Definition
Body chemistry names the cocktail of neurotransmitters, hormones, and autonomic tone that produces felt states — gratitude, boredom, charge, collapse — as biological output, not as who you are.
Origin
Affective neuroscience treats emotion as constructed from interoceptive signal, prediction, and context. The shorthand: you are not in gratitude; the body runs a gratitude recipe for a window of time.
Mechanism
Inputs (sleep, food timing, movement, social threat, imagined scenes) shift dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, cortisol, and vagal tone. Vivid mental imagery can recruit overlapping autonomic and somatic responses with perception — the classic pattern behind rehearsal effects in sport and exposure work. Schachter and Singer’s two-factor model remains a landmark; later constructed-emotion work treats felt states as inference from interoception and context, not a fixed label for each circulating signal.
Visualization for skill trains chemistry before the live rep; inspiration-only visualization can spike then crash if failure rehearsal is avoided.
Applications
Pair chemistry language with Interoception logs — tag which recipe am I running? after voice journal. Use three types of imagery when you want the same chemistry on demand. Do not moralize states — change inputs, context, or rehearsal loop.
Sources
Cite
- Barrett, L. F. (2017). How emotions are made: The secret life of the brain. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
- Schachter, S., & Singer, J. (1962). Cognitive, social, and physiological determinants of emotional state. Psychological Review, 69(5), 379–399.
- Holmes, P. S., & Collins, D. J. (2001). The PETTLEP approach to motor imagery: A functional equivalence model for sport psychologists. Journal of Applied Sport Psychology, 13(1), 60–83.
Related doctrine
Interoception · Personal Standards · Three Types of Imagery