The Application Of The Goldilocks Principle In Maintaining Our Health
Anything that is unregulated can spiral out of control, and we wouldn't want that to happen to ourselves.
In the realm of music and acoustics, an amplifier is a gadget that
turns the low voltage signals from your source equipment into a signal with enough gain to be used to power a pair of speakers.
It does so by amplifying the signal, or in layman’s terms, increasing the signal.
If we are in an argument with other people and we are raising our voices, our voices get amplified as well.
The idea of amplification isn’t limited to just sound signals, because there are many other things that can be amplified as well.
Another synonym for amplification would be escalation - as in the escalation of issues from one hierarchy to the next hierarchy in any given organisation. When a person does not have sufficient power to deal with a certain issue at their workplace, they raise/amplify/intensify/escalate the issue to their managers, for instance.
In fact, the fear of missing out (FOMO) can also be easily amplified, which can lead to panic buying and selling of stocks. All it needs is a major scandal to be unearthed, as it was in the case of Astronomer’s CEO Andy Byron with his HR chief Kristin Cabot at a Coldplay concert.
So while being able to amplify a signal is one thing on its own, being able to regulate the intensity of its amplification is another story altogether.
Because that also is how our immune system functions:
The Hierarchical Nature Of The Immune System
The body’s immune system is responsible for defending the body against any potential threats or infections. The idea being that we will be able to prevent ourselves from getting infected if we have a “strong” immune system.
his leads us to the Goldilocks Principle. Much like how Goldilocks found Papa Bear’s porridge too hot and Mama Bear’s porridge too cold, while Baby Bear’s porridge was “just right”, the author Christopher Booker states that
The idea that the way forward lies in finding an exact middle path between opposites is of extraordinary importance in storytelling.
Unfortunately, the balance in our life also involves finding an exact middle path. We’d need to be able to get our immune system to amplify inflammatory signals appropriately. We don’t want it to overshoot too much. We want it just right.
Of course, our immune system’s macrophages have a significant role in this:
The Importance Of The Macrophage In The Immune System
The macrophage is one of those immune cells in our body that does quite a fair bit of things without us thinking about it. We’re exposed to so many microbes and virues in the environment on a daily basis, and some of them can penetrate through the skin and mucosal barriers that act as the first line of defence to those foreign invaders:
Because when we’re injured, there is a highly amplified wave of inflammatory signals being sent out in the form of biochemicals known as cytokines.
This high intensity wave is an “all hands on deck” call for all available macrophages to swarm the site of injury or infection - and that is how we can get highly intense sensations of pain, for instance, when we sprain an ankle. That is how we can get highly intense symptoms of a flu infection in the form of blocked noses, headaches and fevers.
So we do need that kind of initial response when our body is trying to heal from an infection or injury - the high intensity wave to call all hands on deck.
Of course, we do need to quell that intensity when the injury has been repaired or the infection has been dealt with. We’d therefore be looking at a momentary spike in the concentration of the cytokines in the blood.
Because when the spike remains intense over a long term period, we’d be staring down the face of a cytokine storm. We don’t want that to happen to ourselves, definitely.
And that’s how our immune system should operate ideally - intense during the moments of dealing with threats, placid when there are no threats.
Much like how a military force ought to be operating. In a war, it has to be focused and intense in dealing with enemy threats, but it can stand down during peacetime, though it has to be continuously prepared and on the alert in case of the next threat.
Of course, we do see how soldiers can go wayward even during peacetime situations, and we can expect the immune system to be doing that if we don’t know how to regulate its functions properly.
We are, unfortunately, the CEO/general in charge of the cells in our body.
When we can live our lifestyles appropriately to keep the immune system functioning according to the Goldilocks principle, we’d have less issues with wayward cells.
Because the problem with the inflammation signalling process in the body is that it is self-amplifying.
An inflammation signal is raised to sound the all hands on deck alarm.
The macrophages swarm the site of injury and raise their own inflammation signals to call more of their comrades over to help. It’s very much a self-amplifying procedure.
Thankfully we don’t have that problem with sound systems, else we’d go deaf very easily.
However, that signalling mechanism and the players involved can go wayward, which results in the development of chronic inflammation - the two words that we all want to avoid.
And of course, we do need the immune system to cooperate with us. That’s a necessary thing to do!
Do feel free to check out Nutrients That Support A Healthy Immune System to see how our diet can influence the inflammatory response from our immune system!
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