Homeostasis Is Not Standing Still - Changing in Order to Keep Existing

Imagine that I have just finished a task.

It could be a run, a difficult meeting, a class, or two hours of intense concentration.

The task has ended on the clock.

But perhaps it has not yet ended in me.

My breathing may still be different. My heart may still be beating faster. A sentence may keep returning. I may feel pain, pleasure, relief, or fatigue.

Externally, I have stopped.

Internally, many things are still moving.

Perhaps this is where we need to correct our image of homeostasis.

Homeostasis is not standing still. It is being able to change enough to keep existing.

The outcome may remain stable while I have already changed

Hamann and Carstengerdes followed 31 participants during 90 minutes of simulated flight while recording EEG and fNIRS simultaneously. Mental fatigue increased progressively, but performance remained relatively stable. In the EEG, parietal alpha increased early and then reached a plateau, while frontal theta increased more gradually. fNIRS did not show an equally consistent temporal progression. The study is part of the EEG selection used in W40/2026.

If we looked only at the result, we might say:

“the person is still managing.”

But the Body-Territory was already changing in order to keep managing.

Homeostasis and allostasis do not need to be understood as opposites. The first concerns the preservation of physiological conditions compatible with life; the second helps us think about adjustments that depend on context, experience, and anticipation. The stability of living systems can require changes in the very conditions being regulated.

The practical question becomes:

how much did I have to change in order to maintain what appeared stable?

Being does not change; the being that changed perceives what was changed

In BrainLatam we use a formulation:

Consciousness is a movement that perceives itself as Being within the metabolism produced.

This is a BrainLatam conceptual hypothesis, not a consensual definition in neuroscience. “Produced metabolism,” here, is used in an expanded sense to include chemical, electrical, vascular, respiratory, muscular, and visceral movements of the Body-Territory.

And then we can return to a phrase from W40/2026:

Being does not change; the being that changed perceives what was changed.

Here, Being is not an entity separated from the Body-Territory.

It is the very perception of Being.

I begin a task in one configuration and finish it in another. Breathing may have changed. Tension may have changed. Attention, circulation, activated memories, and perhaps even my interpretation of what happened may have changed.

And yet there is enough continuity for me to perceive:

“I was like this.”

“Now I am different.”

“Something changed.”

The “being” that finishes is not identical to the one that began. But it can perceive the transformation because the perception of Being crossed the change with it.

Perhaps consciousness participates precisely in this possibility:

perceiving the difference while remaining the one who crossed it.

When I perceive fatigue, it is already part of the Body-Territory

We often say:

“my body is telling me that I am tired.”

The expression is useful, but it can suggest a body sending messages to a separate mind.

The Damasian Mind allows us to explore another reading.

António and Hanna Damasio propose that continuous interoceptive feelings participate in the experience of the organism's internal operations and, together with the sensory perspective of the environment, contribute to conscious subjectivity.

In the BrainLatam extension, when pain, pleasure, relief, or fatigue become perceived, they do not arrive at an “I” that was waiting somewhere outside the event.

Perceived fatigue is already part of what I am at that moment.

This does not mean that feeling automatically explains its cause.

Feeling confirms the experience.

It does not, by itself, prove the interpretation.

But perception creates a decisive difference:

now there is something that can participate in choice.

The Body-Territory needs space and movement

BrainLatam has been using a phrase that becomes central here:

The Body-Territory needs space and movement to feel, signal, and regulate itself.

Movement, however, does not mean only walking, running, or gesturing.

The BrainLatam proposal around music and Anergy already points out that someone can remain seated while breathing, posture, tension, memory, and experience continue to change.

Often, movement is more internal than external.

Heart rate begins to fall.

Breathing reorganizes.

Muscular tension is redistributed.

Attention releases itself from a problem.

A memory returns.

An interpretation becomes less rigid.

From the outside, I may appear still.

Inside, the Body-Territory is crossing a transition.

Within Alfredo Pereira Jr.'s Triple-Aspect Monism, the materiality of the living body, dynamic patterns of information, and sentience are jointly necessary aspects of conscious experience. We do not need to turn them into three substances or three worlds.

So “giving the Body-Territory space” may mean something very simple:

not immediately filling every interval with another demand.

Completion of Movement: finishing is not merely stopping

In the BrainLatam hypothesis, Completion of Movement describes a possible trajectory:

mobilization → perception → intention → gesture → return → meaning → choice → transition.

It is not a clinical protocol.

It is a way of asking whether what mobilized me found enough opportunity to generate return, meaning, and choice.

I finish a meeting.

If I immediately move into another task, I may remain functional.

But perhaps the previous movement has not yet found completion.

My breathing changed.

A sentence affected me.

I responded.

But perhaps I have not yet perceived what that response produced in me.

Completion does not mean discharging everything.

To complete is not to expel an energy. It is to recover the possibility of movement and choice.

This is where the pause becomes agency.

Some words change with the time we give them

Think of a sentence that bothered you.

Now imagine not responding immediately.

Do not search.

Do not share.

Do not immediately look for someone who confirms your first interpretation.

Just a few moments.

Perhaps another memory appears.

Perhaps the first reaction loses some of its force.

Perhaps you still disagree, but you can distinguish more clearly:

“I felt this”

from

“this proves that.”

Research on wakeful rest suggests that periods of quiet rest with little interference after learning can support memory consolidation. A 2025 meta-analysis brought together 37 studies and 63 experiments and found an average positive effect, although the magnitude varied across populations and measures.

This does not demonstrate that silence produces insight.

But it offers a plausible mechanism for our question:

The understanding of some words may change with the time we give them before another word immediately occupies the same space.

Silence does not guarantee truth.

It preserves possibility.

Jiwasa: shared agency also means offering an interval

This is where Jiwasa enters.

Not as a collective mind.

As an inclusive we.

I cannot regulate your Body-Territory for you, and you cannot regulate mine for me.

But we can participate in the conditions that make regulation possible.

A team can end an intense meeting without immediately adding:

“before we go, one more thing.”

A teacher can leave a few seconds before demanding an answer.

A conversation can contain silence without someone needing to fill it.

Shared agency does not mean that we all feel the same thing.

It means protecting the possibility for each Body-Territory to perceive what is still happening within itself.

Perhaps Jiwasa is also this:

a we that does not decide in advance how long the other should take to complete their movement.

Recovery is not emptiness

In physical exercise, this becomes easy to see.

When we stop, external effort ends, but autonomic recovery has its own kinetics. A meta-analysis led by Brazilian researchers found slower recovery of some heart-rate-variability indices in the first minutes after high-intensity interval exercise compared with moderate continuous exercise; after a longer recovery period, those differences were no longer expressed in the same way.

The exercise ended.

Recovery began.

Recovery is another movement.

The same applies to mental tasks.

In the pilot study, performance remained relatively stable while subjective fatigue and EEG were already changing.

Perhaps this is why “is it over?” is an insufficient question.

We also need to ask:

“what in me is still finishing?”

A first-person practice

After something that truly mobilized me, I can experiment with a simple sequence:

I finished → I notice what is still continuing → I do not immediately fill the interval → I notice what returns → I choose the next movement.

There is no universal duration.

It may take seconds.

A walk.

A night.

The proposal is not to turn pausing into another productivity technique.

It is to stop treating every transition as disposable time.

A pause can generate information:

“I am more tired than I thought.”

“That hurt me.”

“Now I understand why that word remained.”

“I want to continue.”

“I need to stop.”

When this enters consciousness, it becomes possible to participate in regulation instead of merely being carried by it.

Homeostasis as the possibility of another movement

Perhaps homeostasis is not returning exactly to the previous state.

Perhaps it is preserving something more fundamental:

the capacity to perceive differences and produce responses flexible enough to continue.

Being — the perception of Being — offers continuity.

The being changes.

Pain, pleasure, and fatigue, once perceived, already participate in the present Body-Territory.

Completion of Movement offers return and choice.

Jiwasa can offer shared conditions.

The pause offers time.

And movement is not always visible.

Sometimes it is a walk.

Sometimes an exhalation.

Sometimes the heart slowing down.

Sometimes a sentence receiving a few seconds before the next one arrives.

Perhaps we can recognize:

“the task ended, but something in me is still ending.”

And perhaps consciousness is part of what makes this passage perceptible.

Being does not change; the being that changed perceives what was changed.

I do not need to become exactly who I was when I started.

I need enough space to perceive who has finished.

Because the Body-Territory needs space and movement to signal and regulate itself.

And very often, the most important movement happens before anyone else can see it.

Commented References

Damasio, A., & Damasio, H. (2024). Homeostatic Feelings and the Emergence of Consciousness. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(8), 1653–1659. DOI: 10.1162/jocn_a_02119.
What this reference represents: proposes continuous interoceptive feelings, sensory perspective, and subjective integration as central components of the conscious mind. It supports our transition from physiological regulation to first-person experience without making “Damasian Mind” an original term coined by the authors.

Stevenson, T. J. (2024). Defining the brain control of physiological stability. Hormones and Behavior, 164, 105607. DOI: 10.1016/j.yhbeh.2024.105607.
What this reference represents: distinguishes homeostasis, rheostasis, and allostasis as related but non-identical forms of physiological regulation. It supports the idea that living stability may require changes in the parameters being regulated.

Hamann, A., & Carstengerdes, N. (2023). Assessing the development of mental fatigue during simulated flights with concurrent EEG-fNIRS measurement. Scientific Reports, 13, 4738. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31264-w.
What this reference represents: the central experiment of Blog 9. Subjective fatigue and EEG changed even while performance remained relatively stable. The external variable may appear preserved while the system is already paying the cost of preserving it.

Hamann, A., & Carstengerdes, N. (2022). Investigating mental workload-induced changes in cortical oxygenation and frontal theta activity during simulated flights. Scientific Reports, 12, 6449. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-10044-y.
What this reference represents: shows that increasing mental workload modifies both frontal theta and hemodynamic measures, with different sensitivities in EEG and fNIRS. Present demand and accumulated fatigue are not the same phenomenon.

Weng, L., Yu, J., Lv, Z., Yang, S., Jülich, S. T., & Lei, X. (2025). Effects of wakeful rest on memory consolidation: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32, 1937–1968. DOI: 10.3758/s13423-025-02665-x.
What this reference represents: gathers evidence that quiet wakeful rest with little interference after learning can support memory consolidation. It does not prove that silence produces understanding, but it provides experimental grounds for taking the interval after an experience seriously.

Leal-Menezes, R., Rodrigues-Krause, J., Dos Santos, G. C., et al. (2025). High-intensity interval aerobic exercise delays recovery from heart rate variability: a systematic review with meta-analysis. Clinical Autonomic Research, 35, 365–379. DOI: 10.1007/s10286-024-01103-7.
What this reference represents: a Brazilian contribution showing that the end of effort does not coincide with the end of its autonomic dynamics. Recovery has its own timing; stopping an activity does not mean instantaneously returning to the previous state.

BrainLatam; Cionek, J. (2026). Completude do Movimento.
What this reference represents: develops the hypothesis of mobilization → perception → intention → gesture → return → meaning → choice → transition. Completion is not energetic discharge; it is the recovery of return, meaning, and the possibility of choice.

BrainLatam (2026). Música, ritmo e liberação da Anergia.
What this reference represents: proposes that the Body-Territory needs space and movement to feel and regulate itself and shows that movement can continue without large external displacement. It supports our hypothesis that an important part of recovery can be internal movement.

BrainLatam (2026). Calor Latente — quando a transformação acontece sem aparecer na variável mais óbvia.
What this reference represents: introduces the earlier formulation “Being does not change; the being that changed remembers what was changed.” Blog 9 deepens it: Being is the perception of Being; the transformed being is able to perceive what changed.

BrainLatam (2026). Um mesmo evento — metabolismo, movimento e consciência.
What this reference represents: makes explicit the hypothesis that “consciousness is a movement that perceives itself as Being within the metabolism produced” and distinguishes this conceptual use from the conventional biochemical definition of metabolism. It is the bridge between the material movement of the Body-Territory and conscious perception of its own change.

Pereira Jr., A. (2023). Introdução à Metafísica do Monismo de Triplo Aspecto. ANPOF.
What this reference represents: presents the materiality of the living body, dynamic informational patterns, and sentience as fundamental and jointly necessary aspects of conscious experience. It allows us to discuss regulation, feeling, and choice without splitting the Body-Territory into a physical body on one side and an external consciousness on the other.

W40/2026 - Latent Heat, Homeostasis and Metanoia