it is highly possible that you will begin to shape and mold your brain and
body into a new expression ... so that they physically change before the
desired potential reality is made manifest.
Changing Your Body: Why Lift a Finger?
We may believe that we can change our brains by thinking, but what
effects, if any, will this have on the body? Through the simple process of
mentally rehearsing an activity, we can derive great benefits without lifting
a finger. Here’s an example of how that literally happened.
As described in an article published in the 1992 Journal of
Neurophysiology,^8 subjects were divided into three groups:
The first group was asked to exercise by contracting and
relaxing one finger on their left hand, for five one-hour
training sessions per week for four weeks.
A second group mentally rehearsed the same exercises, on
the same timetable, without physically activating any
muscles in the finger.
People in a control group exercised neither their fingers nor
their minds.At the end of the study, the scientists compared the findings. The first set
of participants had their finger strength tested against the control group. A
no-brainer, right? The group who did the actual exercises exhibited 30
percent greater finger strength than those in the control group. We all know
that if we repeatedly put a load on a muscle, we will increase the strength of
that muscle. What we probably wouldn’t anticipate is that the group who
mentally rehearsed the exercises demonstrated a 22 percent increase in
muscle strength! The mind, then, produced a quantifiable physical effect on
the body. In other words, the body changed without having an actual
physical experience.
Just as researchers have worked with test subjects who mentally
rehearsed finger exercises and others who imagined playing piano scales,
experiments have compared practical experience versus mental rehearsal