You Are How You Move
How Your Movement Impacts Who You Are
We are all familiar with feeling stuck. Perhaps it is in a relationship, a career, or more generally in life. What if I told you that how you move could be what is keeping you stuck and that by changing your movement patterns you can begin to move through this place. Do you feel taken advantage of or even bullied? Maybe you feel like you have little control over the things that happen to you. Well, although we cannot control everything, how we respond is in our power and we can learn to manage our emotional health and mental wellbeing through our body movements. We have heard the saying “you are what you eat.” I’d like you to consider that “you are how you move.”
Consider how much or how little you move throughout the day. Perhaps you sit at a desk from 9–5 with little movement in between those hours. Or you may be someone that never takes a break and is on the go or performing physical tasks all day. So while we know that we won’t literally turn into pizza, consuming too much of it does have an impact on our chemical makeup. Similarly, our bodies adjust to how we move or how we choose not to move and this directly translates to how we move through life, our environment, and in relation to others.
With the use of technology we spend more money having someone else “move” for us; cook for us, shop for us, think for us. We are outsourcing so much movement and then wonder why our mental health as a society is declining. Feeling tense or overwhelmed? Your movements may be small, close to your body, and your breath most likely shallow. Feeling pulled in a million directions and indecisive? Your body movements and posture may lack tone and structure.
As a board-certified dance/movement therapist and clinical director of Chicago Dance Therapy, I see this time and time again. A client makes an appointment because talk therapy is not helping them address how their body is contributing to the stressors they face on a daily basis. They may be making a conscious decision to change their thinking, but the body has its own way of processing information and if that is not addressed then the cycle continues. Our bodies hold onto our experiences and research shows that ignoring our felt sensations only perpetuates the mental health epidemic sweeping the nation and the world.
According to the American Dance Therapy Association, “dance/movement therapy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being.” Perhaps you are one of the millions of people enthralled by the dance shows on television. And although it may stir emotions in you as you sit on the edge of your seat, this is NOT dance therapy. Dance/movement therapy is about addressing the micro-movements that we unconsciously engage in everyday. It is accessible to everyone in that we are all moving all the time, otherwise we wouldn’t be alive. Movement is in everything we do, but yet we take it for granted and we assume that with age it is not as accessible or worse, it is normal to move less or even need assistance. This may be a new concept to many, but how you move directly impacts your personality, your mood, and your behavior.
Did you know that one of the best indicators of health and longevity is how well you get up off the floor? I can only imagine how many of you reading just groaned out loud at the thought of getting on the floor to begin with let alone having to get back up. Getting on the ground isn’t reserved for yoga. Believe it or not it is something we should all try to do every day.
Your movement just like the people in your life has qualities and the qualities of your movement can be associated with how you manage your emotional health and social interactions. Move too slowly and you may find that you lack motivation or are feeling stuck. Move too quickly from one thing to the next and you may be the reason your local CVS is out of antacids and ibuprofen. Life is about balance and movement can make balance possible. I don’t mean by standing on one foot or walking on a balance beam, but by embracing different ways of moving in your own body you have the ability to increase neuroplasticity, become more resilient, as well as cope with life changes and major transitions. We can move to improve our brain health. We can move to improve our ability to be a caregiver. We can move to embrace life and all its intricacies.
Movement is vital for mental health, not just physical health. I hope this essay has planted a seed in your mind regarding how movement influences your own life. Challenge the ways you move, sit, stand, even rest. Awareness is the key to making any lasting changes so begin paying attention to your personal connection to movement and mental health. Your mind and body will thank you.
