Causes of goosebumps

Information on Goosebumps

Goosebumps are actually triggered by a certain reflex of thehuman body which is called piloerection. All mammals have the hair on their skinand a better part of that hair is sometimes barely visible. Piloerection is thereflex in which the hair lifts up in its follicle which causes the follicle toslightly stand out from the skin.

Goosebumps got their name because the skinresembles the visual appearance of the skin of a plucked goose. Piloerectionactually makes the animals feel warmer and adds to the surprise factor of afrightened animal.

Increased heart rate, sweating and goosebumps are allautomatic responses of the human body and they cannot really be controlled thateasily.

Causes of Goosebumps

There are numerous reflexes of the human body which areassociated with the emotions. Those include butterflies in the stomach, blushing,turning pale and goosebumps.

They all get triggered by the limbic system whichis located in the brain. The system is in charge of governing most primitivedrives that make a person feel good. Those may include hunger, fear,aggression, rage and sex. The system is constant connection with the thalamusand the hypothalamus. These two elements are in charge of providing theemotional stimulation from numerous different sensations such as music orpoetry.

Music, poetry and scary movies do not make a person feel cold and theydo not pose any physical threats. The prompt that triggers an automaticresponse to scary movies, music or any type of emotion is not of physicalnature, it is actually a psychological prompt. It actually makes a personvulnerable in a specific way.

Adrenaline rush can be associated with severeanxiety but it can also be affiliated with emotional welling up and intensepleasures. The human body can sometimes be tricked easily into believing intocertain things. People get hungry while watching a food commercial when theyare not actually hungry at all. Some other people actually do get frightenedwhile watching a horror movie, even though they know that it is just the movieand that it did not happen for real.

The reality of the 21st centuryprovides numerous psychological and emotional stimuli which was not the casewith the previous centuries that much. The psychological and emotional responsealso greatly varies from person to person. Some persons may be frightened bycertain experiences such as reading a horror book or watching a horror movie,but for some others it may trigger nothing.