We in the West are used to thinking of the mind and the body as separate. But a burgeoning field called “embodied cognition” is demonstrating that thinking is actually a full-body experience.

The mind is generally associated with feelings, sentience, and consciousness of self, while the brain is a dissectible biological tissue. But learning about the brain, which is part of a larger system called the nervous system, can teach us about the mind and thus about our nature.

From a somatic point of view living any distance from our bodies is dodgy and the consequences harmful, even grave. Now we can scientifically ground, through technological advances in the emerging field of neuroscience, that distancing ourselves from our body places not only our physical health at risk, but our emotional health as well.