The Extended Mind: The Power of Thinking Outside the Brain

by Annie Murphy Paul

ONE FINAL CATEGORY of thought-enhancing movements encompasses those that enact an analogy, whether explicit or implicit. The language we use is full of metaphors that borrow from our experience as embodied creatures; metaphorical movements reverse-engineer this process, putting the body through the motions as a way of prodding the mind into the state the metaphor describes. “Moving the body can alter the mind by unconsciously putting ideas in our head before we are able to consciously contemplate them on our own,” as Sian Beilock has written. “Getting a person to move lowers his threshold for experiencing thoughts that share something in common with the movement.”