Mind-Body Movements

Something I never realised much for a long time is what harnessing the connection between the mind and body can help one achieve. You see, I had fallen into a really low state many years ago and struggled to do anything. One thing helped me shift my mindset, and it was doing at least 200 pushups daily, among other things.

When I started exercising, I began to eat and sleep more. I added a lot of weight back then—perhaps at the highest rate ever for me—but the point is I spent a lot less time feeling negative emotions. I mean, when you run around your house 20 times, you'd likely fall into deep sleep later on. Consequentially, you'd have even less time for unproductive thoughts.

It made me feel good about myself, too. I began to look more in shape and felt a bit more confident, even though I wasn't buff. Years went by, and this lifestyle began to fade as I considered it less and less. But I felt the difference and never forgot.

The mind is such a powerful place, and it is connected to the world via the body. So it makes sense that the mind can be affected by the, yet we hardly consider this. Moving the body has an effect on shifting mindset. And there's an extra boost of clarity and centredness that comes with certain physical activities.

Stress. Under mental stress, there's often a limit to what you can do. Willpower becomes significantly diminished, and the motivation to do the things you really want to do somehow vanishes. It happens to even the best of us when there's a mental strain due to demanding situations. But what happens when you take a walk?

I take it that when negative emotions are locked up somewhere with nowhere to go, a good way to let them out safely is actually doing something with the body. And it really works. Perhaps the most underrated therapy for a lot of things is actually physical activities, like exercises.

Spending a lot of time in traffic going to and coming back from work and doing a lot for the job back in 2021, visiting the gym was one thing I could do to de-stress. I was in a new environment and without familiar people around me anyway, so being at the gym every evening was so healthy as I not only got to work out but also had social interactions. That's another example.

Figuring out that I had been tensed up recently and it wasn't helping my creative flow, I became reminded that I could actually just go for a jog. How I felt afterwards: I knew that I had been missing something in my daily routine. And I added daily workouts for six out of seven days.

I found that not having a gym around often affected my commitment to working out. Ever since I returned home, my exercises declined a lot. To get back, it's now home workouts again. Back to some of my old routines, reps, and sets. As an addition, I get to rest better and feel more productive in general—just by moving my body.