Why you need to increase body awareness and how to do it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

No esotericism - based on scientific research, we tell you what you can do right now to improve your well-being and mood.

We are about the practice of mindfulness and why it is needed. In short, the ability to focus on what is happening here and now frees up a lot of energy for more efficient work and good rest.

Mindfulness practice can be related not only to understanding what we are doing, why and why, but also to how we feel. Unfortunately, a person does not always read the signals of his own body correctly, sometimes he may not notice for a long time that something is wrong with him or confuse physical reactions with emotional ones.

Here are a few things you can do to better understand your body's needs, improve your mood, and increase productivity.

1. Change your pose

In social and cognitive psychology, there is the idea of "embodied cognition", which consists in the fact that the mind is closely connected with the physical body and it is thanks to their union that we interact with the world around us.

Trier's social stress test shows that people who slouched as part of the experiment performed worse in public speaking. In another study, participants were asked to list their professional characteristics. One group did this in a normal position and the other bent over. As a result, the participants in the first group were more confident in the qualities they voiced. Apparently, the physical position that we associate with insecurity and stiffness really worsens the results of communication or work.

Therefore, when starting a business, take a confident posture, take your shoulders back. Do not wrap your arms around yourself, do not cross them in front of you. At the same time, you do not need to strain your whole body to maintain your posture. If you practice at home, it will be easier to do it in public.

2. Check your facial expression

Facial expression is also a powerful non-verbal signal (which is why emojis are so popular). The most interesting thing is that we give such signals not only to other people, but also to ourselves. Smiling can improve the mood of someone who smiles, but a suffering facial expression contributes to a depressed state.

Check if your eyebrows are drawn together, smile. Keep your facial expression friendly, even when you're alone in the room. After that, the mood will improve a little, and the tasks seem to be solved.

3. Understand if everything is really bad, or are you just tired

If at the end of a very busy day you are almost ready to cry (or actually cry), it may seem that you are unhappy and everything in life is not going well. Most likely, the fact is that you are physically tired to such an extent that the nervous system has crashed.

It would be a mistake to think in such a state about something global, and even more so to express serious claims to loved ones. This exaggeration of problems to a universal scale is called catastrophization, and this is one of the cognitive distortions.

You need to wait a bit to really understand what is going on. Prepare a delicious meal, indulge in your favorite hobby, watch a TV show, and most importantly, get at least eight hours of sleep. If after that the problems still seem to be as serious, perhaps they really exist. But, most likely, the degree of your unhappiness will greatly decrease.

4. Take your time trying to assess your condition

Doubts about going to work or staying at home if they get sick are familiar to many. What if it comes to dinner? And if, on the contrary, it gets worse? Due to a lack of understanding how to assess the momentary state of health, the state of health often worsens.

But when you have already decided to lie down with a thermometer under the blanket, the condition sometimes seems to improve by itself. This is due to the fact that the body's resource went where it should be - for healing, and not for neurotic feelings about work.

When you can't figure out if you are feeling well enough, stop rushing around, measure 10 minutes on your watch and lie down or sit in silence. You probably already have similar experiences in your experience. And the past cold or exacerbation of a chronic disease began that way. Or maybe it's an episodic ailment that will subside if you switch to something else. Relax, listening to your feelings, and the answer will be closer.

But if you are thinking about calling a doctor, this most likely means that it is really time to call him. There is no need to follow the joke that a real warrior only asks for help if the spear in his side interferes with sleep.

5. Take a break for sports or dancing

This advice is given in a variety of cases, and for good reason: physical activity has a lot of obvious advantages. If we talk about increasing body awareness and improving communication with the body, then movement and stress are useful here. They teach to control the pulse and breathing, monitor the work of the cardiovascular system and recognize alarm calls from the body.

In addition, some movement stimulates creativity, according to one study. At least one study found that subjects who were asked to propose solutions to problems while making hand movements performed better on intellectual tasks.

If you just need to solve several problems, and you are not enrolled in the gym or dance class, nothing prevents you from doing a few exercises at home or just moving around to rhythmic music.