The trouble with 'feeling less'...

Experiments with people who say they're not feeling much have shown that they often have the same changes in their bodies as other people. The trouble with 'not feeling' or 'feeling less' is that we may be suppressing our emotions, and they can collect and build up inside us over time.

Changes in our stress hormone levels can be detected a long time after we've been anxious, especially if we're generally stressed.

If we're anxious about going out of the house, we might come to feel very afraid three or four hours before we have to leave - this time is called 'reach-back.' Having gone out and returned, the amount of time during which we're still anxious is called 'after-burn.'

When our anxiety is triggered by a number of things throughout the day, the 'after-burn' of one trigger may overlap with the 'reach-back' of another, so we feel anxious all of the time.