Our minds and bodies are linked. While thoughts and feelings can change our physical performance, the reverse can also be true. You can literally change the way you feel by changing your posture.

For this tool, we explore how changing our bodily performance can change our feelings.

The human brain is remarkable in its ability to process information gathered through our senses – sight, sound, smell, touch, and taste. In addition, it also utilizes proprioception, which is the perception of our body's positioning and movements.

This has been a really important factor in our own development as a species, both in terms of signalling to others how we are feeling through our body language and for building an understanding of our surroundings. We create a huge memory bank of circumstances where we’ve previously adopted certain postures – and this gives the brain a clue to how it should be thinking and feeling.

Since we know this, we can train ourselves to adopt different moods or behaviours simply by how we hold our bodies.

So striking a more powerful pose like standing tall and upright with your shoulders back and chin up will remind your brain of times when you have felt confident and in control and in turn positive hormones will be released around the body that could help you move into a more positive mindset.