In one of my favorite books read in the past 5 years with Move, Caroline Williams touches on a number of recent findings in regards to how physical movement can have profound impacts on all of us, often unheard of prior.

She starts by touching on how IQs in the past few decades, but starting in the early 2000s, the pattern changed, and IQs started to fall. She attributes the change due to new sedentary lifestyles we have picked up since screen time has increased. In a very poignant illustration, Caroline mentions that, “Exercising in short bursts is a bit like taking vitamin supplements to try and offset an unhealthy diet.” It certainly appears that the most effective movement patterns are both, shorts bursts of high intensity coupled with more general movement throughout the day. However, we have become a society where people increase gym time, but decrease movement throughout the rest of the day, a massive mistake!

Caroline goes on to explain in different experiments that walking, essentially putting one foot in front of another repeatedly, is akin to moving forward in life, focusing on the future and putting the past behind you. She emphatically stated that walking enhanced creativity, often as much as 60% in some settings.

The part of her book that resonated the most with me was undoubtedly about the power of dance. Not just how dancing can express emotions in a new way without judgment, Caroline went a step further by mentioning, “Moving in new ways helps us to practice new methods of responding to situations that may have come up in the past, or are concerned will happen in the future.” In other words, dancing can help us express ourselves to overcome trauma from the past! To combine with dancing, having positive and upright postures, and gentle stretching go a very long way in reducing inflammation and help incorporate movement in your life to overcome hurdles and previous areas of pain!