Literature and philosophy in itself bear a lot of power to change. Likewise does exercising. Interestingly, I found a very immersive way of incorporating one way with the other to really get a full bodily appreciation of read passages from an audio book. The reason this is so meaningful is that the insights and memories of such immersion is very acute, tangible and sustaining.

What happened? As I have written earlier, the emotional response to horror literature and, to a certain extent, other genres, is a very helpful tool to actually “feel” myself especially in phases of stress and emotionally extreme of nil amplitudes (that is, in either spikes or dips of moods on the one hand, or next to no emotional response when freezing in phases of oblivious anxiety or depression phases).

The interesting thing about this actual immersion is that I felt an uprise in bodily stress while running through the effects of higher heart rate, breathing frequency and muscle tension, when exposed to the descriptions of protagonists under bodily stress, if it is well narrated, like it is in the Dan Simmons novels. Be it fighting scenes, overcoming an obstacle, running from enemies or the sheer fighting for their lives.

I realized that I felt more bodily stress when these passages were narrated. And they were very intense, up to the point where I had to run slower, skip a track or hold the audio book in order to come back to breath and lower my heart rate.

I do not yet know what I consequently draw from this experience, but it certainly is interesting to reflect on this. Of course I knew that auto suggestion leads to bodily response, but I didn’t have such a clear bodily response under bodily stress as of yet.

All I can say at this moment is that it reflects my ability to consciously perceive and analyze my mood and my body reaction and that is a very powerful tool to accept and work out how to deal with unwanted emotions instead of numbing them down with “hollow dopamine” by substance abuse or other addictive behavior.

Until next time, keep up the faith in yourself and take one step at a time.