Title: Why Do I Feel Like I’m Being Watched? This Is The Scientific Reason For Paranoia
Headings: If You Feel Like You’re Always Being Watched, There’s A Scientific Reason Why
If You Feel Like You’re Always Being Watched, There’s A Scientific Reason Why
Normal Paranoia Likely Developed To Help Us Survive

Content: the idea of being wary of others in your environment seems to have developed as a pretty natural part of our survival. Normal Paranoia Likely Developed To Help Us Survive
GarbageVEVO on YouTube
Paranoia, it's suggested, likely evolved as an evolutionary strategy. " Wariness of the intentions of others may be adaptive in some situations ," noted the British Journal of Psychiatry in 2013, "and becomes a clinical problem only when it is excessive, exaggerated or distressing, or interferes with functioning." So what's the story behind its development under normal circumstances? The dominant theory is that we experience paranoia because our nervous systems and brains are designed to assess and highlight something called "social threat": the potential signals being given by other people that they may be hostile or not have our best interests at heart. A review of paranoia science in 2004 found that we possess many fine-tuned ways of detecting whether people around us are friendly: we can unconsciously "read" angry and afraid facial expressions very quickly in others, and various parts of our brains buzz with activity as they try to assess whether we should be suspicious. Humans are social animals who have lived and cooperated as groups for a very, very, very long time. As well as being able to work well with others, it stands to reason that we also carry deep-seated mechanisms to help us detect unfriendly intentions and protect ourselves and our groups. "