One of my favorite things is taking an early morning walk. I love the quiet stillness, and the way nature sings as the sun rises. I love how the clean, fresh morning air breathes a sense of life into my every movement. And I am inspired to play with my own movement experience.

There is no life without movement. From the blood that pulses through our veins to the actions required to gather and consume food, your mind and body are intimately connected. And while your brain is the master control system for your body’s movement, the way you move can also affect how you think and feel.

Some of the functions for movement are obvious — like hunting and gathering. Other critical aspects of movement may be less obvious — like the way movement acts as an extension of your cardiovascular system or primary pump for your lymphatic system. And then, there are all the other ways movement impacts you emotionally, mentally, and socially.

There’s a lot I could say about movement. But for today, we'll focus on the importance of moving more in everyday life.

In this video, Kelly McGonigal does a beautiful job of covering some of the research looking at how our beliefs about stress change our physiological reactions to stress and how the stress response has a built-in social aspect. She discusses three studies that shed new light on the stress response, and how our beliefs and relationships to stress may improve our health.

A big part of aging gracefully is being willing to change how you think. One of the easiest facets of shifting our thoughts is to shift how our thinking about movement and to become a thinking body. Remember, how you treat your body is inseparable from how you cope with other aspects of life.

We have all been told that aging brings with it aches, pains, and loss of function. Many of us have even accepted the fact that joint pain is inevitable and that we will someday have to give up doing those things that bring us the most joy.

But what if there’s another way?