How Can Movement Make Our Minds Perform Better? | Shelf-Help
Ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of self-help books in our libraries? Shelf-Help chronicles our librarians’ experience exploring the world of self-help books. Through this series, we try to provide a helpful guide to anyone looking to navigate the open waters of self-help literature.
If you’re stuck, it can only be good in two scenarios. One is in a plane because who doesn’t like getaways? The second is when you’re stuck in a raging storm (and surging taxi prices). Bizarre but hear me out.
Here I was stuck yet it was strangely peaceful. Why in the world should I move? Why should I move my hands to text “hehe” to another group of friends I’ll never meet? Why should I should pop a smiley to the aunty who sends me dhal cooking videos on WhatsApp every day only to hook that bait with “When will you serve me wedding food?”.
There is peace in stillness. After all, popular self-help ideas have suggested that peace is best attained on top of a cliff in lotus position, meditating.
But as the storm ceased, serendipity struck. While waiting for the taxi, I spot a curved path towards the beach, a sandy sanctuary reminiscent of my childhood playgrounds in Ang Mo Kio Ave 3. I also recalled Caroline Williams’ Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free, a book that challenges conventional ideas on a healthy mind. It posits that the mind functions optimally when the body is in motion.
And so, I move and went on a month-long experience on conscious movement.
Walking
Putting weight on your feet compresses the major arteries of the
feet, increasing turbulence in the blood and increasing blood flow to
the brain by a further 10–15 per cent…the biggest boost in blood
flow happened when the heart rate and step rate synchronised at
around 120 beats and steps per minute.
This sweet spot of synchronisation contributes to the feel-good factor of a nice brisk walk in the afternoon. I put airplane mode on my phone and pulled off my shoes to take that gravelly sandy path towards the sea, the breeze swerving past my ears with just a sweet tinge of dew.
Being one with the earth and letting nature tickle my feet made me light. You’re stripped of the pretensions of hiding behind concrete walls. By the time I hit 30 strides, there was even a spring in my step, egged on by the white noise the waves were playing live for my ears.
It felt like I was dropping burden off my shoulders onto the beach. Was walking healing me and my emotional woes? Yes, said Caroline Williams.
That the past feels more distant as we physically move forward is
important, because a major risk factor for depression is the
tendency to ruminate, getting stuck in a loop of overanalys,ing things
you’ve said, done or experienced in the past while getting steadily
more despondent. Physically moving forward can help prevent this
by making the bad stuff seem further behind you.
Putting the life lived and the words said behind me, I booked a ride to continue my day. I was buzzing, a bit giddy even, excited to see if I could extend the goodness I‘ve gained from this walk.
As the driver arrived and began honking away, I sprinted barefoot. It felt brilliant to feel myself in full flow until my toe got caught in the gaps of a grille, my right ankle twisting hard to bounce back. The impact stopped me, but there was no pain. So I jogged on to another meeting.
When I woke up the next morning, I felt what seemed like an invisible band on my ankle. I hobbled to get it checked with the doctor and was told it was plantar fasciitis. Bummer.
Feeling down and out, I turned to the book for inspiration.
Vigorous physical activity briefly increases the levels of
inflammatory markers in the blood, which sounds like a bad thing,
but remember: inflammation is only a problem if it carries on
unchecked. A tried peak gives the body a very clear signal that it
now needs to douse the flames to bring matters back under control.
After a week of walking gingerly, my body knew it needed a jolt to the system. So I took on the most intimidating chapter of the book. I signed up for freeform dance.
Dance
No dance experience was required in this class. I could even come in nursing an injury because I wouldn’t have to conform to any routine. That sold me enough to limp past the swaying trees in Kampong Bugis to walk into a room half filled with anxious yet excited adults.
No other animals dance quite like humans. We’ve been doing it for a long time as a 9,000-year-old cave painting of group dance in India shows. And if we were to take cue from musical instruments, we might have been prancing around far earlier.
This connection to the past is what I was thinking about as I moved, led by my limbs more than my mind. I fell into a sort of meditative zone as I spun around without thinking or second-guessing myself. I think of childhood and more recent interactions with my friends’ kids where they bobbed seemingly without control to Tamil pop songs. I asked, bewildered, “What kind of dance is this?!”
The kids didn’t answer. And why should they? Librarians like me know fiction books don’t need a moral. Not everything we do needs meaning. Some things are intuitive. It just comes from the gut. And if we trust it, there’s joy.
This isn’t just about dance making you feel happy. It’s far more
important than that. Dance and other forms of rhythmic movement
plug into specific aspects of our biology in ways that help us
understand and regulate our emotions, providing a fundamentally
human way to connect both with ourselves and with each other.
As I crawled on the floor, for the final movement of my class, I felt this warm connection with the rest of the participants in that room, even if we barely said a word to each other.
When we move in time with others, our brain starts to get
confused. Information about our own movement from the body,
become blended with the actions of other people, which are coming
via the senses. As a result, the lines between self and other become
blurred… dancing together could help provide an easy way to tackle
loneliness and help us reconnect with people around us.
So my dance mates and I, who exchanged fleeting eye contact with little smirks and smiles thrown in, shared some impromptu chai and chatted by the beanbags outside class till the wee hours of the night.
Breathe
The final prong of Caroline Williams’ book was the one I struggled with the most. I could dance like a crocked flamingo, but sitting still and changing the way I breathe proved challenging. Does shifting my diaphragm even count as moving?
When we breathe, we are literally taking inspiration from the
environment and the subtle cues it contains. In fact, that’s almost
exactly what yogis and martial artists do: in martial arts ‘qi’ means
breath but also focus and power. In yogi breathing, our pranayama,
you’re said to take in ‘prana’, which translates as breath, energy
and universal consciousness.
I look up through my window, sharing a smile with the uncle opposite my house who was watering his money-plants and sneaking the occasional armpit scratch. As charming as the uncle was, he wasn’t offering me enough inspiration in this environment. I had to move as far away as I could from home. I chose Sungei Buloh.
There were no signs of crocodiles or otters as I strolled around the wetland reserve. Surrounded by quietness, I became more aware of my breathing.
Studies suggest that the act of focusing on breath decreases theta
waves — those that signify a zoned-out state and increases alpha
waves, which are associated with relaxed alertness. This according
to studies of sustained attention, is the best possible state to stay
focused for long periods.
Left to its devices, our body keeps the rate of breathing between 12 and 20 breaths per minute. On the other hand, Buddhist monks have mastered breathing at three breaths per minute, taking a breath in and out over 20 seconds. Recent studies show that you can almost tune out from reality at this equilibrium, reaching an altered state of consciousness. The science behind this involves the DMN (default mode network).
I started breathing three breaths a minute through my nose as the book suggests. I started with a 4–7–4 seconds in-hold-out rhythm before extending it. After five minutes of staring into the sky, I got this familiar feeling, a warmth that spreads through your chest during holidays, sitting in hotel rooms without a care in the world. I felt connected to a larger consciousness.
Now if you’re not looking for a moment of epiphany like me, doing six
breaths a minute instead of three is a lot more manageable.
Breathing in and out over the space of 10 seconds hits a
physiological sweet spot that connects the breathing-related
movements of the body to blood flow, blood pressure and the
concentration of oxygen in the blood. Plus, it tips the balance of the
autonomic nervous system from ‘rev up’ to ‘calm down’.
In a way, breathing at six breaths per minute is a shortcut to a sense of calm and contentment. With the serenity I’ve gained from mindful breathing, I texted my aunty that I’ve had enough of dhal in my life and that she should stop sending me cooking videos. She could, however, ask if how my day was and what made me smile this week.
Caroline Williams’ Move: How the New Science of Body Movement Can Set Your Mind Free and the adventures it set me on made me smile and chuckle throughout this month, tuning me into feelings and memories I’d long forgotten. I hope it offers you some of the same inspiration and perhaps encourage you to get up and move on.
Get the book here: eBook, Audiobook
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Text by
Dilip Kumar
National Library Board
