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THE BODY'S INFLUENCE ON THE MIND


One of the paradoxes of trying to understand our minds is that, at particular moments, we need to acknowledge that what passes through them — the ideas we entertain and the moods we’re in — may have very little to do with the workings of these minds themselves. It may — for example — suddenly seem as though we have a new and very specific take on the world: we are sure that we should leave our job, say goodbye to our partner and never see our ungrateful children again. Or we may feel that we have come to a resolute new political certainty: that society is irredeemably corrupt and human nature inherently selfish. And yet, with hindsight, we may realise that these ideas were not necessarily logical or true, they were just emanations of a hard-to-notice detail: that we had missed out on four hours of sleep the night before or hadn’t drunk anything since early morning. Much that we think about — though it seems to be rationally founded — stems in essence from the ups and downs of the complicated bodily envelope we’re entwined with. Our thoughts can predominantly be the result of what we had for lunch, what time we went to bed, when we last sat on the toilet and how our blood sugar level is doing. This can sound hugely insulting. Surely we are wiser and cleverer than to be knocked off course by a sugary drink or a poor night. But we would be even wiser to follow, in this regard, the instincts of all good parents of young children. When they see their toddler swiftly turning furious, tetchy and jealous, they know that they are not witnessing an inexplicable character transformation in their formerly pleasant charges. They look at their watch, make their excuses and hurry upstairs to put the young one to bed for an hour. The mind will return to its usual state soon enough; it just cannot hope to do so while supported by a flagging body that’s done three hours of energetic cartwheels or ball games with the neighbour’s cocker spaniel. We should understand ourselves in similar terms. When we are filled with tragic thoughts, we should remember that there are always dark perspectives we might adopt. When we do so therefore, it isn’t necessarily because our minds have uncovered new and solid reasons to despair, it’s just that we lack the energy to bat away our fears and stay on the side of life and hope. We say ‘I’m having bad thoughts and I’m exhausted’; we should learn to say ‘I’m having bad thoughts because I’m exhausted.’ We shouldn’t protest that there are ways of thinking that are primarily the outcome of having eaten too many chocolates and of not having been out of the house all day — and others that are the outcome of a brisk swim and a handful of dried cranberries.  To know ourselves never means knowing just our minds; it means tracking the decisive ways in which these minds are daily manipulated by our bodies and should, before we listen to them any further, be put down for a nap or sent on a long walk around the park.

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