We will see some examples of experiments that show how the posture of our body influences attention, memory and the endocrine system.
[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
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
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]
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Subtitules:
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