Physiological Component of Emotions - Kona, HI (Part 3)

To the extent that I still retain information from AP Psychology, it remains among the high school classes that are still most applicable and often-referenced in my life today. As per psychological theory, the source of emotions includes both mental and physiological components. Recently, I've found the physiological component to be more tangible to me through a particularly vivid experience.

The first time I went snorkeling was with my family on vacation. I remember my sisters and I were quite young, maybe around 10. It was a pretty gloomy day and the parents took us to a random nook by the edge of a gulf, sea, or ocean to snorkel. My dad had two snorkeling masks he bought from Costco – and one of them leaked off the bat. We all took turns with the other, cautiously stepping into the water, stopping at two feet depth and dunking in. My youngest sister immediately gave up, because the water was too salty and humans aren’t meant to breathe that. My other sister and I stood there for a while, alternatingly putting an inch of our faces below water, thinking it was so cool that we could see the pebbles and moss so close up in the water.

That was my first snorkeling trip and the story is fairly unrelated to the main point here. Basically, I’ve gone snorkeling or semi-snorkeling a few times prior to the most recent excursion in Hawaii. On this latest occasion, I went with a snorkeling boat tour and that, my friend, was a totally different ballgame.

I, along with a boat captain and a handful of other tourists, arrived at the first snorkel destination which was an inlet area by the coast. When we stabilized, I dropped myself from the boat into the midst of the expansive water. I submerge myself and look below the surface to be taken aback that the ocean floor was at least a hundred feet down. I’m not sure what I thought would happen. Maybe I thought that if I didn’t keep treading water rapidly, I would fall all the way down to the bottom. Maybe it looked like a completely different universe and I felt wholly exposed to unpredictable creatures that might dart at me from any angle. In the event of impending danger, my instinct to crouch down would do nothing to protect me, since that position is meaningless as I bob in the water and am mostly defenseless in an unfamiliar undersea world.

The visual here is that I freaked out a little bit, swam back to the boat, and linked onto the boat ladder while trying to take baby steps, attempting to peek below the water for progressively longer periods without panicking and reflexively popping back up. The snorkel mask seals your nose, so it’s an unnatural feeling to begin with, especially because you must focus on breathing only from your mouth. More than that, the ocean is gigantic, even just the part that I could see, and the sheer unknown induces fear. What is down there?

I took the swimming noodle they offered me and put it under my arms as I swam out a second time. This is what I found surprising: the fact that it helped massively. With the noodle, I physically floated exactly the same as without it. However, it made me feel instantly more protected and supported. More specifically, my body told me that I was now protected and supported. Relief notch 1. I also had my phone with me in a waterproof case around my neck so I tried to take pictures or to check that it was still there and fine. I couldn't even unlock it yet, because sea water interferes with the touchscreen and makes it poorly responsive. However, even just looking at the lock screen that I look at every day and holding my phone like I do every morning when I read daily news, behold, relief notch 2. The effect was striking, how instantaneous it was that I calmed way down.

Underwater photography is a passion hobby, I've learned.

Physically interacting with the world matters, on a level more than just out of necessity. My physiological response system won't always listen to my logical self so I have to consider communicating with my physiology on a physical level, especially in more extreme situations. As for the phone, I fleetingly felt a little Millennial in that moment, relying on my device to cope with experiencing the world. However, I think I can extrapolate a little to realize that sometimes it works great to equip myself with familiarity if it enables me to better take on challenges and unfamiliarity.

I might not even go deep with that latter one – just take it and run as justification for packing a quarter-suitcase's-worth of toiletries each week when I travel for work.

It's possible I already knew some of these things previously, like that my physical self has a real say in my life, but were things that I didn't realize from this angle. Well, consider them rediscovered and slotted among all the other correct, incorrect, and in between ways of looking at and thinking about the world in existence.