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I've always wondered what the limits of mind over matter were. Like if I practiced every day, Could I learn to move my toes individually or with more dexterity?

I've always wondered what the limits of mind over matter were. Like if I practiced every day, Could I learn to move my toes individually or with more dexterity? Could I focus on that random muscle that twitches in my leg and get it to stop, or move it myself?

chromaton 5y ago
You can definitely improve foot dexterity. People who have lost their hands get much better through practice.
dec0dedab0de 5y ago
When someone asks me to teach them how to play drums, I spin my fingers in opposite directions, and tell them that its their first lesson. Someone told me it was impossible in 7th grade, and I spent the next 3 days fixated on it until I could do it. I match it with drums because every step in drums is about having your body to do things your brain doesn't want it to, especially in the beginning. I like to think of things like yoga, meditation, and prayer as a messy abstraction layer for controlling the parts of your body you normally can not. Created over millenniums of black-box reverse engineering by people of different levels of skill and honesty who are not sharing their results. One of the things guided meditation, and hypnotists will do is have you purposely relax each muscle group one at a time. Though for a specific twitch, that really depends on what is causing it. I wish there was more skeptical, but open minded research into ancient practices. It seems it's all either people who blindly believe in their flavor of magic, or people who go in assuming it's nonsense and miss the step between the action and the result. To put it more succinctly, mind over matter is enough of an issue that we have double blind studies to account for the placebo effect.
- SamBam 5y ago
  > I spin my fingers in opposite directions Trying to work out why this would be difficult, since it doesn't seem to be, so my first assumption ought to be that I'm doing this wrong. If I point in front of me I can twirl my pointers in a circle such that they go in opposite directions. This seems to be the most intuitive and trivial, because both are actually doing the same movement (inward and outward at the same time). I can also twirl them so they spin in the same direction, this seems only slightly more difficult, but if I just think of them as tracing the wheels of car it's trivial. Then again, I've never had any trouble patting my head and rubbing my stomach either.
  - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
    Imagine there is a wheel in-front of your chest, in the same orientation the front wheel of a bike would be if you were riding it, but smaller and up higher. Then point your index fingers toward each other so that they are both tracing the same wheel. They can each go forward or backward. Most people struggle with making them go opposite directions. To the point that they'll do it once or a half of a time, and then switch directions with one hand and not even realize it. It's fun to teach kids. You can do it with your whole hand, or arm, or just the fingers, with different size circles, each takes a bit of practice once you get over the initial hurdle.
    - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
      Wow this is the most bizarre thing... If I imagine the wheel over my head (as if the wheel axle was vertical), or in front of me but the axle going forwards (wheel is moving left/right), I can do the opposite circles just fine. But if I imagine the axle going left/right as you describe, it takes extra cognitive effort. If I imagine drawing circles, I can't do it. Instead, I have to think of each axis of movement separately. In my mind, I'm not thinking "Draw circles in the air", but rather, "Move fingers forward and back, while moving arms up and down". The end result is the same, but what's happening in my mind to get there is totally different.
      - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
        This was my first time trying to explain it in text without just resorting to making a video. SamBam's reply, and yours pointed out how much different it is in the different orientations. No clue why though. I normally just ask a group of kids "hey can you do this?" then after I explain that it's different directions, watch them laugh as they try to do it.
    - pjerem 5y ago
      Thank you my wife asked if I had a problem :D Ok … 2 days, 23 hours and 57 min of training yet.
- intrepidhero 5y ago
  When learning to juggle I used a similar exercise: draw a square in the air with one hand, a triangle with the other. Another was to touch my thumb to my fingers in different patterns with each hand. Different people have wildly varying levels of difficulty with these exercises. If you find it too hard/easy just keep modifying until you find some version that is doable but hard and practice that.
astrobe_ 5y ago
To nitpick, it is not as grand as mind-over-matter, but rather conscious control of things that are normally under the control of the sympathetic or parasympathetic system. IIRC the sympathetic system is more likely to be consciously influenced. Both are vital subsystems that control things like heart rate, blood pressure, etc. that you'd rather not play too much with (although it is said that you can with deep meditation). Your question are about different things than that, and the first one is about a different thing than the second one. Learning to move a particular muscle you don't normally use consciously (like moving your ears or your nostrils) is indeed a matter of practice. Sometimes all it takes is getting conscious that there is a muscle there, and then you improve your feedback loop between sending a command and feeling it move. But a muscle that uncontrollably twitches is a whole different process. For instance some muscle cramps are related to dehydration or lack of certain minerals. So the cause can be more chemical than nervous system (ie coming from the nervous system). PS: I have no particular expertise in this area.

chromaton 5y ago

You can definitely improve foot dexterity. People who have lost their hands get much better through practice.

dec0dedab0de 5y ago

When someone asks me to teach them how to play drums, I spin my fingers in opposite directions, and tell them that its their first lesson. Someone told me it was impossible in 7th grade, and I spent the next 3 days fixated on it until I could do it. I match it with drums because every step in drums is about having your body to do things your brain doesn't want it to, especially in the beginning. I like to think of things like yoga, meditation, and prayer as a messy abstraction layer for controlling the parts of your body you normally can not. Created over millenniums of black-box reverse engineering by people of different levels of skill and honesty who are not sharing their results. One of the things guided meditation, and hypnotists will do is have you purposely relax each muscle group one at a time. Though for a specific twitch, that really depends on what is causing it. I wish there was more skeptical, but open minded research into ancient practices. It seems it's all either people who blindly believe in their flavor of magic, or people who go in assuming it's nonsense and miss the step between the action and the result. To put it more succinctly, mind over matter is enough of an issue that we have double blind studies to account for the placebo effect.

SamBam 5y ago
> I spin my fingers in opposite directions Trying to work out why this would be difficult, since it doesn't seem to be, so my first assumption ought to be that I'm doing this wrong. If I point in front of me I can twirl my pointers in a circle such that they go in opposite directions. This seems to be the most intuitive and trivial, because both are actually doing the same movement (inward and outward at the same time). I can also twirl them so they spin in the same direction, this seems only slightly more difficult, but if I just think of them as tracing the wheels of car it's trivial. Then again, I've never had any trouble patting my head and rubbing my stomach either.
- dec0dedab0de 5y ago
  Imagine there is a wheel in-front of your chest, in the same orientation the front wheel of a bike would be if you were riding it, but smaller and up higher. Then point your index fingers toward each other so that they are both tracing the same wheel. They can each go forward or backward. Most people struggle with making them go opposite directions. To the point that they'll do it once or a half of a time, and then switch directions with one hand and not even realize it. It's fun to teach kids. You can do it with your whole hand, or arm, or just the fingers, with different size circles, each takes a bit of practice once you get over the initial hurdle.
  - Sohcahtoa82 5y ago
    Wow this is the most bizarre thing... If I imagine the wheel over my head (as if the wheel axle was vertical), or in front of me but the axle going forwards (wheel is moving left/right), I can do the opposite circles just fine. But if I imagine the axle going left/right as you describe, it takes extra cognitive effort. If I imagine drawing circles, I can't do it. Instead, I have to think of each axis of movement separately. In my mind, I'm not thinking "Draw circles in the air", but rather, "Move fingers forward and back, while moving arms up and down". The end result is the same, but what's happening in my mind to get there is totally different.
    - dec0dedab0de 5y ago
      This was my first time trying to explain it in text without just resorting to making a video. SamBam's reply, and yours pointed out how much different it is in the different orientations. No clue why though. I normally just ask a group of kids "hey can you do this?" then after I explain that it's different directions, watch them laugh as they try to do it.
  - pjerem 5y ago
    Thank you my wife asked if I had a problem :D Ok … 2 days, 23 hours and 57 min of training yet.
intrepidhero 5y ago
When learning to juggle I used a similar exercise: draw a square in the air with one hand, a triangle with the other. Another was to touch my thumb to my fingers in different patterns with each hand. Different people have wildly varying levels of difficulty with these exercises. If you find it too hard/easy just keep modifying until you find some version that is doable but hard and practice that.

astrobe_ 5y ago

To nitpick, it is not as grand as mind-over-matter, but rather conscious control of things that are normally under the control of the sympathetic or parasympathetic system. IIRC the sympathetic system is more likely to be consciously influenced. Both are vital subsystems that control things like heart rate, blood pressure, etc. that you'd rather not play too much with (although it is said that you can with deep meditation). Your question are about different things than that, and the first one is about a different thing than the second one. Learning to move a particular muscle you don't normally use consciously (like moving your ears or your nostrils) is indeed a matter of practice. Sometimes all it takes is getting conscious that there is a muscle there, and then you improve your feedback loop between sending a command and feeling it move. But a muscle that uncontrollably twitches is a whole different process. For instance some muscle cramps are related to dehydration or lack of certain minerals. So the cause can be more chemical than nervous system (ie coming from the nervous system). PS: I have no particular expertise in this area.