How the Body Knows Its Mind_The Surprising Power of the Physical Environment to Influence How You Think and Feel

by Sian Beilock

  ♦ The body is not a passive device that carries out orders from the brain. Your body sends subtle signals that influence the decisions you make. You like products on the store shelf better when they are easy to grasp and carry. Likewise a lifetime of associations between flexing your arm and gratification means that cradling your grocery store basket in the crook of your arm makes it more likely that you will give in to your desire and buy that candy bar at the checkout counter.

  ♦ Knowing that we often understand abstract ideas like morality or luck in physical terms helps us make sense of some seemingly odd behaviors people engage in. We believe that we can wash away our sins—and our good luck too. Just ask an athlete who wouldn’t dare wash his pair of lucky socks.

  ♦ Failing often goes hand in hand with the idea that there is nothing you can do to change your predicament. Research with athletes who are down in the dumps about a failed performance shows that you can change this by using the body. Just thinking about what you are going to do differently the next time around, such as altering your form or technique in a specific way, changes your feelings about whether or not you will succeed.

  Your Body as a Tool to Help You Think

  ♦ Whether it’s a wedding toast or a pitch to a client, you can use actions and gestures to help you remember your script because actions help make memories last. Practice picking up a glass as you give a dry run of your toast or incorporate meaningful hand gestures into your speech. That way, when all eyes are on you and you have to remember your lines, your body will be in a position to do some of the remembering for you. Movements can also serve as an effective hook for retrieving thoughts that have slipped your mind.

  ♦ When stuck on a problem at work, in your personal life, or even on an important test, don’t constrain your body, because not moving may constrain your mind too. For example, moving Baoding balls from one hand to the other may help lower your threshold for connecting thoughts that might not normally go together. Certain types of movement can actually help facilitate connections between distant ideas.

  ♦ Stepping completely away from a problem you are stuck on can increase your probability of success. Walking away from a puzzle or challenge increases the likelihood that new solutions will bubble to the surface of your mind. Just as rebooting your computer can help get rid of temporary bugs, moving away from a problem can help flush out dead-end thinking.

  ♦ Gestures are not used just to communicate information; they help free up brainpower. Indexing information on our fingertips (say, keeping track of the three points you need to make during your presentation) means you need to hold less in mind. Gestures also serve as a mental scratch pad when you are thinking about complex problems. Using your hands to explain a three-dimensional structure, a molecule or a map, in the space in front of you can help you and others see things more clearly.

  ♦ Trying to learn a new language as an adult can be difficult, especially when it comes to understanding a native speaker whose sentences and even paragraphs meld together, sounding like one big word. One reason you may have a hard time making sense of foreign pronunciations is that you don’t have a lot of practice making the mouth movements needed to produce these sounds yourself. Just as high school football players are good at reading their favorite NFL player’s next move on the field because they play the game themselves, producing sounds with your own mouth helps you make sense of the same mouth movements in others.

  ♦ Need a reason to lace up those sneakers? Fitness is associated with enhanced thinking and reasoning from adolescence through older adulthood and can also enhance creativity. Being able to think about a problem in new and unusual ways is aided by a short bout of aerobic exercise. Next time you are stuck on a problem, get moving.

  ♦ Meditation can help change your mind. It has been shown to help alleviate anxiety and chronic pain and even reduce symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder. But you don’t have to meditate for hours to get the benefits. A relatively new meditative practice called integrative body-mind training has been shown to change our brain after only eleven hours of practice. Short bouts of IBMT can also improve self-control—a boon for people trying to control their urge to, say, stop smoking.

  ♦ Your ability to concentrate is important because it helps you mentally buckle down and stay on a task. Being in nature or even looking at nature can help hone those concentration skills and boost your thinking power.

  Using the Body to Help Grow the Mind

  ♦ Babies learn about the world by physically exploring it. The actions they perform early in life (even before they are one year old) are good predictors of academic achievement later in life. This means that, along with cognitive milestones, parents should work on their children’s motor development too.

  ♦ Babies who spend lots of time in walkers have a harder time walking unaided because they are used to having their weight supported. Even wearing diapers can hinder normal walking. Because motor development is linked to cognitive development, babies should get to run around in their birthday suit as often as practical.

  ♦ Physical activities can help children learn to read and solve problems. Printing letters helps jump-start areas of the brain needed for reading. Piano practice can enhance finger dexterity, counting competence, and math skills. Helping kids act out the stories they read can enhance their reading comprehension. Playing with blocks can be beneficial for learning, but manipulatives have the most positive learning benefit when they can be directly connected to the content of the problem children are trying to solve. Simply put, how we move can aid how we think. Maria Montessori had it right: the body is an important part of the learning process, if you know how to use it.

  Your Body as a Tool to Understand the Experiences of Others

  ♦ Eager fan behavior (lurching along with the quarterback on TV) may be the result of fans’ motor cortex playing along with the athlete they are watching. Having played the game yourself gives you a real edge in predicting whether a throw will be caught or a shot made. Playing experience allows you to act out likely outcomes in your head before they have happened in reality.

  ♦ We cry while watching sad movies even though we know the story isn’t true because we empathize with the characters as if their trials and tribulations were our own. This activates many of the same neural circuits involved in our firsthand experience of pain or sadness. Our neural hardware doesn’t always make a distinction between what we see and what we experience ourselves. This is why young doctors have to work very hard to stay emotionally detached from a situation. The merging of self and other happens routinely, and it requires effort and practice to disconnect.

  ♦ Whether you choose to take on that extra hill on your hike or run is influenced by your body. People who are out of shape view hills as steeper. Being psychologically exhausted has similar effects. The good news is that having a friend close by—or just thinking about a supportive friend—can change how difficult you perceive a physical challenge will be. When accompanied by a friend, you won’t think the hill is as steep and you may be more likely to tackle a challenge.

  ♦ The details of what people are communicating are evident in their words, on their face, and in their hands. Gestures reveal a speaker’s feelings about what she is saying, even when she doesn’t put those feelings into words. Right-handers tend to gesture about things they like with their right hand, left-handers with their left. Poker players’ actions can betray the quality of their cards. Whether you’re gesturing when you talk, pushing an offer across the table on a piece of paper, or even shaking hands, what you do with your body reflects what’s going on in your mind.

  ♦ All that time you are spending on your device’s keyboard is changing how you think. Your vernacular is linked to how easy it is to type certain words. Because people like to act in ways that are easy, they like words that are easy to type. This is why LOL will likely stick around and why baby names with more right-handed letters have become more popular since the home computer became
the norm.

  ♦ These days, face-to-face meetings are being replaced by video conferencing or telecommuting. Although virtual interactions offer some advantages, being physically close to someone makes you feel more psychologically connected—of one mind—and physical distance encourages psychological distance. So you may want to be less reliant on virtual tools, at least for the most sensitive and important conversations.

  Sian Beilock, a leading expert on the brain science behind human performance, is a professor in the psychology department at the University of Chicago. She has PhDs in both kinesiology and psychology from Michigan State University, and received an award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the Association for Psychological Science in 2011.

  MEET THE AUTHORS, WATCH VIDEOS AND MORE AT

  SimonandSchuster.com

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Sian-Beilock

  Facebook.com/AtriaBooks

  @AtriaBooks

  We hope you enjoyed reading this Atria Books eBook.

  * * *

  Join our mailing list and get updates on new releases, deals, bonus content and other great books from Atria Books and Simon & Schuster.

  CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP

  or visit us online to sign up at

  eBookNews.SimonandSchuster.com

  Notes

  Introduction

  1. For an overview, see R. A. Zwaan and D. Pecher, “Revisiting Mental Simulation in Language Comprehension: Six Replication Attempts,” (2012), PLoS ONE 7: e51382, doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0051382.

  Chapter 1

  1. Statistics retrieved from http://www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/1mdd_adult.shtml and http://www.census.gov/popclock/ on August 26, 2013.

  2. Gotthold Lessing, as cited in A. J. Fridlund, “Evolution and Facial Action,” Biological Psychology 32 (1991): 3–100.

  3. See P. M. Niedenthal, “Embodying Emotion,” Science 316 (2007): 1002–5, doi:10.1126/science.1136930, for an overview of findings regarding how facial expressions impact thoughts, feelings, and behavior.

  4. T. L. Kraft and S. D. Pressman, “Grin and Bear It: The Influence of Manipulated Facial Expression on the Stress Response,” Psychological Science 23 (2012): 1372–78. See also A. A. Labroo, A. Mukhopadhyay, and P. Dong, “Not Always the Best Medicine: Why Frequent Smiling Can Reduce Well-Being,” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2014), doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2014.03.001, for evidence that smiling most strongly enhances feelings of well-being when folks believe that people smile when they feel good (rather than to feel good).

  5. J. Cole, About Face (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998), as cited in E. Finzi and E. Wasserman, “Treatment of Depression with Botulinum Toxin A: A Case Series,” Dermatologic Surgery 32 (2006): 645–50.

  6. Aaron T. Beck, Robert A. Steer, Gregory K. Brown, Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-11). Pearson.

  7. Sample items similar to those found in the Beck Depression Inventory-II (BDI-II). Copyright © 2006, Aaron T. Beck. Reproduced with permission of the publisher, NCS Pearson, Inc. All rights reserved. “Beck Depression Inventory” and “BDI” are trademarks, in the US and/or other countries, of Pearson Education, Inc. or its affiliates(s).

  8. M. Perrone, “Botox for Migraines: FDA Approves Botox for Migraine Headaches,” Huffington Post, October 15, 2010, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/18/fda-approves-botox-for-mi_n_766369.html.

  9. “Botox Injections Fight Underarm Sweat,” WebMD, July 26, 2005, http://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/news/20050726/botox-injections-fight-underarm-sweat.

  10. M. B. Lewis and P. J. Bowler, “Botulinum Toxin Cosmetic Therapy Correlates with a More Positive Mood,” Journal of Cosmetic Dermatology 8 (2009): 24–26, doi:10.1111/j.1473-2165.2009.00419.x.

  11. D. A. Havas, A. M. Glenberg, L. A. Gutowski, M. J. Lucarelli, and R. J. Davidson, “Cosmetic Use of Botulinum Toxin-A Affects Processing of Emotional Language,” Psychological Science (2010), doi:10.1177/0956797610374742.

  12. A. Hennenlotter, C. Dresel, F. Castrop, A. O. Ceballos-Baumann, A. M. Wohlschläger, and B. Haslinger, “The Link Between Facial Feedback and Neural Activity within Central Circuitries of Emotion—New Insights from Botulinum Toxin–Induced Denervation of Frown Muscles,” Cerebral Cortex 19 (2009): 537–42.

  13. M. A. Wollmer et al., “Facing Depression with Botulinum Toxin: A Randomized Controlled Trial,” Journal of Psychiatric Research 46 (2012): 574–81. This study had a rather small sample, and thus a larger trial is warranted. For a relevant discussion of supporting work, see also E. Finzi, The Face of Emotion: How Botox Affects Our Moods and Relationships (New York: Macmillan, 2012).

  14. W. James, The Principles of Psychology (New York: Holt, 1890).

  15. C. R. Darwin, The Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals (New York: Appleton, 1896).

  16. For a review, see N. I. Eisenberger, “Broken Hearts and Broken Bones: A Neural Perspective on the Similarities between Social and Physical Pain,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 21 (2012): 42–47.

  17. S. M. Bigatti et al., “An Examination of the Physical Health, Health Care Use, and Psychological Well-Being of Spouses of People with Fibromyalgia Syndrome,” Health Psychology 21 (2002): 157–66.

  18. K. A. Davies et al., “Insecure Attachment Style Is Associated with Chronic Widespread Pain,” Pain 143 (2009): 200–205.

  19. I. M. Lyons and S. L. Beilock, “Mathematics Anxiety: Separating the Math from the Anxiety,” Cerebral Cortex (2011), doi:10.1093/cercor /bhr289.

  20. C. N. DeWall et al., “Acetaminophen Reduces Social Pain: Behavioral and Neural Evidence,” Psychological Science 21 (2010): 931–37. This was a research finding and should in no way be taken as a recommendation; you should never take medicine yourself or give children medicine without consulting a physician.

  Chapter 2

  1. The description of the Breslin family is loosely based on the chronicles of a family dealing with a child with a variety of developmental disorders in the book I Believe in You: A Mother and Daughter’s Special Journey by Michele Gianetti, R.N. (Mustang, OK: Tate Publishing, 2012).

  2. Parts of the story of the Rizzolatti discovery were taken from a Scientific American article on mirror neurons: Daniel Lametti, “Mirroring Behavior—How Mirror Neurons Let Us Interact with Others,” June 9, 2009, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=mirroring-behavior. See also “Reflecting on Behavior: Giacomo Rizzolatti Takes Us on a Tour of the Mirror Mechanism,” Keynote address, 23rd annual APS meeting, Washington, DC, May 2011.

  3. Note that these actions are goal-directed. For an early review of mirror neurons, see V. Gallesse and A. Goldman, “Mirror Neurons and the Simulation Theory of Mind-Reading,” Trends in Cognitive Science 2 (1998): 493–501. For a more recent treatment, see G. Rizzolatti and C. Sinigaglia, Mirrors in the Brain: How We Share Our Actions and Emotions (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). Brain circuits with “mirror properties” are not limited to the premotor cortex but exist in other brain areas as well. I use the term mirror neuron rather loosely when referring to humans to refer to brain systems that are involved in both the perception and execution of actions. So perhaps a better term is mirror system.

  4. J. Piaget, Piaget’s Theory, in P. H. Mussen (ed.), Carmichael’s Manual of Child Psychology (New York: Wiley, 1970).

  5. As described and quoted in Seymour Papert, “Child Psychologist Jean Piaget: He Found the Secrets of Human Learning and Knowledge Hidden Behind the Cute and Seemingly Illogical Notions of Children,” Time, March 29, 1999.

  6. Based on accounts of Piaget on Jeremy Dean’s PsyBlog, http://www.spring.org.uk/2008/07/jean-piagets-four-stage-theory-how.php. For further reading, see J. Piaget, The Origins of Intelligence in Children (New York: International University Press, 1952); J. Piaget, The Construction of Reality in the Child (New York: Basic Books, 1954).

  7. Though Piaget is credited with many insights and discoveries regarding child development, other researchers have shown that object permanence does occur earlier in
life. See R. Baillargeon, “Object Permanence in 31/2- and 41/2-Month-Old Infants,” Developmental Psychology 23 (1987): 655–64; R. Baillargeon, “Infants’ Physical World,” Current Directions in Psychological Science 13 (2004): 89–94.

  8. K. E. Adolph et al., “How Do You Learn to Walk? Thousands of Steps and Dozens of Falls per Day,” Psychological Science 23 (2012): 1387–94.

  9. S. Pinker, The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language (New York: William Morrow, 1994).

  10. For a review, see B. I. Bertenthal, J. J. Campos, and K. C. Barrett, “Self-Produced Locomotion: An Organizer of Emotional, Cognitive, and Social Development in Infancy,” in R. Emde and R. Harmon (eds.), Continuities and Discontinuities in Development (New York: Plenum, 1984); J. J. Campos et al., “Travel Broadens the Mind,” Infancy 1 (2000): 149-219.

  11. N. Rader, M. Bausano, and J. E. Richards, “On the Nature of the Visual-Cliff-Avoidance Response in Human Infants,” Child Development 51 (1980): 61–68.

  12. See A. Greene, From First Kicks to First Steps: Nurturing Your Baby’s Development from Pregnancy through the First Year of Life (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2004). See also Greene’s New York Times blog on the dangers of baby walkers: http://consults.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/22/the-dangers-of-baby-walkers/?_r=0.

  13. M. Garrett et al., “Locomotor Milestones and Babywalkers: Cross-Sectional Study,” British Medical Journal 324 (2002): 1494.

  14. W. G. Cole, J. M. Lingeman, and K. E. Adolph, “Go Naked: Diapers Affect Infant Walking,” Developmental Science 15 (2012): 783–90. This study was done with thirteen-and nineteen-month-old infants. Walking impairments due to diapers were equally strong for both ages.