Why you should start practicing Visualization (as backed by science)

Visualization — it’s one of those terms that brings up a lot of connotations of woo woo hippie communities, spiritual practices, and the law of attraction.

“If you want a better life just visualize it and manifest it!” (Eye roll)

I’ve always been very skeptical of visualization practices and their ability to bring the future to fruition.

YET — recently I’ve had a change of heart.

My brother always says “A wise man proportions his beliefs to the evidence”…and it turns out there’s actually A LOT of science to back up the benefits of visualization practices.

“There is an extremely tight link between our visual system and our physiology: once we can actually see ourselves doing the impossible, our chances of pulling it off increase significantly.” — Michael Gervais

Harvard Physiologist Edmund Jacobson was the first person to discover this link. Jacobson found that if you simply imagine yourself lifting an object, you will trigger corresponding electrical activity in the muscles involved in the lift. By thinking about lifting a weight, the muscles that are responsible for that lift are activated.

His studies have since been replicated dozens of times, consistently finding strong…