Anatomy of sadness: this is how your body expresses it

Life is a system of forms in movement whose destiny is sculpted in the anatomy and in the armor.

You are walking through your favorite mall. Turning down the corridor, he sees a single person, a complete stranger, who catches his attention. He is a man in his forties, dark, of medium height, slightly disheveled. His clothes without ironing, his greasy, disheveled hair.

She is in front of the cookie rack, legs slightly bent, back rounded, neck and whole body slightly flexed forward, head between shoulders, and when she moves, she moves slowly, as if she doesn’t. I would have slept well. Passing him, he can see her dark circles, the outer part of her eyes drooping like the corners of her lips, and some deep wrinkles on her forehead.

She doesn’t know this man, she hasn’t exchanged a word with him, but she can see in him the spitting image of sadness. Seeing that man knows what it is to feel sad.

Sadness: an emotion that is reflected in our body

The body acts as a scroll where images and metaphors are inscribed. This modeling begins from the very conception, during pregnancy and especially during the critical moment of childbirth, and in everything that is experienced from birth.

Human existence is recorded in the body and feeling sad is no exception. The body map collects the configuration of our genetics, experiences, fears and aspirations. Our external and internal worlds, and therefore emotions such as sadness, are recreated on our central nervous system to go from there to model the viscera and external support structures, muscles, bones, cartilage and tendons.

The body wall reflects the state of the internal cavities, the organs of digestion, the heart and respiration, all of them anchors of the life experience of the person.

Anatomy of sadness: this is how we reveal that we are sad

This modeling work, that way in which emotions are expressed through the body, shows its rules and laws. Fear and anger make the body more rigid, while love and joy open and soften it. And that occurs as a fractal that reflects from the shape of the bones to the liver structure or the water that irrigates the spaces of the body, capable of ionizing and modulating its structure through the acid geometry of stress or the alkaline geometry of the state of calm.

Neurotransmitters and hormones are liquid anatomy that, watering this liquid sea, makes us sentient structures.

The same happens with sadness, which is also reflected in the body. We face the world in a vertical position, but submission and sadness lead to closure; and the disorganization of the structure, to decline and defeat. The fatigue and inability to fight and face life that accompany sadness is drawn in cavities and viscera.

There are still other signs when sadness invades us. The head falls, the chest pressure deflates, the diaphragm descends, the chest collapses and all the cavities collapse. Hope disappears, interior and exterior collapse occurs, and even morality is lost (and demoralization arrives).

The legs are deformed, the head and spine crumble, tongue fallsthe abdominal organs collapse.

There is no reason to keep trying and despair, apathy, defeat and fear appear.

When we feel sad, the muscular tone is without resistance, weak and spongy, announcing atrophy and energy leakage.

after the collapse, the abdominal content drops due to lack of muscle tone, the stomach and intestines sagging drag the diaphragm, and the intercostal muscles collapse. The spine loses its tone, and organs such as the uterus or the bladder prolapse. A curvature appears in the neck, the thorax sinks; the brain, pharynx and heart descend.

When you go from abandonment to crying, sobs and impotence induce abdominal protrusion, the diaphragmatic dome flattens and the intercostal muscles press and drag the structure pulling downwards. A forward flexion occurs, elasticity disappears and a greater feeling of helplessness appears.

Like all other emotions, the sadness is influenced by the amplitude of breathing. Oxygenation decreases, sensations on the throat and mouth are inhibited, motility of the esophagus, bronchi and lungs decreases, the feeling of defeat, weakness, insignificance and lack of self-esteem dominates.

Feeling sad does not mean being sick

Can we regulate emotions? When is sadness normal and when pathological? That vague and deep sadness, which can be born of physical or moral causes, drags down the reluctance to live, which aborts the body’s ability to adapt.

The aura of nostalgia and isolation is taken advantage of by this super-medicalized society to nullify the person’s ability to overcome their own reluctance.

Does being sad mean being sick? There are things that explain why the person is discouraged, such as when there is the loss of a loved one, job loss, difficulty in personal relationships or the diagnosis of a serious illness of one’s own or a loved one.

In our time We are witnessing the massive pathologization of normal sadness. Unhappiness is considered a mental disorder and the voracity of the pharmaceutical industry finds a gold mine medicalizing a society that does not support the weight of its own freedom.

What can I do if I feel sad

Maybe this is where we should start. Doing an exercise in acceptance of life, its joys and sorrows. The increase in freedom that the human being and Western society have gained implies living many choices in solitude.

You have to have courage to be able to choose. And the world of pleasure and complacency looks the other way before the irrefutable fact that life also includes occasions of sadness, the emotion that most hinders the fulfillment and flourishing of human life.

Sadness encloses the I in itself and exempts it from acting. Giving up on overcoming it and putting yourself in the hands of medication and a psychiatrist is giving up autonomy, freedom and the ability to overcome.

Of course there are pathological depressions, authentic black holes out of reach of the person, but that does not apply to most sadness.

Starting the process of overcoming sadness means look at life from the conscience and the body as a toolready to respond to the revised changes in breathing, posture and emotions, manageable through practical guidelines and acceptance of the complexity of life and our universe.

After all, that’s life: forms in movement whose destiny is sculpted in our body.