« Getting Clear with Agendas | Main | Surfing Lesson #1 »

June 20, 2006

Waking up the body

I've been reflecting quite a bit lately on the topic of letting go. It came up several weeks ago when I discovered that holding my breath while creating pottery was hindering my performance, not enhancing it. After that experience, I began paying more attention to the ways in which I either "let go" or "hold on", or said another way, I am observing how every moment is an opportunity to either relax/surrender or tighten up.

One of my current working theories is that people in this day and age have become extraordinarily disconnected from our bodies. This is not to say everyone, but looking around my nation I see a lot of inactivity, desk-jobs promoting inactivity, and obesity as evidence of this inactivity. It seems to me that people are identifying more and more with our minds and emotions, and quite a lot less with our physical, bodily experiences.

One of the most interesting implications of this theory was presented to me in a course on Feelings and Emotions, taught from a cognitive perspective. If we are so disconnected with our bodies, this explains the research that shows that we often misinterpret our own emotions. Feelings, which usually stem from bodily sensations, are often mislabeled when our heart rate is up, we have a stomach ache, or our some other physical symptom awakens us to how we are interpreting external events.

How amazing that we seem to use our minds to systematically interpret both our bodily experiences, and what they imply about our emotional state. I speculate that if we can get more directly connected to our bodies through mindfulness, we won't have to go through so much grunt work to be aware of what is present for us in the moment. This is my theory about why yoga is so popular lately- people are pleasantly surprised by how awareness coupled with physical activity wakes us up.

So for those of us sitting at a desk all day long, how can we reconnect to our bodies?

I found this interesting site on stress management that includes 13 exercises to relax your muscles. I recommend picking one out that targets an area of your body that is particularly tense. Email it to yourself, or drop it into your inbox.

There is nothing like going along processing your inbox when you find a treat, some sort of relief from front-end decision making that will take you two minutes or less. I often drop into my own inbox a reminder to participate in a worldwide peace prayer. Whatever it is for you, lighten up your processing experience by building something pleasant right into it. I've often heard of folks practicing positive-self-reinforcement (also know as rewards!) during their weekly review. I am certainly not above those tiny little tricks that keep me on track, motivated, and physically relaxed. If your time at work represents a significant portion of your waking hours, why not make those hours as healthy and fun as possible.

And one last thought, when you do your weekly review consider adding this question to your checklist:

How am I doing about taking care of my mind, body, and emotions while I work?

Posted by Lisa at June 20, 2006 09:25 AM

Comments

Lisa! I appreciate so much your wisdom and thoughtfulness in this area. Truly inspirational and Insightful:)

Posted by: Doug Kierulff at June 20, 2006 11:29 PM

Lisa, thanks for your very insightful piece. To add to it, Candace Pert has a book called "The Molecules of Emotion" which reads like a story on how she co-discovered the Dopamine receptor in the brain. But more than that she found emotion brain receptors in other parts of the body as well, including the gut (brings new meaning to the old saying "gut" feeling). It seems our emotions are very mind-body connected and I can understand more why physical activities like Yoga have such an influence on our emotional equilibrium.

Another book, "Why Zebras Don?t Get Ulcers" by R. Sapolsky describes how we breathe can affect us emotionally as well. Breathing in momentarily activates the Sympathetic Nervous System (where the "fight or flight" response is activated) and breathing out switches on the Parasympathetic Nervous System which is source of calming body mechanisms. Good breathing exercises exploit this. And they are very easy to do anytime/anywhere as we GTD.
Thanks again.
Dean


Posted by: Dean Akriotis at June 24, 2006 07:50 AM

Hi Sunil,

Thanks for your comment and for pointing me towards your blog! I am doing a lot more yoga now and really feeling the benefits of being more aware and connected to my physical body.

Feel free to email me if you'd like to connect further.

Lisa

Posted by: Lisa at September 21, 2006 09:24 AM

Hi Lisa,

Have you provided your email ID anywhere on the blog?

Best wishes,
Sunil

Lisa-You're always welcome to email me at lisa@davidco.com.

Thanks Sunil, nice to hear from you!

Posted by: Sunil Bajpai at September 29, 2006 12:10 PM

Yes, I do something similar. I use two alarm clocks and write messages to myself one of them is: "let's stand up".
(Through Clock and Alfaclock, both freeware)

In the past, six years ago, I used to have a good screensaver with exercises showing which muscles moved. I also asked a good personal trainer to give me a few exercises. I will look for them and practice again.

Thanks for the very good tip for weekly review!

Posted by: Silvia at November 13, 2006 05:01 PM

Silvia,

Thanks so much for your comment! What a great idea someone had of a screen saver reminding you to do exercises. Very cool.

Posted by: Lisa at November 14, 2006 09:08 AM