What AI Can’t Feel & Why That Matters for Optimal Health
A nervous-system perspective on technology, care, and human judgment.
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What AI Can’t Feel & Why That Matters for Optimal Health
In healthcare, speed is often treated as a virtue.
Faster triage, faster diagnoses, and faster decisions.
However, human bodies don’t experience speed as efficiency. They experience it as pressure.
A rushed healthcare system may move quickly, but the nervous system doesn’t.
When decisions are made faster than the body can regulate, even the most accurate information can land as threat rather than care.
Before we talk about technology, we have to talk about the body receiving it.
The Nervous System Reality
Under stress, the human nervous system narrows perception.
Fear reduces cognitive flexibility.
Pressure limits nuance.
Overwhelm constricts choice.
This isn’t a personal failing. It’s physiology.
A calm nervous system allows for clarity, integration, and judgment.
A dysregulated one prioritizes survival.
In healthcare settings, where fear, pain, uncertainty, and vulnerability are already present, this matters more than we like to admit.
Technically correct decisions can still cause harm if they arrive in a body that doesn’t feel safe enough to receive them.
Where AI Enters The Room
Artificial intelligence (AI) is already present in healthcare in quiet, ordinary ways.
Risk scores.
Triage tools.
Predictive labels.
Optimization systems designed to move patients efficiently through care.
These tools aren’t villains. They’re accelerants.
AI doesn’t create pressure in healthcare—it amplifies whatever pace already exists. When speed is the default, AI increases speed. When systems prioritize efficiency over regulation, AI sharpens that edge.
What it doesn’t do is slow the room down.
A Clinical Truth
A patient is labeled “low risk.”
Their symptoms are subtle.
Their vitals are stable.
Their data fits the model.
However, something in their body—hesitation, tone, or, a quiet insistence—doesn’t fit the model or match the criteria.
There’s no drama here and no heroic rescue.
Just a familiar truth: sometimes the body knows before the data catches up.
When healthcare systems move too quickly, those moments are easy to miss.
What AI Can’t Do
AI can’t feel hesitation.
It can’t sense when someone is regulated versus shut down.
It can’t hear tone beneath words.
It can’t decide when to pause.
Furthermore, it can’t recognize when a human needs time to pause—not more information.
Healing often begins in the pause and pauses don’t optimize well in systems built for speed like rushing healthcare systems.
A Mirror for The Reader
You don’t need to be a clinician to feel this.
You’ve felt it in:
patient portals.
automated messages.
notifications that say “nothing urgent” while your body feels anything, but calm.
When care is delivered without space, the nervous system stays activated—even when the information is accurate.
This isn’t about mistrusting technology. It’s about understanding how bodies receive it.
The Reframe
The ethical question isn’t whether AI is accurate.
It’s whether our systems still leave room for human judgment, relational care, and nervous-system safety.
Accuracy without attunement is incomplete care.
The goal isn’t to eliminate technology.
The goal is to ensure that speed is adjustable, not default—and that human presence remains central when bodies are under stress.
Friction isn’t always failure. Sometimes, friction is care.
Final Thoughts: What This Means for The Future of Health
As technology continues to evolve, a few principles matter:
AI should support judgment, not replace it.
Efficiency should never outrun regulation.
Systems should be designed with the body in mind, not just the data.
Healthcare happens in nervous systems, not spreadsheets.
Technology will continue to advance.
Bodies will continue to tell the truth.
Our work—now and going forward—is to design healthcare systems that listen.
Until next Sunday,
—Jessica
Your 2am friend who actually gets it
“We feel so safe with the ones we love that we often share with them our tension, our stress, our fear, our sadness, and even our anger, but let us remember to also give them the best version of ourselves, our joy and happiness, our excitement and peace, and our attention and care.” —Yung Pueblo
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MEDICAL DISCLAIMER
This content is for informational and educational purposes only. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of such advice or treatment from a personal physician. All readers/viewers of this content are advised to consult their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions. All viewers of this content, especially those taking prescription or over-the-counter medications, should consult their physicians before beginning any nutrition, supplement or lifestyle program.
Thanks Jessica. I’m not used to reading medical articles but this is an opening for minds and necessary to know
Pretty good 👍🏻 👌🏻