Muscle tension as signal jamming

Why do we often experience feelings as being in the body? Why might we feel anxiety in the chest rather than just knowing “I’m anxious”?

Here’s an idea: What if when you have a feeling in your body, it’s there for others to see? What if feelings use the body as a display?

I’m not sure exactly how this would work — perhaps it’s mediated by subtle muscle movements or vibrations — but let’s roll with the assumption.

If this is true, then there’s a huge problem: What if you’re surrounded by hostile telepaths? What if you don’t want your mind to be read?

When you want to relax but you’re surrounded by hostile telepaths.

How this could work: say John sometimes has a feeling in his neck that represents the information “I have the choice to leave the social situation I’m in right now.” (Maybe this particular feeling manifests in his neck because it motivates turning his head to leave a social situation, who knows.)

And let’s say another part of John’s system essentially predicts, “If other people know that I’m considering leaving, they will react negatively. So we better hide this information.”

If you’re John, what do you do in this situation? How do you hide this information? How do you jam the signal?

Perhaps one solution is to get tense. If your neck is tense, it can’t be used as a display and your secret can be kept.

I know this all seems speculative so far, but I’m pretty sure it was part of what incentivized my own chronic neck tension.

Muscle tension as signal jamming.

I’ve heard of dating coaches who have a similar hypothesis: Tense men repel women, and relaxed men do not repel women. It would make sense from the female perspective: If someone is hiding information from you, shouldn’t you assume it’s something bad?