Most of us think of intelligence as something that happens entirely in the brain. But there’s another kind of intelligence that lives in your body. It’s what allows you to ride a bicycle years after your last ride, catch a ball without calculating its path, type on a keyboard without looking, or instinctively keep your balance on uneven ground.
Scientists call this physical intelligence, and it’s far more important to your everyday life than you may realize. According to my guest Scott Grafton, your body and brain are constantly working together in ways you’re barely aware of. In fact, many of the skills you rely on every day don’t come from conscious thought at all—they come from this remarkable partnership between mind and body.
Modern life, however, may be working against us. As technology makes more of our daily tasks easier and more automated, we may be losing opportunities to develop and maintain the very abilities that help us navigate the physical world. That has consequences that go well beyond athletic performance.
Scott Grafton is a professor of neuroscience at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of the book Physical Intelligence: The Science of How the Body and the Mind Guide Each Other Through Life (https://amzn.to/3aiI4dm). Listen as he explains how physical intelligence shapes the way we learn, move, solve problems, and interact with the world—and why challenging your body may be one of the best things you can do for your brain.
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RESOURCES FOR THIS EPISODE:
Amazon link for Scott Grafton’s book, Physical Intelligence: https://amzn.to/4w68asz
