Muscle Memory – Does it exist?

The other day when I was training in the pool, I had a funny and revealing incident.  I realized I had some pretty basic “muscle-memory” getting activated while I swam.  Here is what happened:

I recently lost some weight and my rings are fitting my fingers looser.  On this day, I took the looser of the two rings on my left hand off so it wouldn’t move while I swam.  That had been happening and I found it a nuisance.  I realized that after every turn and push off the side of the pool, while I was coasting from the push, I would reach down and push that ring back to the base of my finger – at every turn.  I had done it enough, that even when the ring was off, I was still doing it.  I had to actually retrain myself to stop doing it.

Some would call that muscle-memory.  And it is – sort of…  Actually most brain researchers agree that memory resides in the brain – not in muscles.  There is interplay between neurons and muscle cells that caused me to push on a ring that wasn’t present anymore.  But it wasn’t muscle memory.  It was brain memory.

What does this have to do with Emotional Intelligence – since that is the reason for this blog?  It demonstrates the affect that emotional habits can have on us.  Just like I did with my absent ring, we have similar types of reactions based on emotional training we have given ourselves- intentional or on accident.  I didn’t know I was training myself to push  on my ring after each and every lap – but I was.  We do the same with emotion, since they reside in the part of the brain that creates and maintains memories. 

I also was successful in quickly retraining my brain to stop pushing on the ring.  It only took a few turns to override it.  Fortunately, the same can be done with our bad, or less-than-healthy emotional habits.  Unfortunately, since emotional habits are usually deeply engrained, it can take longer than a few laps in a pool to retrain your brain.

For now, here are a few quick questions to ask yourself about your emotional habits:

1. What emotional habits do you have that you don’t like?  Those were likely formed on accident.  Knowing what they are helps with the next question. 
2. What emotional habits would you like to retrain?  You can form these on purpose.  You can begin on any day or any moment!
3. What emotional habits would you like to introduce to your brain?  Start doing some “laps” with a new way of thinking and feeling.

Emotional habit-making is an important aspect of healthy Emotional Intelligence.  I cover this at length is my soon to be released book.  Watch for its release soon!