When to trust your gut instinct

Apparently even when presented with facts that may be mathematically based, some 20% of people still prefer to go with, or rely on, their gut feeling. We often hear people say, ‘my gut feeling is’ or ‘what does your gut tell you’ and when people say this they are often convinced that their gut tells them more than anything or anyone can. People often go with their gut even when other people might think it’s not such a great idea.

Gut feelings are very useful when facts are not available and a situation is unstable or uncertain. Certainty and mathematics are compatible and that’s where the laws of probability count.

But I think that gut feelings are not something that just arise out of nowhere or happen in a split second. I think that gut feelings come from experience of the same, or similar, circumstances. Experience of patterns in a chain of events and experience of being able to interpret subtle pieces of information.

Everyone has gut feelings. But what is a gut feeling? What does it feel like? A gut feeling can be confused with other emotions and, in fact, often gut feelings may be confused with being emotional rather than factual or rational. A gut feeling might present itself in the form of a strange feeling in your stomach, like something is off. It might be like butterflies or knots in your stomach. It might be an intense feeling that something feels right or something feels wrong.

The study says that 20% of people go with their gut so that means that the other 80% go with the facts that have been presented to them. That’s not to say they may not be experiencing symptoms that are similar to that described above. They may but they may also be ignoring them because they may be confusing them with being in an emotional state. These 80% might even be ensuring they base their decisions on the facts that are available as well as anything they may be feeling. They’re not ignoring the facts nor are they discounting any feelings they may be having. But they are allowing the facts to outweigh their gut feeling when it comes to coming to a decision.

So the big question might be this. When is it okay to rely on your gut feeling? If you feel someone is off, they probably are. If you feel unsafe and feel it’s best to get out of a situation, you might be and it’s probably best to exit a situation. This also applies to if you feel you have an affinity with someone then you probably do. If you feel safe, you probably are.

Now let’s talk about hypochondria. This is a medical condition in which a person has a physical symptom and automatically assumes the worst. For example, if they have a headache, the person might link it to a tumour, even if it might be, and probably is, just a headache. If they have a stomach ache, they might think it’s stomach cancer even though it might just be something they ate. In these circumstances they seek immediate medical attention and request MRIs and ultrasounds. Doctors and their staff invariably scoff at people such as this and either order the tests, albeit reluctantly, or they try to explain to them that their symptoms are nothing more than headaches or something they may have eaten.

But that being said, where health is concerned, is it better to be a hypochondriac, someone who really pays attention to what his body is telling him? Or is it better to be someone who ignores symptoms as nothing? In my view, often doctors who have scoffed at what they call hypochondriacs, have been proven wrong when the patient’s instinct that they were seriously ill was correct.

So in my view, it is certainly better to be more concerned about your health than not and if your gut feeling is telling you that your pain is more than just aches and pains, maybe it is. In my view, gut feelings are quite important to maintaining a healthy body because as soon as you feel something you get it seen to.