Researchers at the Max Planck Institute have discovered that when you are involved in movements in an upward direction you are more likely to have positive emotions and thoughts; and conversely, working in a downward direction tends to elicit more negative emotions and thoughts – metaphoric movements that match our language, feeling “up” or feeling “down.”
“These [study] data suggest that spatial metaphors for emotion aren’t just in language,” researcher Daniel Casasanto says, “linguistic metaphors correspond to mental metaphors, and activating the mental metaphor ‘good is up’ can cause us to think happier thoughts.”
I’m reminded of the Yogic Sun Salutation exercise in which one stretches one’s arms upward toward the sun as far as he/she can reach in a gesture of acknowledgement of the sun. The movement is also used to elevate mood and elicit more positive emotions during times of depression.
Perhaps one way to beat depression is to simply salute the heavens by reaching up as far as you can often during the day – while simultaneously elevating the thoughts and emotions. It’s certainly worth a trial run, I figure.
Study Source: Daniel Casasanto, Ton Dijkstra, Max-Planck-Gesellschaft
