Monday, November 30, 2009

The Things We Do

Did you know that the body adapts to everything we do? Whether we practice bad posture, good movements, poor eating, or positive thinking, everything we do habitually cements itself into our bodies.

Can you believe that if we sit slumped in front of a computer all day almost every day of the week, our body will eventually make it easier and easier to sit that same way? In fact, our bodies will actually start to develop fascia and lay down connective tissues to support our new choice of posture! Our structure will actually change. The opposite is also true. If we practice good posture, our body will develop our structure to support that as well. So, sit up straight!

Even our thoughts can change our physical structure. If we are always worrying or practicing negative thinking, our muscles will grow chronically tight and our posture will eventually draw up or slump. The body will again lay down new connective tissue to support this posture. Not only that, we will always feel tired because our chronically tight muscles will rob us of nutrients because working muscles need energy. Our brain will even change its neurons to facilitate our habitual thinking and virtually make negative thoughts effortless. Our negative thinking will adversely affect our hormones as well. In short, we will stress our body out. And, we will be good at it.

Yes, bad habits are, well, bad... But, just as bad habits can change our bodies, good habits can too. This is deeper than just exercising. Practicing good movements and positive thinking can be more beneficial than even exercise. That is especially true for a person who exercises, but still practices negative thinking, or exercises with bad posture...

The point is, most of the time, the body we have is the body we’ve earned. The cool thing about this is, we can also earn a great body. Practicing simple things like good joint mobility, not worrying, diaphragmatic breathing, and making good food choices can all go a very long way towards having a healthy body and feeling great.

3 comments:

A Fitness Minute with Pat Anderson said...

Great post. I totally agree. People need to be aware that their thoughts do effect their bodies.

Anonymous said...

I agree. :) Mind over body ;)

ishttah said...

Thank you for this very simple reminder. To the point!