Among my favorite psychological studies recently is one that shows that imagining exercise is almost as good as actually doing it. For an intellectual like me, that’s pure mental Olympic gold. I can think about exercising instead of doing it and get almost the same effect!

The research shows how right Oscar Wilde was when he said, “Whenever I feel like exercising, I lie down until the feeling passes.” Always assuming, of course, that Mr. Wilde kept thinking about what he wasn’t doing as he rested.

The study had healthy people immobilize their hands and wrists in casts for four weeks (where do they find these people?). Half the group did nothing, and the other half imagined themselves contracting their muscles for 11 minutes five times a week.

I could manage that. That’s less than an hour a week, total.

The results? The group that did the mental exercise reduced their muscle loss by half compared to the control group. Now, most importantly, that’s very good news for people forced to be immobile for any length of time who are worried about muscle loss.

But the study also points to another way in which our minds and bodies are connected, something this blog has been exploring for a long time. If imagining working your muscles has something of the same effect as actually doing it, then the mental movies created by Olympic athletes to envision and reinforce success turn out to be both mentally and physically important. Not only will the mind be reinforcing what the body has to do, but the mental activity will also be strengthening the appropriate muscles.

And that realization has important insights for public speakers, people who must perform under the influence of adrenaline, and indeed peak performers of any kind. I would go so far as to suggest that not undertaking to create mental movies of your high-stakes successful performance means that your actual moment of truth will be less successful. You’re undercutting yourself if you don’t do the mental work – just like the control group of cast-bound subject who left their muscles inert and suffered muscle loss as a result.

On the other hand, those who do take the role of the mind – and the unconscious mind – seriously in peak performance, and who create mental movies showing themselves undertaking the task in question perfectly and adroitly – will perform better, more precisely, and with fewer errors.

Modern neuroscience is only beginning to tease out the relationship between mind and body, and we don’t fully understand how the connection works – but anyone concerned with peak performance would be foolish to ignore the mounting evidence that the connection is a powerful one.

I first experienced the connection as a young actor trying to make his way from regional theatre to the big time of Broadway shows and (independent) movies. I was cast in the lead in a (local) revival of Noel Coward’s Blithe Spirit. My co-star had an annoying habit of adding my name at the beginning and ending every one of her lines. It was “Charles” this and “Charles” that. Sounds like a small thing, until you realize that actors rely on cues from the other actors to get their next lines. All of her lines were starting to sound the same, given that they all began and ended with the same word, Charles.

I started to develop an horrific mental block, becoming deathly afraid that I would forget crucial lines in the endless repetition of my name. And what I found was that, as soon as I started to believe that it would happen, it did. In the weeks of rehearsal leading up to opening night, I got worse and worse, forgetting bigger and bigger chunks of my dialogue. My big break was looking likely to become my last bow.

The director drew me aside after one particularly painful rehearsal and asked me if I was a complete and utter idiot. How could repetition be making me worse and worse? When I confessed my fears to him, fortunately for me, he was familiar with the idea of mental blocks and imagery. He set me to imagining success, nailing my lines one after another despite the endless repetition of my name, Charles, Charles, Charles.

By opening night, I was confident, well-rehearsed, and able to pull my lines out of the welter of identical cues. My memory muscles were up to the challenge, thanks to the mental exercise. Ignore the exercise of your mind at your peril.