Psych-Out

from Dance Russe
by William Carlos Williams

…if I in my north room
dance naked, grotesquely
before my mirror
waving my shirt round my head
and singing softly to myself:
“I am lonely, lonely,
I was born to be lonely,
I am best so!”
If I admire my arms, my face,
my shoulders, flanks, buttocks
against the yellow drawn shades,–

Who shall say I am not
the happy genius of my household?

Our bodies delight in movement. Our movement is expressive. How we move communicates intention, state of mind, and our perceived station in the pecking order of our lives. We can be graceful, poised, fluid, slouching, crouching, steady. We convey submission, respect, fear, dominance. Watch a lion stalk an open savanna. He owns his space. Imagine yourself striding as fearlessly as that lion. You, too, will be struck by the sensation of owning the space around you.

Our brain and body are in constant communication. Every muscle, joint, and organ send signals to the brain via the peripheral nerves or through the bloodstream. Nearly all of the neural activity is funneled through the cerebellum (from the Latin for “little brain”). Of the 100 billion neurons in the human brain, half are packed into that “little brain” inside the brain. Our cerebellum helps set timing, equilibrium, posture, and coordinates all our skilled motor movements from threading a needle, to firing a jump shot, or dancing a tango.

Not only does the cerebellum coordinate movement, but also thought itself. It’s not just that movement helps us think. Movement and thought are intricately entwined. Neuroscientists have found movement to be crucial to memory, emotion, language, attention, and learning. The same motor cortex circuits that light up when we are in motion light up when we set to solving a problem.(1) How many times has a solution to some problem come to you while taking a walk or brushing your teeth? Our body and brain work together in an ensemble of continuous interaction. In fact, only organisms that move from place to place require brains. Movement and the brain are fundamental to each other’s existence.(2)

Pay attention to how you move. If you walk afraid, you will feel and think afraid. If you rush, you increase your heart rate, pump blood to your extremities, and literally trigger danger signals to your brain even when there is no danger present.(3) On the other hand, if you calmly stroll your neighborhood, or cheerfully throw a Frisbee you will give that “all clear” signal and thus open up the possibility that those wonderful endorphins will release and light up your brain’s pleasure centers. Even in simply watching others joyfully dance, your own brain-body ensemble will light up and respond as if you, too, were dancing right along with them. (4)

If at any moment you want to change your state of mind, get up and like that lion, or that dancer, move.

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1) The steps we employ in decision making – sequencing, adding, testing consequences, directing – are all grounded in our motor functions.
2) (Ratey, John J. A User’s Guide to the Brain: Perception, Attention, and the Four Theaters of the Brain. New York: First Vintage Books, 2002. “A tiny marine creature known as the sea squirt swims about like a tadpole in the early part of its live. It has a brain and a nerve cord to control its movements. When it matures, it attaches itself permanently to a rock. From that moment on the brain and the nerve cord are gradually absorbed and digested.” In essence, its body consumes its own brain for it’s no longer needed. (Ratey, p. 156)
3) Inhibiting the “rush response” is one of the first practical steps you can take if you suffer from anxiety. Rushing engages the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight/flight emotional setting.
4) See Mirror Neurons if you want to follow up more on this.