The feet are planted firmly, the hips are squared and the spine balances comfortably atop it all. Two minutes later everything crumbles. The legs slacken, the spine slumps, the weight shifts, and the head tilts. We indulge in whichever characteristic postures we have engrained.
When we focus on our bodies and prop ourselves up we are, in that moment, consciously controlling our posture. We put it the way we want it. Then, moments later, the good posture collapses because our minds have wandered back to their habitual state. That state may be doubtful, critical, fearful, stressed or whatever other mindset that informs a posture that wants improving.
Illnesses aside, our characters are reflected in our posture. We all judge people by their posture whether we like it or not. Who will be hired all other things being equal: the person who stands tall or the person who slouches? Authors play off of our body-mind judgements by describing characters by their posture. A shrunken, slouched man is probably insecure while a woman with her chin up high is probably proud. Making lasting changes to our postures requires lasting changes to our minds. Not that we want to change our personalities entirely, but we all experience moments of doubt and negativity. Who wouldn’t want to arrest these inflictions?
Here are two ways to help affect enduring, mindset changes:
- Cognitive therapy: All this complicated title means is that thinking about various mindsets will bring them on. A study in 2009 by Oosterwijk, Rotteveel, Fischer and Hess found that subjects who repeated words like ‘happy’ or ‘sad’ eventually became happy or sad. Filling our minds with conceptual knowledge about emotional states is enough to bring those emotional states on… It’s more than just wishful thinking… be careful what you wish for… Sorry, I’ll stop.
- Posing: The mind affects the body but the body also affects the mind. It’s a two way street. In an experiment by John H. Riskind and Carolyn C. Gotay, subjects were asked to pose in various postures ranging from slouched to inflated. The researchers found that the changes in their mindsets, ranging from despairing to courageous, were a result of their adopted poses. You ‘Fake it until you believe it’ as Amy Cuddy says in her Ted Talk on body language. There, she discusses the hormonal basis for mood changes. Assuming various ‘power poses’ for as little as two minutes could increase subject’s testosterone – the dominance hormones – by 20% as well as reduce their cortisol – the stress hormones – by 25%.
Mind over matter, right? No, matter over mind? There’s some truth to each.
So it comes down to persistently checking posture to improve it. Yes I know, repeatedly re-posturing is tedious and discouraging. But there is solace in that standing tall makes us feel good and feeling good makes us stand tall. It’s like a positive-posture-feedback loop. The science supports it.
With some persistence of mind, some posing, and some cognitive therapy, you can reshape your body and mind.
mindedmind 
Persistence and regular practice definitely pays off. I think so often in our society we want results yesterday, and we forget that actually the real results happen through work and persistence and practice. BTW I love that Amy Cuddy talk. 🙂
Hi, there!
I agree with you that we, societally, have a desire for instant results. This type of desire has discouraged me from sticking to much for even a moderate length of time. Thinking of it differently now, persistence and regular practice WILL yield results. I find a lot of comfort in that thought.
Thanks for leaving a comment, Liz.