I Read an article that said emotions from negative social activity, like being rejected or ignored, actually changes our DNA. They cause emotional or psychological results that can eventually express as physical results. I quote a portion of this article: “Within 40 minutes, they and other researchers have found, these experiences affect the expression of individual genes, determining which parts of our DNA are turned on or off . . . they have found, [these experiences] can change how DNA behaves.”
So we are to believe that emotion changes DNA. I have been taught that DNA is a chemical structure within a cell. It is supposed to resemble a helix, a double coil, having rungs like a ladder. The "rungs" of the ladder are our genes. The article states our emotions are supposed to change these genes.
I suppose if someone, who I thought liked me now says he hates me, has made my genes change. How could you know my genes have changed? How can this be proved? Will a piece of skin be taken from me, frozen, sliced up, dyed and microscopically analyzed to show the changes? This presupposes a skin sample was taken before the "rejection" so it could be compared to the one taken after the "rejection" that the differences could be observed. Do I need to take a blood test, will that work?
Remember, this all takes place within 40 minutes so we can not allow for the possibility that the emotional trauma may have physical manifestations resulting in lack of care for physical maintenance or safety. Even if we allowed 40 hours could not eating or lack of sleep (resulting from the despondency) change my genes?
This seems absurd to me. I doubt if sad (or angry, or happy) emotions can express directly as physical gene changes. I don't believe it has any bearing in truth. This statement seems to be a contrivance to have something exciting and provocative to write about
Maybe time and physical / psychological experiments will prove me wrong, but until then I'll file this away in the "Wacco" bin.
