The influence of body posture on our mind

[Music] [Sound] our body is represented in the brain  we have here then what is called the cortex   somatosensory which is the part of the brain that's involved in receiving  is involved in receiving the sensations both   sensations as well as the movement of our whole body  body but it's not only our brain that picks up the   sensations that we are receiving and the movement that we are doing through the   motor cortexes our brain is also in charge of  also takes care of seeing how the posture of our body is

   body and depending on the posture that we are taking  interpreting what our posture could be

   state of mind when we are looking at a person we are  a person we are interpreting   the body of the person that we see and that is the information that is  is the information that is priority if we   we see a person for example that with his body gesture we see that he is  body gesture we see that he is bad and his words tell us that he is   say it's right we will always give more credibility to what is  more credibility to what their body language is telling us

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the posture that our body acquires the shape  the shape the position of our body   is fundamental for our brain to interpret our own mental state and to interpret the state of our body

   different scientific studies as they have come to think have shown through  come to think have demonstrated through their   experiments how the body posture influences  on our emotional states one of the most important   famous and most mediatized is one that demonstrates how our posture when we have a   stooped posture increases what's called the negative bias we nowadays our societies and   very much influenced by the abusive use that we have  of cell phones we tend to slouch

   our posture we tend to slouch this is  a posture in which we spend a great deal of our time in

   of the time in the representation of our body  in the brain the most important thing was the hands the   face especially the facial gesture but it is also tremendously  it's also tremendously important what is   the curvature that we acquire here in the cervical  the cervical area how shrunken we are that we   this is very much represented in the brain and the  very much represented in the brain and the brain will   interprets it perfectly because the experiment that  was carried out in 2014 showed how the brain is   that position of which we abuse so much  that it's a posture that far from being upright is   the participants to this study were asked to do a study of the  volunteers in this study were asked to watch   a laptop computer on a computer that was placed on the floor  This resulted in the person without a memory impairment

   person who knew it to bend his gesture, that is to say, to  the computer was projecting the computer   a series of words that people had to remember  to remember did that by putting the computer   on the floor in such a way that the person was  and putting the computer in a posture that the person was   in front of the eyes in such a way that the person was simply  was simply upright in a posture such that the person was simply upright in a posture such that the person was simply   back straight the words came out of the computer and people had to memorize  computer and people had to memorize   these words what the studies showed is  that when we acquired a posture that was slouching   we tend to remember negative things more often than positive things we remember fewer things that is to say   what these studies were telling us is  that a stooped posture causes us to have   less attention span and memory capacity but not only that as our brain interprets that a slouching posture is   slouching posture is a posture of discomfort  of sadness of slouching there's a bias of   the interpretation of everything that's going on the brain  the brain selected only the negative things   people in a shrunken posture remember more the negative things than the positive ones and in the end   the number of things that we remember from an experience is what generates our memories of the experience

   that experience if we in our day to day  day to day we have an experience we go through the world   with a shrunken posture we favor what is called the negative  called the negative bias let's remember   more the negative things than the positive ones  when that leads us to an interpretation   of the situation that we have lived is going to be  always more biased by the negative than by the   the positive, another one of the studies that was also  was also very very interesting also talked about   the importance of the posture and already in the neuroendocrine  neuroendocrine system that is to say as well as in the levels of the   of different hormones affect our mood in this case also  mood in this case also the volunteers to   this experiment were willing to take certain postures  postures were not emotionally stimulated

   to feel better or worse, they were simply made to  were simply made to acquire certain postures with their bodies   in particular because they were asked to do certain postures  of submission of shrinking a person in the same way

   with the legs crossed with the agreed posture  with their arms folded they were made to be there   for a few minutes and by means of a saliva and blood  saliva and blood analysis their neuroendocrine levels were measured

what was seen is that the people in that more shrunken state  more shrunken state because they had a deficit   of serotonin, they were more depressed and they had  had much less vitality when they were asked to   people to put themselves in a posture that is therefore a  so much is too upright it's not being upright of   normal way but like a little bit cocky not with  legs on top of the table with the shoulders   what their neuroendocrine analysis showed is that it  neuroendocrine analysis showed was that it increased the   cortisol and testosterone levels, so that has been  has interpreted as you know the cortisol is the   hormone that is behind the processes of stress  certain postures just by the fact of taking them

   produce us higher levels of stress increase our cortisol levels  our cortisol levels certain postures   just by the fact of taking them they increase the testosterone levels and many times it was related   with the aggressiveness in a response these postures that are more  which are more activating of the neuroendocrine system   of cortisol and testosterone was related to the emotional reactivity  with the emotional reactivity i

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in the face of a   situation before a conflict before something that we have to  that we have to resolve by managing our emotions makes   that our response is much quicker much quicker and also much more uncontrolled much more uncontrolled much   more visceral said the studies then look at these 2 studies and see what they were highlighting   was that even if we're not consciously aware that there's  any specific situation that makes us feel that we're   that posture just because we have the habit of certain postures we are  habit of certain postures we are influencing   on the cognitive processes we are influencing the attention we are influencing the memory

  attention we are influencing the memory but we are influencing   we are also influencing our interpretation of the situation  we give of the situation, we are staying more with the   the negative than with the positive

  is very much relevant because it has been   that especially in adolescents we have a default posture that is  we have by default a posture that is shrunken  we do not know how not to maintain a posture that is upright  we give very little importance say the studies   to the posture of our shoulders we do not remember  that the shoulders have always been considered the   wings of the heart we give very little importance to where the shoulders are how is the posture what is what   our posture is shaped by our posture this is also  is important because all the signals that we   reach the brain from our organs that is the interoception  interoception which is therefore all the information that our   from the intestine from the stomach from the heart from the lungs reaches our  the lungs arrives to our brain through the   vagus nerve the vagus nerve is the one that collects all of this information  all that information and communicates it to the brain

   the vagus nerve can also be affected by a bad posture  by a bad posture so what you're   seeing today is that certain postures, certain postural  posture habits that we acquire make   that the transmission between the brain and the body  through the vagus nerve is hindered is another one

   of the things that are being studied is another of the clues not  clues not that neuroscience brings to what is the   neuroscience of well-being we have to take care of our  we have to take care of our diet we have to take care of our physical exercise   we have to take care of our mental states for example  meditation among other things but also   and above all it is very important to take care of the body posture  body posture that during the day but also during   the night there was a study that was very very striking is that it showed that not all the postures   are equally beneficial for the brain when we fall asleep  brain when we go to sleep it activates in our   brain what is called the lymphatic system which differs from the lymphatic system  differs from the lymphatic system in that the glymphatic is the cleansing system of our brain  when we go to sleep our neurons   stop receiving information coming from the outside and literally  from the outside and they literally suffer a kind of   of shrinking not the veins no longer receive the information their threshold of  information their threshold of processing the information   coming from outside lowers pu and are picked up when the veins are  veins are collected all liquids the liquid   extracellular fluid that's circulating through our  brain moves and that's where it's put into function

   the lymphatic system is essential for the lymphatic system  the lymphatic system is essential for the   cleaning for example the alteration that people may have had  alteration that people may have had   with Alzheimer's disease in the glymphatic system there are  the glymphatic system there are sleep disturbances because   those brains have accumulated a lot of plaques and tangles that have been deposited in the brain on the   glymphatic system is essential for the cleansing systems for the well being of the soccer in   functioning of our brain and then there are  postures it was seen that the posture that most favors the   the glymphatic system is sleeping on your side sleeping on your back is one of the  back sleeping is one of the systems that of the ways of   sleep that most hinders the brain's cleansing systems, apart from the  of the brain apart from the clinical implications   that it has therefore that it is necessary to favor the systems of cleaning  of cleansing of our brain the implication at a level that is   of the basic research was tremendous i

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the brain is processing our body posture 24 hours a day   a day during the day and at night there are a few  studies that were very curious not that they were studying   that were going on from the astronauts' brains  when they sleep because when they're in   that illusion of antigravity in that free-fall, that they are floating  that they're floating because their brain literally   doesn't know if you're upside down or face up if you're on one side or the other it doesn't know  on one side or not on the other side and it's just like this is   studying as a basis not of what might be some of the neurobiological sleep disturbances that   astronauts have so our brain processes the information  processes information from the body day and night [Sound] [Music]