emotions

This bronze figure shows an open chest and “heart space;” his shoulders are well back and his ribcage is anchored. He is part of a fountain in Piccadilly Circus, London, sculpted by Sir Alfred Gilbert in 1893. Referred to (erroneously) as “Eros,” the figure is in fact Anteros, Eros’ brother, who represents a more mature, less capricious love. Original image courtesy Gareth Williams under CC BY 2.0.

“Heart space” is a term used in yoga to describe the upper part of the chest where the heart is located. Valentine’s Day is an ideal time to give some special attention to this region, and explore its relation to your posture and wellbeing. 

The Gokhale Method teaches four particular techniques which enable you to open your chest without doing damage to your back:

1. Rib anchor video
   Learning to engage your rib anchor is an important first step. It will prevent your lower ribs from popping up and your back from swaying in the techniques that follow.
    
2. Up and back with the neck video
   By drawing the base of the skull gently backwards and upwards, the chest is no longer crowded into the body, but rather allowed to expand outwards and upwards.
    

3. Shoulder rolls video
   Shoulder rolls help position the arms further back along the torso, which immediately opens the chest to expansion with breathing. In the long run, this results in a larger, more open chest.

This Ecuadorian school teacher is much loved by his pupils. Note that the teacher and his pupils have open chests and posterior shoulder placement.

4. Breathing into the upper chest
   The first three techniques may already leave you feeling more open-hearted. They enable you to breathe more deeply, but this may not yet be your habit. Take a few slow, deep breaths that further open your upper chest. Then rest a few breaths before repeating. It is common to feel resistance in the chest at first, but by using these techniques to open your structure and deepen your breathing, with practice it will become easy and pleasurable. 

The functioning of the heart is clearly essential to good health and life itself, but the organ and its position in the chest are also given special importance in many religious and cultural frameworks. Even our language is full of familiar, evocative idioms such as “from the bottom of my heart,” “faint-hearted,” “heart of the matter,” “heart and soul,” “heartening,” and so on.  Let’s explore the symbolism and associations a little further, especially where they intersect with posture.

Heart symbolism in Western European cultures
Let’s begin with St. Valentine. According to most popular accounts, Saint Valentine was either a priest or a bishop in the times of the Roman Empire, who, with great bravery and compassion, ministered to persecuted Christians. He was martyred and buried north of Rome on February 14, which has been observed as St. Valentine's Day since 496 AD. Another plausible legend suggests that when Roman Emperor Claudius II outlawed marriage for young men – reasoning that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families – Valentine defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret. 

Whichever legend has truth, love, bravery, and compassion are all qualities said to reside in the heart in many Western European cultures. In Catholic Christianity, the Sacred Heart of Jesus symbolises his unconditional love, and the church and its patrons commissioned many paintings on this theme. These paintings show the heart radiating divinity; they often also show the very visceral detail of an attached aorta!  

Allegorical painting of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The central heart radiates hearts gathered up by putti (cherubs). Painting by Robert la Longe, ca. 1705. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

The heart-shaped symbol ♡ evolved around the 14th century, loosely based on the organ’s shape. Today we have numerous emojis preprogrammed in our smartphones, ready to use as shorthand for love, broken-heartedness, and associated feelings and events.

Heart symbolism in South Asian and East Asian cultures
Many Asian cultures also identify the heart space as essential to our wellbeing. Traditional Indian medicine describes energy centers, or chakras, that lie along the central axis of the body. The heart chakra (Anahata) is considered the center of love and compassion that can become blocked by grief or selfishness. An unblocked anahata is associated with loving-kindness and peacefulness. Tibetan Buddhist understandings of chakras also typically include a chakra located in the center of the chest.

This illustration from an 1899 Tibetan manuscript shows the body’s energy centers (chakras), including the twelve-petalled heart chakra. Public domain. Original image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

In Japanese language and culture, the word kokoro (distinct from the physical organ) encapsulates heart, spirit, mind, and soul, among other concepts. And in Chinese medicine, the Mu, or front correspondence point, of the heart is located at the midpoint of the nipples, and is used to heal emotional hurt.

This Buddha figure in Sri Lanka displays a beautifully relaxed, open chest and heart space. Original image courtesy Sadaham Yathra on Pexels.

Posture and the heart space
Of course, with its emphasis on our structure, it is natural to think of healthy posture and the Gokhale Method as primarily benefiting our bodies. It is certainly true that having a well-developed ribcage and open chest are important ingredients for a straight spine and well-positioned shoulders. Such good structure also benefits physiological functions such as blood circulation, breathing, digestion, and allows space for the brachial nerve plexus. However, our structure is also intimately connected to our body language, revealing and communicating how we feel.

An open heart space can often look like balanced, approachable confidence. Original image courtesy nappy on Pexels.

A mounting body of research connects open upper body posture with confidence and vitality; and crumpled upper body posture with depression, exhaustion, shame, and poor health. According to a 2017 New Zealand study, it is more challenging to be depressed with open upper body posture than with slumped upper body posture. According to another, even our performance in subjects like math improves when we adopt an open posture.

These subway commuters, with their varied seated and standing postures, demonstrate a wide range of heart space openness. Original image courtesy Laura Dewilde on Unsplash.

It strikes me that there is much cross-cultural convergence on associating this area of the body with “matters of the heart.” How does your experience and knowledge of other cultures stack up with this?

For some, Summer is a time of rest, relaxation and vacation. Unfortunately, for teens and young adults, these months are often wrought with the anxiety of life ahead: starting college, searching for a job...It is important to address the major role our bodies play in how we weather times of stress and uncertainty.

We’ve always known that there is a connection between the physical and the emotional. We know how hard it is not to get grumpy when we aren’t feeling our best. Being laid up with a cold or fighting a headache can spoil anyone’s mood.

Now there is a mounting body of scientific research suggesting this connection is much stronger than simply reacting to discomfort or pain. It appears that, to some extent, our emotional states are actually determined by the position of our bodies. In her book, Emotional Contagion, researcher Elaine Hatfield compiles evidence that our physical states are interpreted by our brains to create the emotions we feel. In her view, it is our bodies, rather than our minds, that react to situations, and this physical response tells the brain what we feel.

A beautiful girl in a Goan market whose regal affect matches her glowing smile (India)

Amy Cuddy introduced this concept to millions in her extremely popular TED talk on “power posing.” Her research shows that people like you better when you are more confident - and you can make yourself more confident by standing tall and throwing your hands high in the air. This almost instantly increases your feelings of power (testosterone) and lowers your stress levels (cortisol). In other words, just moving your body in a certain way for a few minutes causes measurable differences in your hormone levels.

This teacher in Otovalo, Ecuador does not compromise his form in order to please the children, and they are not the least bit put off by this! 

Another group of researchers found that bipolar patients felt significantly less depressed when they stood erect with their heads up, smiled and breathed deeply. In fact, this position eliminated the need for medication as long as they maintained it.

A recent Gokhale Method Foundations course graduate wrote eloquently about some surprising emotional effects of her posture training in her blog, the Moody Pinata.

Rates of depression are often lower in developing countries than in the west. One has to ponder whether we have more to learn. 

When dealing with the stresses of young adult life, posture probably isn’t the primary source of anxiety and depression. However, upright posture may be a successful coping mechanism for stress, as researchers at the University of Auckland recently demonstrated by subjecting participants to stressful tasks. Those that had been coached to sit up straight were “enthusiastic, excited, and strong,” while those who had been instructed to slump were “more fearful, hostile, nervous, quiet...and sluggish” while completing the same tasks.

Actors use posture to portray a variety of mind states. More than many, they understand the value of the body in establishing character - both mental and physical. 

This field of research deserves the attention it has received in the press lately. While human emotions are complicated and should be approached holistically, posture may be the easiest variable to control, and the fastest step toward a more balanced life—literally! After all, any of life’s hurdles are more easily cleared when our bodies are functioning at their fullest capacity.

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