Body Feeling Quote by Lisa Feldman Barrett
““Your body-budgeting regions can therefore trick your brain into believing that there is tissue damage, regardless of what is happening in your body. So, when you’re feeling unpleasant, your joints and muscles might hurt more, or you could develop a stomachache. When your body budget’s not in shape, meaning your interoceptive predictions are miscalibrated, your back might hurt more, or your headache might pound harder—not because you have tissue damage but because your nerves are talking back and forth. This is not imaginary pain. It is real.””
About This Quote
Source Book: How Emotions Are Made, 2017
When the brain’s predictions about bodily states are off, it can amplify pain signals, creating real discomfort without tissue damage.
In simple terms: Miscalibrated body predictions increase perceived pain.
Key Takeaway
Check and adjust bodily predictions.
Themes
neuroscience
pain perception
mind-body
Mood
analytical
empathetic
Type
scientific
educational
When to use this quote
- chronic pain management
- stress reduction
- clinical therapy
- self‑monitoring
Key Concepts
predictive coding
interoception
psychosomatics
Questions to Reflect On
- Can awareness of prediction errors reduce pain?
A Different Perspective
Predictions can be hard to consciously correct.
![“[... Dance] involves every possible feeling (as potential), because it is of the body, which is lived (inescapably) as a body of feeling. Some of these feelings we can name, and some we cannot, since we associate feelings with language only when we name them. The body lives sentience on a…” quote by Sondra Horton Fraleigh](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/9ec/sondra-horton-fraleigh-77182_associates_dance-involves-every-possible-feeling-as_1120765.jpg)
