Why Movement Matters

If you’re one of the 40 million people who currently suffer from anxiety in the United States (almost one-fifth of the population), you know that, simply put, it sucks. That sense of catastrophe waiting just around some random corner can paralyze you. Anxiety is fear-meets-dread. It’s the monster under your little-kid bed, and when it strikes, a profound sense of unease lingers just about every. Waking. Minute.

So it’s unfortunate that what would massively help your mind and your mood is the thing you may feel least inclined to do: move.

How Movement Helps You Reframe Discomfort

The felt sensation of anxiety in the body is, it turns out, not really all that different from the felt sensation of excitement. When she realized this, Kelly McGonigal, bestselling author, health researcher, Stanford lecturer, and TED talk phenom decided she was going to do some targeted reframing. “For years, I’ve had a fear of flying,” she tells Tom Bilyeu on Impact Theory. “When I decided that I finally wanted to face that fear, I knew I needed to learn to deal with how I feel on a plane: [my heart is] pounding . . . I feel like I can’t breathe . . . I feel like I’m trapped.”

But to reframe fear as excitement, McGonigal knew she had to find another activity which initially produced roughly the same physical sensations. At an indoor cycling class she attended, she had the sudden realization that the same thing occurred. There, too, she experienced the pounding heart, the sense that she couldn’t breathe, the sense that she was trapped. Yet cycling was exhilarating; it made her feel powerful, too. And she wasn’t about to give it up just because it triggered her anxiety.

So, she decided to recast the sensations that accompanied indoor cycling, reimagining them as signs of her determination to build strength and tenacity. And, sure enough, when next it came time to board a flight, she told herself that flying was no different than cycling. She says, “I learned to tolerate the sensations of discomfort. . . . somehow my brain reorganized how it experienced the physical sensations of fear, so that in moments when I actually was afraid, suddenly I was like, ‘I guess I’m brave, I guess I’m a badass!’”

The key to the reframe was movement. In recasting the experience of flying, she linked it in her mind to the experience of indoor cycling, which involved moving her body to do something she enjoyed and which she valued highly—even though at first she felt anxious. The movement piece is key because it signals to the brain that in spite of the paralysis that often goes with anxiety, you’re nevertheless going to do something. “Movement is so amazing [because] it gives us access to physical feedback that allows us to have this different sense of self,” McGonigal affirms. “When you move, you’re telling your brain that you can tolerate the discomfort. Often, the one skill you need is to say, ‘I can’t always control my inner experiences, but I can make a choice right now that I know my future self will be grateful for, that reflects my core values, and I’m going to learn how to tolerate this inner experience.’”

Journeying Inward Through Imaginal Movement

A Lotimus mind journey works similarly, carrying you into imaginal terrain where your immediate objective is to move. When you’re trying to stage a workaround for a seemingly intractable obstacle, you have to imagine moving to do it. Whether it’s the act of diving deeper to get around a rip current; connecting with your animal instincts in order to summit a sheer wall of ice; or positioning yourself high enough on the shoulder of a wave that you’ll get barreled—movement is key to reaching your objective.

If moving when you’re anxious feels daunting, then try doing it imaginally, where it feels like a welcome and intriguing challenge rather than a threat. Go inward to move, and reframe your anxiety as excitement, a sign to your brain that you’re actually as brave as you are strategic.

Are you ready to journey?