Perfect Poise, Perfect Life
Bring your body into balance and revolutionise your life
By Noel Kingsley
Publisher Hodder Mobius
AVAILABLE HERE
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Move to think
Charles Darwin's 'Thinking Path'.
There are plenty of people prepared to tell us that the brain works independently of the body, and the fact that we have physio-specialists and pscho-specialists does nothing to disprove this. But from what I can see, we function as a whole; neither brain nor body can work independently. What could the body do without the brain deciding on the activity and controlling muscular movement? And what mental exercises could the brain perform without a supply of blood pumped by the heart and re-oxygenated by the lungs?
When it comes to figuring things out, making choices in life and evolving new ideas, we might decide to 'sit down and think about this'. But experience shows that the activities of the brain are helped and stimulated by physical movement. This may be for several reasons. For instance, exercise gets everything 'going. It stimulates the breathing, blood circulation and helps to blow the cobwebs off and clear our head. Also, if we go for a walk, looking at our changing surroundings frees our thinking and helps to stop us 'focusing' too acutely. There's nothing like 'focusing' on something to prevent the broad, lateral thinking that may just come up with a brilliant idea.
When I visited Charles Darwin's home Down House at the weekend, I saw his 'Sand-walk' or 'Thinking Path' as he called it. Created in 1846 in an area of land that was fenced off and planted with native trees, it was covered in sandy gravel around the edge. Darwin, walked this daily doing several laps and recording the number or circuits by piling flint stones at the beginning. It was strolling round this path where he did most of his thinking which resulted in his theory of natural selection that rocked the world in the publication of his radical book 'On the origin of species'.
If you're going to think....go for a walk. And if you are walking somewhere....have a good think. The two go together beautifully. You might also think about how you're walking and ensure you're not off balance or getting stiff in your neck. Thinking about what you're doing is also a good thing to do.
