective Signaling.
Here’s their explanation -
The nervous system treats your inner speech like a voice coming from someone else in the room.
So every insult lands chemically real, even the silent ones.
Which makes self-kindness the wrong thing to file under psychology.
It belongs under neurobiology.
The lead researcher ended on one sentence. “Your body hears everything your mind says.”
In other words the strongest medicine in that study was not something anyone found.
It was something they said.
The realization is people think the thoughts in their head are private.
The body never got that memo.
Bottom line - Repeat a sentence often enough and it stops being a thought.
It becomes an instruction.
Your nervous system is listening the entire time.
Not to your logic or your evidence.
Your nervous system is picking up on the emotional tone underneath the words, sorting every sentence into safety or threat.
Give the signal of failing, or being broken and the body reads it as a report from the field.
Preparation for danger is underway.
Your muscles tighten and breathing becomes shallow.
Immune defenses slow to survival mode filing away repair for later. (Sounds to me like a human algorithm pattern).
@Soulmindhub concludes- The body commits to the story long before reality confirms it.
Change the sentence and the physiology follows it. Regulation rewrites chemistry - I am safe.
I am healing.
Peace is revealed in the measurements.
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com