The Mind-Body Connection

On one level the link between our mind and body is blindingly obvious. If you get burnt, your body lets you know in no uncertain terms that it has been damaged. Equally we can tell a lot about a person’s mental state just by looking at them. Joy, sadness, anger, depression and all other mental states are reflected in our bodies. In fact, most definitions of any emotion would have to take into account the physical manifestation of the relevant emotion.

Yet, despite the fact that this is so apparent to all of us, the business world is only just tuning into the fact, that mind effects body and body effects mind. If we want to get the best out of our staff we need to provide an environment that is good for both body and mind. This won’t happen by accident and requires a good deal of thought, but if we get it right then the positive impact on productivity will be very significant.

Obviously, good physical health means less sick days and the link to productivity is obvious, but feeling good about our work, almost certainly means we spend less time talking, or looking for ways to be distracted and more time focusing on the task at hand.

However, the link between mind and body can be more subtle. By way of example, I used to work for a dynamic manager who was a bundle of health and vitality, but every time he took a holiday, he would fall ill. Even though I was much younger then, it was obvious that he ignored his body’s needs for rest and relaxation when on the job, but in the holidays, when he could afford to relax, he let go and his body took control. Becoming ill was its way of forcing him to re-charge his batteries.

Most of the time the link between mind and body works on automatic pilot and a lot of the time that is fine, but it is important to check in on a regular basis if you don’t want to end up somewhere unexpected. I’m reminded of the odd journey where I have slavishly followed my satnav only to find myself on a farm track going nowhere. The reality for many though is that they don’t do this often enough and as a result things go wrong. It’s particularly important to do so, when you attempt something that has a significant outcome, but building it in to your routine is much better.

Actually it takes training to tune in to those subtle signals and pay attention to them, but the good news is that there are some simple rules that if applied will help anyone achieve optimal mind-body performance, and then it’s just a question of ensuring that these ideas become a habit and ultimately a part of who you are.

This is what The Business Dojo is all about. If you want to find out more then get in touch, which is exactly what we will help you to do with yourself.