To understand allostasis (which I do not but I’m trying to), you have to first understand homeostasis. Homeostasis, from the Greek “homeo,” means “same,” while stasis means “stable;” thus, “remaining stable by staying the same.” In the human body, the point of homeostasis from a temperature standpoint is 98.6. That’s the normal the body always reverts back to. So the concept of homeostasis is the idea that everybody has a normal that they will constantly move toward in their body.
That idea used to apply to the brain, that the brain had a “normal,” a kind of thermostat, that it’s constantly trying to get back to. But recent research indicates that the human brain does is not homeostatic; it’s allostatic. The word “allostasis” was coined similarly, from the Greek “allo,” which means “variable;” thus, “remaining stable by being variable.” That means that the brain is in the constant progress of setting and resetting itself according to new normals everyday.
So here’s an example: Lots of us don’t understand post traumatic stress disorder, a condition occuring in veterans who have seen alot of action, because we think that when they get back home, they should reset to normal. But having been in such a high pressure environment for so long, their “normal” is way up there on the stress scale. It’s only through treatment that the brain can find a new normal.
The bottom line is that change IS the normal in the brain.
In thinking through the implications, it occurs to me that the moment-by-moment decisions are always moving me to a new normal. Every morning I wake up early to study the Bible and pray, I’m establishing a new normal. Every morning I sleep in, I do the same.
The key here for me is wound up in the fact that the brain is in a progressive state of change, always moving toward something. So the question is in my day-to-day decisions, what am I moving toward?
