The Art of Noticing

I tend to be at my mentally lowest when my body is, physically, also at its lowest.

If I work out too hard after doing absolutely no physical activity for a week, I’m bound to be extremely sore the next day. If I had one too many Moscow mules at Davey Waynes on a Thursday night, I will likely spend my Friday dehydrated with heart racing hangxiety.

Ive started to notice this pattern: when I haven’t necessarily been treating my body with the most care, I tend to experience low motivation. But how does one mend their relationship with their body and their mind?

One concept that helps us explain this is introception: the brain’s ability to sense what’s happening inside the body. Heart rate, muscle tension, breathing, gut signals, hormonal shifts. Our brains are constantly receiving these signals and using them to construct how we feel emotionally.

And what is interesting to me is that the brain often decides how we feel emotionally based on the body’s physiological state first.

Usually, people think of body language as something you communicate to others. That it is simply a perception of someone being uncomfortable with their environment, or even themselves. I agree, but prefer a simpler take—body language is your body speaking to your brain.

Sometimes I can feel the ambition beneath my skin, to do things that mend the relationship between my mind and body. I want them to be able to thrive simultaneously,

For some, leaning on others to push themselves is a way that helps them. For myself, recently, I’ve found that simply going outside and seeing the color green has made all the difference to my motivation.

Green is my favorite color, but it also appears constantly in living systems. Vegetation, forests, plants—the environments humans evolved in for most of our history.

I recently learned of the Povyagal Theory, which essentially posits that our autonomic nervous system (ANS) has three (not two) states: social engagement, fight-or-flight, and freeze. When we feel safe, the parasympathetic nervous system allows us to relax. When we feel threatened, the body shifts into survival mode. In other words, our bodies often determine our mental state before our minds even realize it.

Yesterday I decided to take myself to the Leos Liones Trail in topanga for a hike. I really enjoyed this hike and highly recommend— great escape from campus.

Being surrounded by vegetation shifted the way I thought about myself. No plant is exactly the same, yet each one, given enough sun and rain, eventually learns how to thrive.

Humans like to think we’re separate from nature, but our brains are just as responsive to our environments. Through neuroplasticity, our minds adapt to the signals our bodies and surroundings provide.

So maybe repairing the relationship between mind and body doesn’t require the most complicated solutions. Maybe sometimes it starts with something simpler, like fresh air, sunlight, and movement. Like all else in nature, we grow best under the right conditions.