Each one of us must have experienced goosebumps from time to time in our lives. Be it when we feel cold, highly emotional, or even at times when one is feeling sexually aroused. The scientific term for goosebumps is cutis anserine.
Why is it called goosebumps? Because the texture of the skin becomes too evidently like the skin of a goose and causes one to feel the bumps on the skin.
Goosebumps or not more of a physical appearance but rather an involuntary emotional response. The physiological reason for goosebumps is when the topmost layer of your skin has tiny muscles on it. Those small muscles from which the hair grows rise at the time of any extreme emotion.
The goosebumps usually do not have any beneficial effect on our human body. It is just a way for our body to respond to certain situations. Another situation when an animal’s body can feel emerging goosebumps is the state of fear. Even humans undergo the same, fear makes those little muscles prominent and the hair starts to rise with the goosebumps.
In flight or fight situations faced by animals, for instance when an animal is being chased by their predator, goosebumps occur. But due to the immense growth of their hair over the body, those tiny risen muscles are hardly ever visible.
We, Humans, do not have such a good amount of hair over our body which is why the bumps are prominently visible whenever one undergoes certain situations or emotions.
Reasons for Goosebumps
As mentioned earlier goosebumps can occur due to several reasons, also the reasons can vary from individual to individual. Goosebumps are subjective to people. A few of them are as follows-
- Feels cold
- Feeling extremely scared
- Feeling extremely loved
- Any other strong emotion deeply felt
- Feeling sexually aroused
- Indigestion
- Intensified Music
Music gives goosebumps
Do you know that a lot of people actually feel the occurrence of goosebumps when they listen to music? Yes, you read it right!
When people listen to music that reminds them of a situation or a person which intensifies their emotions, it makes them feel any one of the following emotions mentioned above at a very great level, they can feel the flight or fight response from their body.
This directly sends a message to the brain and further leads to the contraction of those tiny particles of our skin. This happens as a reinforcement from our brain as the release of dopamine leads to the rise of goosebumps.
From now on, notice how your body responds to several different music tracks. We say we know what touches our hearts, let us figure out what touches our brains!
Goosebumps in animals
Most animals’ goosebumps are not evidently visible because of their body coverage with hair. On the other hand animals like cats, whenever they feel frightened, the entire strings of their hair pop up and rise up in a straight direction, causing a very visible display.
Usually, the animals get goosebumps because of the fear of a big animal and being their prey, goosebumps are their instinct just like us. The rising follicles make their hair rise. Animals like monkeys, cats, deer, etc show prominent goosebumps.
Conclusion
One thing to notice here is that All the reasons causing us goosebumps are eventually in our hands. How we have been conditioned, how we perceive any emotion, what scares us, what makes us happy, make gives us joy or even sexual arousal, everything is set up by our upbringing and conditioning.
Emotions are malleable and can be controlled in the human brain, all you need to do is spend some time with yourself. Notice yourself, pinpoint what leads to what, that is the aim. Once you know your triggers, everything can be controlled by manipulating your surroundings. To some extent, even the goosebumps caused by the cold weather is in our hand, because of our conditioning.
So in a way goosebumps are an involuntary yet voluntary response of the body. The occurrence of Goosebumps is an absolutely natural phenomenon and every individual feels it every now and then.
That’s all from my side folks, don’t forget, Be yourself, Love yourself!
