How to Change Your Mind From the Outside In |
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Mindfulness changes brain rhythms toward those associated with calm.
Brain rhythms are very hard to change directly by thoughts.
Movement and breathing can entrain brain rhythms into attractor states.
Mindful movement and breath work can help produce and sustain a calm state of mind form the outside in.
Maybe we should all just calm down, OK? And having someone tell us to calm down will surely enable us to realize, hey, we should probably calm down. And we'll just think about being calm, and bingo bango calmness will wash over us. Maybe. For some people, that is for sure possible. But not for most of us. For most of us, though, trying to think ourselves into being anything except more frustrated is very difficult, especially when we start trying to change how we react to things. That is, when we try to alter our thoughts on the inside so that our outside behaviors change. But what if we go the other direction? What about going outside in?
It's hard to get the thing that's doing the thinking to change its thoughts
Neurobiological hallmarks of a calm mind include alpha (8–12 Hz) and theta (4–8 Hz) brain rhythms. These contrast with high arousal beta (12–30 Hz) and gamma (>30 Hz) waves. The point here, though, isn't about diving into details around EEG measures of brain activity. It's instead to notice that the brain rhythms associated with calm are very much lower than those associated with arousal.
Brain rhythms can be entrained by what we think and, especially relevant here, by what we do. That is, certain behaviors can induce changes in brain states that may start with specific cues but which have global effects. This is like creating an "attractor state" where a dominant rhythm is like a magnet pulling and entraining the activity of other brain regions into a different activation state, rhythm, and level. We tend to be much better at ramping things up to high arousal than we are at bringing things down, so here I mainly mean pulling and entraining brain activity from higher frequencies to lower ones.
Steer your mind indirectly
This is where outside in comes to play. Some may be able to change their brain rhythms, and static meditation is a way to learn how to do that, but most of us have a very difficult time with this at first. So why not give your brain a helping hand by changing how you move and how you breathe? Breathing more deeply at a lower frequency has a calming effect on the mind. So does moving slowly.
Try to move and breathe slowly while trying to ramp yourself up. Or, conversely, try to remain calm and breathe slowly while you rip around your house in a frenzy. All breath and movement has an entraining sensory effect on the entire nervous system. If we breathe slowly and controlled and move slowly, everything slows down. The reverse is also true. I think we know this intuitively, but it's easy to forget that you already know how to breathe. I think part of this is because, just like our invisible and often racing thoughts, we can't usually see our breaths either.
But you can see your movements. And you can control the speed of those.
Try to turn your brain inside out so you can go outside in
I am a huge supporter of meditation and mindfulness. But I prefer the concept of mindful movement. Since I was in my early teens, I've always been drawn to moving meditation and the Zen of martial arts. In my own daily practice of Japanese, Okinawan, and Chinese martial arts, I seek a centred state of mind and use my movements as a neurohack to entrain my thoughts. I also do more "traditional" meditation, but I'm honestly not very good at it. I have gotten a lot better, though, moving more slowly and mindfully, at focusing on my breath coordinated with my movements to alter my state of mind.
The take-home here is to use something that you can see and can regulate directly to alter things you cannot see or control directly. Use your physical body and the sensations associated with movement to entrain your brain activity and thoughts and mind that arise from those. I strongly encourage folks to give it a try. You really can hack your brain by moving from the outside in and alter your mind inside out.
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(c) E. Paul Zehr (2026)