The body is like a map - if you can look at it properly, you will learn a lot about a person's personality and psyche. Emotions, desires and complexes leave a mark on our way of moving and appearance. You can also heal emotional suffering through the body.

In fact, body and soul are one. Physical condition affects a person's mood and vice versa -emotions are expressed in facial expressions, body posture . For example, when a person is under stress, the diaphragm becomes tense, which causes shallow breathing. Under stress, people unconsciously tighten the anus and buttocks, and the weight of the body shifts from the metatarsus to the heels - that's why people move and stand differently. The kneecaps are pulled up and the thighs stiffened, much like a dog that moves on stiff legs when getting ready to fight. Under stress, the muscles along the spine are also tense, which also makes humans look like other mammals (hair on their backs).

Psychologists have long wondered if these reactions could take hold. Will a child who is brought up in a highly stressful environment (let's say his parents drink) keep his muscles tense under the influence of the stress he experiences? This would mean that his body would also look different than if he grew up in less stressful conditions! It turned out that genuinely traumatic experiences can lead to permanent, habitual contraction of skeletal muscles. In psychology, it is called " muscle block " - a specific part of the body becomes very stiff, hard and resistant to movement.

The psyche and the body: as evidenced by the saddle

Muscle blocks make the body less mobile and make the tissue less supplied with blood, which in turn leads to the accumulation of fat in these places. Fatty thighs and knees may indicate that in childhood a person experienced particularly intense stress (the muscles in this area were still tense). The same can be said for the fatty tissue accumulating on the back of the neck. Accumulation of fat on the shoulders, arms and neck can be associated with the human psyche and stress, but it must be remembered that their cause may also be hormonal fluctuations, e.g. related to thyroid diseases.

Another persistent consequencetightening your muscles is feeling pain - your legs may not only get fat, but also ache when stressed or tired. As a result of the same stress, other people will complain of back pain if the muscle blocks are located there.

Another consequence of the habitual muscle contraction is deformation of the skeletal system. For example, a tense back will not only get fat and hurt, a person will be hunched over. In the long run, he will also suffer from spinal deformities because of this. A typical example of a person with this posture is Robert de Niro. This can be seen very well, for example, in the movie by Martin Scorsese en titled "Casino".

The body - a mirror of emotions

From the point of view of psychology, the "task" of the muscle block is to suppress emotions. When a person flexes his muscles, feelings are not realized or they become weaker. For example, a child who refuses to cry may tighten his mouth and jaw so that his tears do not flow and his sadness is felt less. For example, it has been found that people who are not anxious (psychopaths) have more tense muscles than others. In turn, relaxing the muscles makes the emotion stronger and the person more aware of it. This is why some people start to cry or laugh during a massage "for no reason" or experience other emotions - anxiety, irritation, excitement, anger, etc. In practice, any treatment that relaxes the muscle blocks (exercise, sauna, lying in the bathtub, orgasm or relaxation) can make emotions "come to the fore."

The body shows character

The ability to recognize places of tension allows not only to stimulate he alth by relaxing them, but also to recognize a person's personality type. Anger and anger tend to tighten your back and form muscle blocks around the shoulders on your back. Fear tightens the diaphragm, leads to shallow breathing, and makes the hands or feet cold. Repressed sexual impulses reveal themselves through stiffened and immobile buttocks - both men and women move so that their hips are still. On the other hand, difficulties in experiencing love and trust in another person are usually caused by muscle blocks in the front of the chest, which make the chest sunken and the arms cower towards each other, or it is excessively tense, like an armor.

The precise relationship between muscle tension and personality was de alt with in psychology by, among others, Alexander Lowen and Stephen Johnson. They described three types of character: oral, narcissistic, and masochistic.

Oral type and constantly cold nose and feet

Collapsed cagechest, slightly protruding belly, stiff knees, head stretched slightly forward. This body posture is typical of an oral person. They also often have cold legs and hands, cold nose tips and ears, as if they are running out of energy. They also often catch upper respiratory tract infections. Oral subjects experienced neglect and "under-feeding" in early childhood (before the age of one). So they are convinced that the world does not meet the needs and you never get what you really need. That's why they drink too much, eat too much, and smoke too much. They also tend to become addicted to people.

Chest pushed forward

A pulled-in stomach, a protruding chest, as if filled with air, a raised chin (or a tilted forehead and a hunched back) is an attitude of narcissistic people. Such people often want to show that they are stronger and try to dominate the interlocutor. They have an unrealistically positive, wonderful self-image, a strong sense of superiority that breaks down easily. They are also afraid of subjection, use and dependence on other people, so they are eager to climb the hierarchy of power in order to gain an advantage over other people and not have to submit to others. These people are deeply convinced that people do not respect them, that others are hostile and want to somehow use, humiliate or laugh at them. This was probably what their early childhood experiences were like.

Limp arms

People who underwent surrender training as children, whose free will has been broken by adults, are masochistic in nature. They live with the conviction that they do not decide for themselves, they complain for years about their spouse or work, but also do not take any steps to change it. The masochist was shown love only when he was polite and obedient, and it was taken away when he rebelled. Usually, such people had overprotective mothers who manipulated the child's guilt. So they learned that anger should be hidden, so they express it passively - through whining, complaining, boring others, passive aggression and mindless resistance. The masochist has a bearish build, large, strong muscles, legs firmly on the ground and limp drooping arms. His thighs are often massive and greasy. The large inertia of the body is also characteristic, for example, a masochist shaking hands does not squeeze the hand.

Work on the body for the soul

Relieving muscle tension not only heals the body, it can also provide psychological relief. When a person is under stress, the diaphragm tightens and the breathing shallow, but the conscious deepening of the breath will cause somethe stress will pass. The body, devoid of tension, experiences its true emotions. The lack of muscle tension is very evident in animals, for example cats, whose muscles are relaxed almost all the time. A short-term relaxation of the muscles is provided by massage, sauna and strenuous physical work. Relaxing exercises, for example yoga, give very good results, which not only relieve tension, but also increase body awareness, and thus - better mood and vigor. Knowing your emotions (for example in the process of psychotherapy) also means that they translate, to a lesser extent, into muscle tension.

A man without muscle blocks moves gracefully, his movements are soft, but you can see energy in them. Such a person's body is usually warm and relaxed, although not slender. Pink skin, shiny eyes. It sounds a bit like a fairy tale description and is perhaps too sweet, but if people didn't have emotional problems, they would actually move a bit like cats - with grace, dexterity, freedom and confidence. After such a move, you can know your mental he alth.

See the gallery of 7 photosProblem

The skull shape will tell you the truth?

In the 19th century, phrenology was popular - the "science" saying that a person's character is imprinted in the shape of his skull. For example, a folded poll was supposed to inform about intelligence, and the marked browbones - about the existence of strong drives, etc. Thanks to today's research we know that the shape and size of the skull do not indicate its content in any way, but in fact some character traits leave a mark on the body structure. Already Hippocrates was of the opinion that there are connections between the body and the personality. He is the author of the terms: choleric, phlegmatic, sanguine, melancholic. Another great physician of antiquity - Galen - believed that the strength of a person's emotions depends on the balance of various body fluids (e.g. blood, bile, phlegm, etc.). Even in the nineteenth century, diuretics, drinking urine or "bleeding" were used to bring relief from diseases of the soul, because emotional disturbances allegedly had their source in "fluid imbalance". Today we talk about the influence of hormones, not body fluids, on emotions.

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Psychology