Why is it most of us are so adverse to getting a bit wet?
I misread the weather this morning and got rather wet on the morning dog outing, as the heavens joyously opened in happy partnership with a blustery wind to the face.
Looking around the field there were a mix of people ending their current activity and fleeing for shelter and those stoically, if perhaps more urgently, striding on.
It was interesting studying my own physical and mental responses to the change in circumstances. The initial surge of discomfort as the colder air and the wet combined to dramatically alter the environmental experience as my body responded to seek to maintain equilibrium. The first thoughts were dismay at getting wet and the promise of a good soaking, and judgement for not having better anticipated the likelihood of rain.
Reflection then as to why it is that we seek to avoid the rain so much? Clearly evolution has equipped us to survive such events and I couldn't imaging our hunter gatherer or early farming ancestors abandoning the hunt and fleeing their fields as soon as rains came.
The manner in which we react to most of the events in our lives is conditioned by our thoughts from earlier equivalent, or similar enough, experiences. Your relationship to the rain and how you feel about getting wet will be largely determined by prior experience and associations to it.
The two notions from my childhood which came to mind where the association with being wet and being muddy, the dismay of parents contemplating the level of cleaning required in the house and the cycle of extra cleaning of children's clothes. The second was the adage, "You will catch your death from cold!", the frequent reaction to anyone in wet clothes. Subconsciously, getting wet therefore could lead to your disapproving parents or even more seriously, you untimely demise, and is therefore something to be avoided at all costs.
My Google searching failed to reveal any statistics on actual deaths due being stood in wet clothes but I did find this helpful break down on Quora from a nursing supervisor who stated,
"Wet clothing does not make a person sick. Wet clothing can be a catalyst to one getting sick. Wearing the wet clothing for a sustained period or wearing it in a cold environment lowers the body temperature. The body likes to remain around 98.6 or close to it. As a result of the lowered body temperature, the body focuses its attention on getting the core temp back to normal by increasing blood flow to the core and causing shivering. While the body has its attention on warming the person, the immune system is not as responsive as usual. This means that exposure to a virus that normally would be eradicated by the immune system can “slip by”. The longer it takes the body to warm up, the more susceptible it is to the virus invading and causing illness."
So conceptually possible but extremely unlikely that most of us will be killed by getting a bit wet, in fact you may be statistically more likely to be killed by a swan*.
(*statistic not proven and used artistically).
Back to my walking experience I noticed the body adjusted nicely to the change of environment. I didn't feel cold and once the clothes were wet there was no real change in sensation to disrupt my attention and require further adjustment. Strangely it was quite comfortable and the quiet sounds of the rain coupled with the smell of wet grasses was extremely pleasant. My thoughts of course did turn to the fact that my wet clothes would make my car seat wet when I got back in it and reminded me that the kindness of our thoughts is always ready to kick some dirt in our face at the earliest opportunity.
What this gentle journey really seeks to highlight is how the pre judgement of our thoughts and our earlier experience shape our present experience and is a primary factor in the experience of anxiety. When we face the challenges in life we find for the most part that we can manage or overcome them, or that there weren't that bad after all. It is our thoughts in anticipation of them that seek to ruin us and trap us in a cycle of anticipatory dread or avoiding behaviour such as procrastination.
So, watch your thoughts and behaviours with curiosity and challenge them kindly. How many of them are seeking to protect you from danger? When investigated how likely is that danger and will you really, "catch your death from cold?". Then what might this mean for your felt sense of experience in the world?
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