There are physical features in our life that most of us ignore which can lead to loss of our resourceful state of mind. When you have a sad face, a rounded back, or a sad appearance it can be the responsible for depression and failure. Which in turn prevents us from moving forward closer our goals.
yes, unresourceful body posture can easily prevent us from achieving desired results in different contexts of life, from business or personal life. But it’s easy to fix.
How does it work?
Not many people are aware of a direct correlation between our emotions and the position of the body.
Research in neurophysiologists highlight two main factors that affect the level of serotonin (one of the highly responsible neurotransmitters influencing our mood) – healthy straight posture and the body curve. A healthy serotonin level helps us experience positive emotions and influences our daily mood. What’s important – most experienced emotions are deeply connected to our beliefs about the world itself.
You can easily recall those days when the world looks dull and empty, everything is perceived as vanity and there is no meaning in life. On other days, the feeling of luck is on your way, and you feel the entire world is supporting you.
Our beliefs about the world that surrounds us are directly dependent on in which direction we turn the focus of our attention. Our attention is the very tool that helps us find resources in the surrounding environment at a specific point in life.
The wholistic system: Mind and body
One of the presuppositions of Neuro-linguistic Programming says: the mind and body are elements of the same system. (presupposition is a belief that is useful to hold on to).
The state of the body affects the state of the mind and vice versa. Take a mirror look at yourself or pay attention to how you appear physically during the day. How do you feel? What posture do you have? What facial expression do you have? All these answers directly affect your internal state, and the way people perceive you.
If you feel energetic, have an expanded chest, on your face appears a slight smile, your eyes are widely opened, your voice is clear, smooth movements – and here you are! You become appealing and captivating, arousing respect and even trust.
These steps evoke even more dopamine release, which activates your thought processes and motivation to work, create and communicate. The circle closes, happiness releases and it’s hard to say what was the first – the body or mind. At this point it doesn’t matter, what’s important by improving one, pulls up another one.
The body depends on the mind in the same way the mind depends on the body. By fixing one, we fix the other one.
Time to practice
Add a reminder on mobile “Check your posture, straighten up and smile!” and repeat at least 3 times a day, in the morning, at noon, and in the evening for 2 weeks.
Find out more about the experiment in Daniel Kahneman’s bestselling book ‘Thinking, Fast and Slow’. After a personal experiment, you will agree with the author if you smile for a while, your brain receives the appropriate signal, and starts searching for things that please you by turning a focus of attention and it always finds. The brain switches to a positive emotional mood.
We are hostages of culture. In every culture, there is a lot of common belief that become part of a slang-specific region. Moreover, we are taught all the time: “Bow down your head. Obey!”.
All these rules are invented by people who want to manage others. As soon as you bow down the head, the serotonin level is decreasing, meaning that our body is switching to a negative state of mind and emotions. When we switch on negative emotions activating the amygdala – the center of emotions in our brain. At the time the amygdala is active it activates anxiety and the flow of negative beliefs. All is done to turn the mind into a non-resourceful state.
The conclusion you can make by yourself. I will just add, by adopting these two new behaviors – access to resources and opportunities become easier.
Cover photo: Nathan Mcbride; Maria Teneva on Unsplash