Get in tune with your body
How to use your body to reduce stress and perform at your best
Unlike many cognitive therapies and courses, Mind Fitness is designed to encompass the body, to look at the ways that we can use our new thinking skills to feel more comfortable in our skins and, now, using new science, to look at ways that we can employ our wonderful bodies to help us on the journey towards a grounded, authentic you.
In every part of the Mind Fitness process there are a myriad of physical functions that are engaged. As we have said before, each one of us is an electrochemical organism and every change that occurs in our brain ripples out into an almost infinite number of places in our body. And let’s not forget that, if we are working towards being happier, there is a lot of pleasure to be derived from physical sensation, and from our ability to move through space and time in our complex and ever changing ‘dance’.
In that dance, we are not alone, but rather we are interacting with those both close to us and far away, on a physical as well as a mental and emotional plane. Of course, our arms go out to hold our child when he cries, our body seeming to feel his need in an intense and even painful way, but it goes far deeper than that. We know now that our bodies move to be in tune with others. We often move to mirror another in an intimate conversation or when we feel a need to be in tune, perhaps in an interview or important meeting. We breathe more deeply as we watch an athlete run as fast as they can, and a collection of muscles will engage if we watch someone give birth. It is why sports such as football can make us feel so totally immersed; we can be mentally, emotionally and even physically engaged.
The Mind Body Problem
Pre-neuroscience, the big question that had been argued over for centuries was, ‘Are we a body with a mind or a mind with a body?’ Is there some non-physical part of you that could live outside the body? The philosopher Descartes1 famously contested that the mind and body were separate entities that, even if all physical sensations were an illusory dream, our mind would still exist, stating, ‘I think therefore I am’. He would have come down firmly on the side of ‘A mind with a body.’
Now, because of neuroscience, most scientists reject the idea of separation. We know that there is a continuous, complex, sometimes even tangled relationship between body and mind. It is worth remembering, of course, that we are constantly assessed by others as a physical being. Some psychologists even believe that our personalities mould to our appearance because that is the way we are treated by others. If we look aggressive or sly, for example, we may be treated as someone who embodies these traits and then gradually take them on. Of course, if we are aware of this (as you are now much more likely to be), we can counter the effect with the processes described through this book.
Exercise 8.1: Awareness of Physicality
It’s interesting to do a quick awareness exercise. Choose two people that you know reasonably well:
- Spend five minutes looking at a picture of each. From the picture alone (and this is hard if you know them well) what traits would you attribute to them? Try to be aware of your thought process in making your decisions.
- Then consider the way that others you know treat the two people. Make a quick list.
- Finally, jot down how far you think the two inhabit the characteristics you have attributed to them.
Over time, our personality adapts to our perception of the way that people are treating us. For example, many who have had to cope with a sudden physical disfigurement report a far greater change in people’s treatment of them than is borne out by video evidence. They may then begin to act as if they are victims of discrimination.
The Mind and the Body as One
From the moment we are born, our bodies are deeply integrated with the activity in our brains to form what we call consciousness. Our mental development, in fact, is formed by our bodies’ interaction with the external world. Every sight, sound and touch becomes a new map in the brain and we know now that, thanks to Neuroplasticity, this continues to be the case throughout the whole of our lives. Our bodies and external sensations are inseparable from our subjective consciousness – they are an integral part of the way we perceive the world and ourselves. Ancient Buddhist philosophers have long understood the integral mind-body relationship. They tell us that if we close our eyes the sensation of body does not melt away (as in the Descartes model) and, in fact, these sensations are central to the process of meditation.
Awareness of our Body
Most of us take our pretty amazing bodies for granted and, as we start to age, our relationship with our body can become something of a battle, if we let it.
So, first we are going to take a little time to concentrate just on awareness of our body. All the focus work we have done will help us, and this honing in on our physical form will, in turn, develop our ability to focus. And, for some, there is a real feeling of ‘coming home’ as mind and body start to work more closely with each other, perhaps not dissimilar to the feeling we get when we bring goals, belief and meaning into one composite whole.
Exercise 8.2: Body Scan
For this exercise it is best to lie down if you can.
Get yourself comfortable with your arms either by your side or resting gently on your stomach. Begin by being aware, for a moment, of any parts of your body that are in contact with the floor. Now, take two deep breaths, breathing in through your nose and out through your mouth, and then close your eyes.
We’ll start by being aware of the breath, as before, but concentrating on what changes occur in the body because of the breath and through the breath. Bring your awareness to the rise and fall of your rib cage. Don’t try to change the way you breathe in any way, just be aware of it exactly as it is.
Again, as we are working through the exercise, if other thoughts come into your mind, notice them and then let them drift away, bringing your attention back to the physical sensations. We’re going to work slowly through the body. You may find this a very relaxing exercise but that isn’t the objective; the object is simply awareness. We will start at the feet and work our way up to the head.
Bring your attention to the toes of both feet, concentrate on any sensations you can feel. If you have bare feet, what does the air feel like as it makes contact with your toes? Some people report a sensation of heat or even tingling as they bring their attention to one single part of the body. But, if you feel nothing at all, that’s fine too, just note the fact. As you become more practised at the Mind Fitness exercises you’ll be able to simply feel the physical sensations rather than analyse them, but, at this stage, analyse away!
Move your attention now to the rest of your feet, focussing for a moment on the working of your ankle and at the place where muscle and ligaments meet bone. Are the sensations the same in each foot or slightly different?
Bring your focus now up to your calf muscles, often a place in which a sizeable amount of tension resides. Move your attention around the front of your legs to the shins and up to the knees. Sometimes, as your attention travels up your body, you will discover little pockets of pain; make a mental note of these too.
Bring your attention to the thighs and to the back of the legs, and then to the buttocks and pelvis. As well as thoughts that come into your mind, make a mental note of any emotions that suddenly appear, and then gently bring your focus back.
Move your attention to your hips and to your stomach. Again, be aware of how your stomach connects with your breath. Take your attention to the chest, being aware of the way that your rib cage envelops your vital organs, focussing on the back and sides as well as the ribs at the front.
Move your attention to your shoulders and upper arms. Note any tension that you are carrying. How exactly does this feel? For some, there may be a sense of quite profound relief or release. Then move your attention slowly down each arm, front and back, until you get to your wrists; be particularly aware of the joints, the pivotal path of the working physical frame.
Take your focus into your hands, letting it rest for a moment on the muscle group between thumb and wrist. Then bring your attention to your knuckles and then into your fingers, either one at a time or together as you find best.
Move the attention, when you are ready, back up each arm and, once again, into the shoulders. Is the sensation the same as it was when you rested here before or has it changed?
Move your focus now into your neck, front and back, into your jaw. This, again, is an area where you are likely to encounter tension, and then up into your cheeks, temples, eyes and forehead and, finally, into the back of your head.
Now move back to concentrating on the breath. Take a moment to note any significant thoughts that come into your mind or, perhaps, any emotions. Then open your eyes.
It’s good to go slowly when you do a Body Scan for the first time, but it is an exercise that can fit around your timetable and needs. It can take an hour or it can take a minute.
Take a moment to jot down in your notebook any recurring thoughts, unexpected emotions or areas of the body where you encountered tension or resistance.
Many people find a Body Scan a good exercise to mark the transition from work life to home life. It’s also a great one to do before a period of physical exercise, just before you run or begin an exercise class.
You will have noticed the increase in sensations as you focussed on each part of your body. This increase in sensation ‘wakes up’ your mind.
When you do the Body Scan a second time, focus on any energy that you can feel pulsing through – is it tingly, vibrating, pulsing? Is it warm or cool? Is it heavy or light?
As we said, you become more experienced and your awareness deepens, let yourself become immersed in the physical experience. Try to move away from consciously acknowledging and analysing a sensation to simply experiencing it.
Exercise 8.3: The Feet
Mindfulness practitioners will often ask you to place your feet flat on the floor, even when you are sitting, to help you get the feeling of being grounded. Certainly, the feet play an important part in the sensation of being centred.
- Stand in a comfortable position with your feet shoulder width apart. Feel the energy dropping through you with gravity towards the floor, until it is centred in your feet. Spend two minutes experiencing this swell around your ankles and feet, and then concentrate for one more minute on the feeling of each foot’s connection with the floor. Imagine the energy moving through the feet into the floor, grounding you.
- Walk for two minutes somewhere; where it is practical and comfortable do so with bare feet. As you walk, register each tiny sensation that occurs as your weight moves through each of your feet.
The Senses
Awareness will, as we have said, sharpen the experience provided by your senses. If we think about feeling happier, more vibrant, more alive, this heightened sensory perception is probably a good part of what we are imagining. I (BW) know that fairly soon after I began the Mind Fitness process I had a very clear feeling of having woken up, of having a different level of sensory awareness than I had had before. Many poets through the centuries have used the metaphor of senses ‘dancing’.
In school, we were taught that we have five senses: sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste. In fact, there are a lot more. Neurologists typically work with between nine and twenty-one.2 These include the perception of pressure, vibration, heat and pain. They also include our sense of balance and, most commonly, proprioception, the brain’s knowledge of the relative position of body parts. They are worth investigation, if you are interested. Some animals have senses that we don’t (as far as we currently know) and are able to sense electrical and magnetic fields, water pressure and currents. Perhaps choose one of these extra senses to focus on each day and just ‘look’ out for it. If it is perception of pressure, notice the levels of pressure in different people’s hugs or handshakes, or the way your bag strap pushes into your shoulder.
The Stress Hormones
How does what happens in our brain affect what happens in our body?
Perhaps the most common way is through the workings of the stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol, already talked about at various points in the book. While these are necessary when we are in real danger, they can be lethal when the fight or flight response is switched on all the time. Very quickly, the immune system begins to work less effectively (as the protection from the external threat is prioritised) and the healing process is slowed down. This is why we get sick as exams approach or as we come up to a pressurised time at work. In fact, the butterflies in the stomach feeling that we all know so well is blood vessels shutting down to look after the essential organs. As we have said before, in a state of fight or flight, no information gets fed up to the prefrontal cortex. It’s why we, quite literally, go blank in exams or presentations. We have switched from creative thinking to reflex behaviour.
In addition, almost any health condition will be compounded by the anxiety you attach to it. If you worry about a problem, mental or physical, it will, almost certainly, get worse.
Our gut as second brain
The Enteric Nervous System in our gut is a hub of intelligence. In fact, it is often referred to as our second brain, having, perhaps, the same number of neurons (about 200 million) as the brain of a dog.3 This second ‘brain’ can react without consulting or communicating with our first brain. Think of all the sayings that bear this out:
- Gut reaction
- Gut instinct
- Gut-wrenching experience
There is a close interdependence between big brother and small brother; the two are constantly sending messages to each other and constantly making small changes and adjustments to the way the relationship is working. So, if you find yourself on the way to a deli, it could be that your stomach has just sent your brain a message to say that it is empty. Like the big brain, its objective is to keep you healthy, but, like the big brain, it will interpret this through the lens of your past experience. So, if instead you find yourself on the way to the chip shop, it’s time to get a little more training in!
This relationship means that almost anything that is good for your brain is good for your gut and, therefore, your physical health. This is true for nutritional foods and for exercise as well as for mindfulness and adopting a positive approach to life.
Pain
Pain, as you might imagine, is both a physical and emotional experience and is affected by both the mind and body. It signals nerve damage or damage to tissues but can also be a warning signal of potential damage.
Most of us know all too well that our experience of pain is affected by stress, anxiety and depression. It can, of course, also be affected by a positive, calm state of wellbeing. Mindfulness is now used extensively in the UK National Health Service as part of programmes constructed for controlling pain, and it is proving a powerful and effective tool in the armoury.
Healing
We know that the body is capable of curing itself when directed by the mind and emotions. Scientists have known that this self-direction plays a role in recovery ever since they could measure that not all people recover at the same speed to the same condition (this is not the same with mice). There are also a plethora of reports of people being cured by placebo treatments, across a very wide range of conditions.4
More and more scientists are understanding that the role of the physician is to facilitate the body’s inherent ability to heal itself. This is very much in line with the Mind Fitness process where we look to build resilience not reliance and give people the tools to look after their own mental health. As a species, we are programmed for survival – both brain and body will work towards this if they are given a fighting chance. Many complimentary treatments are based on this principle; osteopathy works by ensuring that the musculoskeletal system is in alignment and obstructions to blood and lymph glands are minimised or eliminated.
Of course, there are times when serious medical conditions need pharmaceutical or surgical intervention but, even in serious conditions, we can help ourselves to recover by minimising the stress we add to the situation. Rapid healers across a multitude of tests are optimistic, positive thinkers who expect to get well quickly and have something to get well for.
Physical Exercise
As we have said, physical and mental health go together. What is good for your muscles is good for your brain. There is a range of benefits to brain health that devolve from exercising the body. Exercise improves the ability of the brain cells to grow and develop, and releases powerful endorphins that give us a sense of wellbeing and help us to regulate emotions. Conversely, a lack of exercise is a recognised contributory factor in cases of depression and anxiety.
The best time to exercise is in the morning as early exercise increases the brain’s ability to handle stress through the day. In some cases, it triples. For most of us, willpower is also highest at the beginning of the day. We would say, though, that the most important thing is to choose a form of exercise that you love.
Getting great sleep
All the exercises and reframing that you do as you work through this book will help you to sleep better. Cognitive Behavioural Treatment for Insomnia (CBTI) is now the most effective method for sleep problems, having superseded medication as the treatment that works better for most people.5
We all have a difficult night’s sleep from time to time. The problem comes when we get used to thinking that it’s normal that we aren’t sleeping so well because we’re stressed. And, as chronic stress becomes the norm, we forget what a good night’s sleep felt like.
Of course, the more we worry about not sleeping, the harder it becomes and the semi-conscious space is an easy one for the ANTs to invade. But we can’t be complacent. A good sleep pattern is an important ingredient in good mental health and a lot of housekeeping, preparation and recovery takes place as we sleep. If you are having problems sleeping, try doing the Body Scan (see page 108) but gently tensing and releasing each body part as you move through. Make sure you are getting enough fresh air, drinking enough water and keep tech out of the bedroom, if you possibly can.
Most importantly, work on reframing your unhelpful beliefs and Thinking Errors to dissipate the root cause of the stress. In fact, we would say do all of this, even if you drop off easily. Great sleep is not just about falling asleep quickly or getting enough. We go through a series of stages of sleep each night; each is necessary if we are to feel our best and perform at our potential.
Relaxation
You can use physical relaxation to control an emotional response. If your muscles are completely relaxed, it is impossible to feel an emotion of anger, frustration or fear. If you feel the approach of one of these emotions and you aren’t able to think yourself down, you can use a calm body to acquire a calm mind.
Building time for relaxation into your new Mind Fitness regime is really important. There are a full range of benefits from being able to relax – from improved mood and motivation to improved sleep, higher levels of focus and energy, and improved memory. It doesn’t have to be doing nothing or sitting in front of the television. It can be getting creative, listening to music, walking or exploring the mindfulness exercises. Anything that you know will not result in you feeling pressure or having to battle off the ANTs.
Of course, the whole Mind Fitness course will help you to relax more easily and more deeply and all the mindfulness exercises will mean that you’re pretty expert in bringing your attention to the physical sensations of your body and resting in the breath. In fact the body has a natural ease, so again it is about finding this, about learning to get out of your own way. Once the body and mind have assumed their natural ease it is simply being alert to any thoughts that might disturb this.
Ageing
As we know from Chapter 3 (Neuroplasticity) dementia involves a build-up on the synapses, which causes them eventually to break down. Making sure that you are creating new neural pathways through new ideas and new learning is key to keeping your brain healthy.
It’s also just worth mentioning that, in the same way that stress is about our perceived ability to cope, ageing also involves a substantial measure of perception. It’s not about whether your coping skills are up to the job, but whether you think they are.
It is the direction in which you are headed that counts; keep setting and re-setting goals. Visualise yourself as someone who has a youthful energy, who likes to explore and to learn and who embraces change. And keep hold of your meaning. We have all seen the detrimental effect when someone gives up work and doesn’t replace it with something that gives them a sense of purpose.
If you think about it, age itself is a matter of perception. A medieval man or woman would have considered themselves old at 50. If a medication was introduced next year that kept everyone alive and immensely healthy to 200, we would quickly feel old at 201. We already choose the age we feel in so many ways, but, for many of us, that is a negative and debilitating, or at least, limiting process. It doesn’t have to be. It’s never too late to breathe new life into your life.
Using our Body for Better Mental Health
If we have accepted that the chemicals that move constantly through our body have a direct impact on everything down to the structure of the body’s cells, it is then about how much we can be in control of that release, and whether we can employ the body itself to help in the process. And it seems that we can. Almost everything works in both directions – our mind affects our body and our body affects our mind. Our thoughts affect our emotions and our emotions affect our thoughts. Which means that we can choose to intervene wherever works best for us. And, in terms of the body, the more you get in touch, in tune with it through the mindfulness techniques, the easier it becomes to use it as a tool to help you become calmer and more confident.
We all understand how body language works. We know that a significant aspect of communication is non-verbal. We are constantly ‘reading’ other people’s thoughts, feelings and intentions through their body language and, of course, they are doing the same to us. People who have high emotional intelligence are often very good at reading the signs. It’s called kinesics.
Getting good at it is largely about awareness. We all know that crossed arms and legs read as resistance, bad posture as apathy, no eye contact betrays a lie and fake smiles don’t crinkle the eyes – but it’s whether or not we are picking up on this that counts. Using the example of poor posture – it’s not whether it’s good or bad that counts, but how it reads. How do we interpret it? Getting good at reading body language can improve communications, help relationships run more smoothly and ease our progress through most paths in life.
Exercise 8.4: Reading Body Language
Each day, pick one person, a stranger, and really look at their body language. Someone on a bus or train is good. Start with a broad sweep; how are they holding themselves? Are they open or closed? And then really hone in on the detail. Notice the little gestures. What do they tell you about the person? Trust your instinct. We are, most of us, better at reading body language than we realise. But be honest with yourself – we can also make sweeping judgements and assumptions from body language.
Our own body language, then, is incredibly important. We have said that people respond to the way that they are treated; it’s also true that the way that we are treated depends on the way people are perceiving us because of our body language. If we stoop and wring our hands, people will be reading this as insecurity and anxiety. If they are treating us as someone who is insecure and anxious, then very quickly this will be how we feel. Most body language is unconscious. It is really important to become aware of yours.
This would be important enough, but neuroscience tells us that it goes further. Our brain actually reads our own body language, in just the same way as it reads that of another person, and delivers up the appropriate chemicals and emotions.
The ground-breaking studies were conducted by Amy Cuddy, who, with her partner Dana Carnie, coined the term ‘Power Poses.’6
Power Poses
We can use our bodies to make us feel more powerful, more able to cope. Our bodies can, quite literally, change our minds. As Cuddy stresses, it isn’t faking it til you make it – it’s faking it until you become it.
Exercise 8.5: Power Poses
Stand in a Power Pose – the key is openness, so perhaps arms up in the common sportsman’s triumph pose, or widely settled on your hips, feet slightly apart. Within about two minutes, your body will flood with adrenalin and testosterone. You will feel more powerful. You will behave in a way that reflects this.
Now stand in a position that disempowers you, perhaps arms closed in around you, feet together, head down. Within two minutes, your body will flood with the stress hormone cortisol. You will feel anxious and less able to cope.
The implications of this are huge. In tests, Cuddy and Carnie sent test subjects who had done both poses into job interviews and those who had done the High Power Pose far exceeded expectations. (Please note that this means doing the pose before the interview, not during it!) The opposite was true for those who did the disempowering pose. The results have meant that many organisations (and political parties) have built them into their regular programmes of training.
Tiny tweaks are enough to start the process of big change. It simply makes sense to engage your body as friend and ally and, at the same time, deepen the process of seeing ‘you’ as a wonderfully complex whole.
Questions and Answers
- Does having rituals that you perform before you go to bed help you sleep?
It depends on what the ritual is; always taking your phone into bed and checking emails would not be good. But as long as they are rituals that help your body and brain to cleanse and relax, then yes. It is about preparing; you are preparing your mind for rest. And it is about building habits and neural pathways. If you know that you have a certain routine and then sleep soundly, it will become an embedded pattern, the most used route. - I find it much more relaxing to potter round the house, is this OK?
Yes, absolutely. Sometimes, it is when we are determined to relax and sit still that our mind is quickly overrun with ANTs. Giving your brain something simple to occupy it may prevent this from happening. And, if pottering means uncluttering, then that has its own built-in benefits.
But anything can be relaxing, for example reading a book or watching a TV programme. The reason why this has stopped being the respite that it was is that we often now do other things while watching the TV – looking at social media, emails and so on. Try, as we’ve said, to do one thing at a time. It’s so much better for mental health.
Conclusion
Our relationship with our body, or perhaps more accurately our ‘oneness’, is particularly important at this time when we are considering future technologies such as neural prosthetics, implants and wearable robots that could become an extended part of ‘us’. The Mind/Body question moves up to a whole other level.
From what we now know of the adaptability of our body and brain, it is even possible that, by extending our sense of self to new wearable devices, our brains may adapt to accommodate a restructured version of self with new sensory representations. In other words, we may start to sense and have ‘feeling’ in these new extended parts of us.
We already have to accept a new set of responsibilities that come from understanding that our biological future is not solely determined by our genes. We know now that our genes respond to our environment. Signals come in from the external world. Your brain responds to the world and then sends chemistry into the blood. This controls the behaviour and genetics of your cells. It is called Signal Transduction. What environment they respond to is largely up to us. Some see this as being as empowering as the discovery of neuroplasticity. But it means we have to work harder to clear our cognitive bias because otherwise the cells will be responding to messages and beliefs that we have not chosen to guide our life.
What’s most important is that we choose to look after our body and, in doing so, look after our mind. We can choose to eat well, drink enough, get enough sleep, exercise and relax. We can also choose to help our body by thinking well, by not allowing the ANTs to lead us down the spiral of negative thought and worry. Research is tying the relationship between mind and body ever more tightly. We aren’t fully aware of the impact of, say, an outburst of anger. But the relationship is something we must embrace rather than fear because the positive potential is enormous. Our minds can help us to be more in tune with our bodies and our bodies can help us to be more positive, to be fully engaged and to reap more pleasure from our lives.