Pain, Brain, Train

Just as the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain, so also when we train we hear all the time, "No pain, no gain." But associations aside, it's actually hard to disentangle the brain from the pain when we train and so on.

It's very simple. The concept of mind that we have is a very iffy one. 'Mind' to us involves emotions (which are the result of your whole body's physiological changes) and reasoning (which often involves the immediate biasing effect of both internal and external environments). It gets even iffier when we look at the fact that physical action biases sensory and emotional perception.

In a recent experiment involving 38 subjects, Psychological Science reports that people who took four steps backwards before attempting a task did better than people who took four steps forwards. Similarly, in this month's Scientific American, another experiment showed (not for the first time) that the configuration of the mouth and lips affects how a person hears things; if you are smiling, you are more positive than when you are not!

The body's input to the brain's filters is significant. When I pull my shoulders back, I know I still feel pain, but the pain gets more bearable. In fact, it's easier to forget the pain when I breathe deeply and slowly and smile a lot.

For all those students of mine who wondered why I used to walk so stiffly upright and smile so much, well, that's one answer right there. Then again, I prefer to walk properly and I'm a generally happy person, so perhaps it's not the only answer.