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How figure of 8’s could make you more intelligent

An ancient belly dance movement, the figure of 8 involves gently tracing the infinity symbol with the hips. Body weight shifts from right foot to left foot, with the hips alternately scooping forward and round: clockwise on the right, anti-clockwise on the left.

When you perform it slowly, this movement can be very calming and balancing. The figure 8 involves switching between the right brain (which controls the left side of the body) and the left brain (which controls the right).

In our everyday lives, we often work with the verbal, detail-driven, analytical left brain. The more creative, visual, intuitive right brain doesn’t get much of a look in. So shifting the body from one side to the other allows the brain hemispheres fire alternately and work in a bilateral way.

Intriguingly, recent scientific studies have shown that the ability to access information on both sides of your brain is a key indicator of intelligence. In other words, the more easily and rapidly you can access ideas from both hemispheres, the greater your intellectual capacity.

Other ways of achieving a balanced brain state include jogging, cycling, yoga and meditation. However, there does seem something especially powerful about the figure of 8 movement. Perhaps it’s to do with its closed, complete shape, crossing at a centre point, or as some traditions say, the heart.

Many traditional Sufi meditations include figure of 8s connected to the breath, which can induce a deeply calm, trance-like state. Many other traditional group meditations include circle dancing or wave patterns.

Even before the infinity sign was used as a mathmatical symbol, it represented the unity between male and female, sun and moon. In Buddhist tradition, it represents the endless (infinite) cycle of existence, or birth, death and rebirth.

When connected to the breath, the cross in the middle links the inhale and the exhale. This represents the silence at the end of the inhale and the exhale. A place of beginning and ending. A silent space, which in many traditions, is the calm centre of the divine.