Change Your Physiology to Change Your Mind

Usually when I’m talking about changing your emotions and your behaviors I’m taking what neuroscientists like to call a top-down approach, meaning I am speaking in terms of changing your mindset to change your physiology.

The mind, when it’s power is used properly, is like the CEO to your body - making decisions and sending information down through the nervous system and out into your actions, which of course create your results. The body is like a little workforce waiting for orders from the mind on which way to move, what chemicals and hormones to deploy, and what to prepare for.

The CEO is running the show but the employees are also extremely smart and loyal. Your body starts to learn what the CEO likes and doesn’t like. What works and doesn’t work. What preserves energy and wastes energy. What feels pleasurable and what feels painful.

This learning and adapting creates a beautiful collaboration between the body and mind, one supporting the other.

Though, if your body has received incorrect orders from the mind in the past, or is in a situation it has misinterpreted through the only 5 senses available to it, its response can be flawed. 

This is especially important in the context I speak about often, where we’ve designed patterns and habits to support old ways of being in the world, but those systems are no longer translating to the new environment we’re in, and they’re especially no longer supporting the one we’re creating.

In this event, we can take what neuroscientists call a bottom-up approach. Essentially changing the body to send a signal to the mind, instead of the other way around. Any good CEO knows how to listen intently to their employees, especially when they have something important to say.

So today, I want to share with you a quick and powerful technique for changing your physiology to change your psychology, in only 20 seconds.

You’re welcome. 😉 

Ok so before we get into it, I want you to bring awareness to your body right now, in this very moment. How are you sitting? Are you hunched over, with your chest caved in? How straight is your spine? Where is the alignment of your neck and chin? Is it pushed forward with your chin down or is it confidently back and upwards towards the sky?

Now that you have that check-in, and maybe you’ve already made some adjustments just having that awareness, I want you to take a moment and go into the stance of someone who is depressed and sad. Just for a moment. What do their shoulders do? The curve of their back? The placement of their chin?

If you’re staying in this position for hours a day in front of the computer, or assuming this posture when you’re having coffee with a friend or a new date because it feels comfortable and familiar, safe even, you’re sending a signal to your brain that’s essentially saying things aren’t great right now. You’re not feeling expansive. You’re not confident. You’re closed off from the world, protecting yourself, staying small.

Your body language is communicating to your mind in the same way it’s communicating to the minds of those around you. Choose it’s message properly to say something different.

Now I want you to stand up. Seriously. Get up out of your chair! We’re going to do a little exercise made popular by social psychologist and Harvard professor Amy Cuddy in her famous TED talk on Power Posing.

What do we do when we’ve just experienced a win in our life? You landed that sales deal, got that date, nailed that job interview, whatever - we get bigger. We expand and throw our arms up and out. Our chin raises. Our chest rises. We make ourselves seen and heard.

So that’s what we’re going to do.

I want you to widen your stance a bit. Feel into the ground below you and connect with it. Put your arms at your hips or raise them in the air (if you’re feeling wild!), draw your shoulders back, straighten your spine, and raise your chin.

Now hold that stance for 20 seconds. Breathe.

Check in with yourself. How do you feel?

Evidence shows that assuming this pose for up to 2 minutes increases testosterone (both in men and women) which allows us to be more confident and assertive, and lowers cortisol, the stress hormone. So essentially, you’re left feeling alert and calm, the perfect combination for thriving in challenging conversations, or simply to give yourself a boost when you’re feeling small in social situations like coffee chats, meetings, etc.

If you want to do this more discreetly, because it might be awkward to get up in the middle of a date or meeting and assume the power pose but I wouldn't be opposed to it, you can simply bring your awareness back to your posture - especially if you’re feeling anxious or shy - and instead of allowing your body to collapse and get small the way it wants to, you do the opposite; straighten up, shoulders back, chin up, and send the message that you are confident and in control. Do this enough, and the mind and body will start making this your default response instead. Especially if you take a minute to cue into how much better it feels making that shift, giving your body and mind a little reward, and strengthening that new neural pathway with those feel good hormones.

In conclusion, this isn’t about you relaying a message of power to other people, it's about you relaying a message of power to yourself. You talking to you, non verbally. You showing you your own power, because it’s always there and always available to you.

Fostering deeper collaboration between the body and mind is a foundational piece in my signature Self by Design Method Coaching Program.

If you’re a conscious entrepreneur, creator, or leader who’s been considering mindset coaching and are curious to know more, Book a Free 15 Min Exploratory Call with me and let’s chat. This call is completely no-strings-attached and solely for the purpose of opening the conversation to see what’s possible for you!