From the monthly archives:

October 2010

How paying attention can make moving easier

by Annie on October 31, 2010

Over the last few years there has been an enormous amount of research showing how brain activity radically changes when we bring attention to even a routine movement. This research shows that the more attention we direct toward our movements, the higher the vibrational frequency becomes –  much like a light that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase the flow of electricity.

“So much of what people realized intuitively can now be scientifically proven.

Each time we combine attention with movement, millions and millions of brain cells are activated.

Imagine for a moment that you have the capacity to look inside your head and see the trillions of brain cells, each one like a tiny light bulb that becomes brighter when active. At rest all the cells emit a nice faint flow with those controlling our muscles and other organs of your body glowing a little bit brighter than the rest.

Now you begin moving perhaps just your right arm.

Suddenly a cluster of cells begins glowing brighter and brighter.

When you stop moving the lights dim back down.

Now you move your arm as before. Approximately the same cluster of brain cells lights up.

Then you add a new element: attention.

No longer running on automatic pilot you are now aware and awake, experiencing your movement with your five senses and your mind. You turn this attention to how it feels to move your arm, as well as how fast, slow, or how far you extend it.

With attention, the brain’s organizational functions are spurred into action.

Now you see brand-new clusters of cells lighting up, in many different areas of your brain.

You might even imagine at some point, something like a beautifully choreographed fireworks display, as clusters of brain cells begin communicating with one another, exchanging information and reorganizing the patterns of the clusters so that they will signal more refined movements of your arm.

As improbable as it seems, this metaphorical play of energy and lights offers a pretty accurate mental image of what happens in our brains as we move and bring attention to our movements.

The more we combine attention with movement, the greater the number of brain cells that light up, joining to form new patterns to create new possibilities for our lives, be it a new action, a new idea, a different feeling or emotion, or new knowledge.”

When we begin to pay attention to our movement, the way we move and posture ourselves changes.

We change, and life becomes more interesting and exciting. This is turn becomes apparent to those around us.

How could you not notice someone with billions of brain cells lit up?

As an added bonus – paying attention is the prerequisite of memory: the sharper the attention, the sharper the memory.

What more could you want?

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Child’s play

I found it interesting the other day watching people at a distant and guessing whether they were young adults or older. Their quality of movement whilst they walked and chatted gave them away every time.

What happens to the ease and fluid movement of youth?

How do we let this happen?

We equate the process of aging with the passage of time. Indeed many aspects of the human process intimately relate to time passing. A newborn is much smaller and lighter than an 18 year-old: a normal 35 year old can speak, read, write, and understand politics in ways that a 7 year old cannot do.

But once we are past the initial growing years (up to the late teenage years) the passage of time no longer needs to determine the aging process.

It is rather how we are and what we do during that time that matters.

What makes one 25 year old ‘old’ while we can think of an 80 year old who is truly ‘young’?

When we are young we are bursting at the seams with energy and curiosity, we are developing new capacities and discovering new things. Life is exciting. What happens?

Quite simply we reach a certain level of development when most of us just coast along. We stop providing our brains with what they need in order to continue to grow and create new possibilities for us.

Our brains either slow way down or stop forming new connections altogether and as a result we begin repeating the same patterns over and over again.

Soon our lives become habitual and we begin to deteriorate in the way we think, move and feel.

The downside of all of this is that we can become like automatons running the same old circuits day after day.

Having worked with children and adults I am aware that there are certain qualities which are essential for any child to grow and develop.

These same qualities are essential in order for adults to be able to stay young

Many adults lose some of these  qualities over time. The good news is that any of these essentials can be regained readily at any age.

Lets look at one of these as it occurs in children and then see how it’s loss is manifested in adults.

Let’s look at the quality of making variations. When we watch babies and young children one can see that not only do they tend to vary a lot what they do, but also they vary how they do it.

They move in and out of a movement not knowing what is the ‘right’ way of doing it and often without a clear goal.

They constantly do things in a different way, endlessly experimenting.  They ‘play’

As adults we tend to think of structures and boundaries (even ‘play’ has its rules) and we often approach our ‘goals’ in a direct and forceful way.

Where a child would dare to experiment, an adult no longer dares to.

Anything short of achievement is considered failure.

Before long an adult will avoid failure by abandoning setting new goals or trying to learn new things. They will increasingly stick

to the known. Before long, their vitality, energy and flexibility of mind and body are diminishing. This is aging.

A life filled with possibility and variation must include the ‘amazing’.

By trying out different ways of moving, thinking, feeling and acting you will become more resilient and healthy.

By introducing variation into the way you move, you can end back pain.

By introducing it into the way you think, you will discover new ideas and solutions that wouldn’t otherwise have been possible.

By introducing it into the way you feel you awaken your senses and open doors to new worlds of sensations and playfulness

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