The Machinery of the Body
How could one benefit from conceptualizing the physical body as a machine?
Posture for Social Anxiety
Do you slouch? Do you get anxious in public?
The latter always seems to be a little more obvious… we know what anxiety feels like. Or at least we know that we get uncomfortable in public. But how do you know if you slouch? Beyond seeing a picture of yourself, it might not be entirely obvious, especially if you’ve been slouching for more than a few months - it just feels normal. A better question is probably, do you have back pain? Have you become a victim of the dreaded “zoom meeting” in your transition to working from home? The quarantine has been rough on a lot of us in many different ways, but most commonly it’s wreaked havoc on our bodies and posture.
Social Anxiety and Posture
Among the things I have learned, I’ve noticed this overarching theme; when we are stressed and/or depressed, there are a number of conscious and unconscious responses that our body begins to have. More to the point, we start to “wear” our stresses. Anxiety and depression often breed feelings and thoughts of being burdened, like our life load is too heavy to carry, so our self-esteem and sense of self begin to adapt and believe that we are too small, or too weak to carry on. Psychologically, this is a major source of suffering, secondary of course, to the initial cause of depression/anxiety. Physically, for some, this might actually look like we are carrying a great weight on our shoulders. Our shoulders roll forward, our head shoots out in front of us, we look down at the ground while walking, we might even start to saunter, allowing our heels to drag along the ground. Our body language begins to communicate how we feel inside.