yes! in general, sensations associated with comfort (warm, soft, good textures, comfort foods, fireplaces, soft rain while being indoors, the presence of safe people, certain kinds of sunlight (through a window, onto something soft you can lie on and let it warm you), being indoors in general, etc) lower target stress and sensations which require being-tolerated or alertness raise it.
This helps explain why people like low-info environments—they’re normally in a high stress-target state! If you’re in a high-stress-target state and don’t know how to downshift, then external attempts to lower your stress target feel cooperative instead of super-creepy like they do to me.
(I’m normally in a VERY low stress target state, such that I frequently end up responding to potential stressors like social attacks as not-supposed-to-be-stressful things before I generate the hypothesis that I should be stressed out or something. This often works out well for me.)
But I suspect there’s some substantial amount of dimensionality in addition to the general factor you’re writing about.
yes! in general, sensations associated with comfort (warm, soft, good textures, comfort foods, fireplaces, soft rain while being indoors, the presence of safe people, certain kinds of sunlight (through a window, onto something soft you can lie on and let it warm you), being indoors in general, etc) lower target stress and sensations which require being-tolerated or alertness raise it.
This helps explain why people like low-info environments—they’re normally in a high stress-target state! If you’re in a high-stress-target state and don’t know how to downshift, then external attempts to lower your stress target feel cooperative instead of super-creepy like they do to me.
(I’m normally in a VERY low stress target state, such that I frequently end up responding to potential stressors like social attacks as not-supposed-to-be-stressful things before I generate the hypothesis that I should be stressed out or something. This often works out well for me.)
But I suspect there’s some substantial amount of dimensionality in addition to the general factor you’re writing about.