What is the balance?
In the dictionary, a distinction is made between physical balance, psychological or mental balance and a chemical balance. In this article we would like to take a closer look at balance and the sense of equilibrium in the biological, i.e. physical sense. The sense of balance is made up of several individual senses. These include the organ of equilibrium (see below) - it recognises the direction from which gravity or acceleration is coming - vision or the perception of where we are in a space, the sense of touch and the recognition of depth.
A person can achieve a stable body condition with a balanced weight distribution both at rest and in movement. This usually happens through sophisticated muscular coordination. The sense of balance recognises whether a body state is actually in balance based on the perceptions of the organ of equilibrium.
What is an organ of equilibrium?
In humans, the vestibular apparatus is located in the inner ear. It is a sophisticated system that perceives and recognises movements or accelerations in all directions. It is a kind of tube system (arcades) that is filled with fluid. This tube system is in turn connected to sensory cells.
If the head now moves, the fluid in the arcades moves. This is perceived by the sensory cells and passed on to the brain, where this information is compared with the information from the sense of balance and the cerebellum and spinal cord.
If there is no disturbance, the organ of equilibrium recognises quite accurately whether a person is in balance, whether a body does not fall over despite the movement, in which direction a person is moving or what needs to be balanced in the movement so that everything is in balance or the person is in equilibrium.
Where do balance disorders come from?
First of all, you have to learn balance. You can see this quite well with small children who often fall over at the beginning when learning to walk.
Now, even if a person has a well-trained sense of balance, he or she can still have balance problems, for example in the case of a rotation worm due to turning too fast. In that case, it is difficult for the brain to match the information from the ear with that from the eye quickly enough. Something similar happens when you are driving and you get motion sickness. Although you sit still in the car, your eyes register very fast movements. The brain basically reacts to this with confusion and sends wrong signals.
The same can happen in stressful situations, for example when you are under a lot of pressure at work or in your private life. What puts a person out of mental balance can actually transfer to the body. In this case, too, the brain cannot correctly assign or process the incoming information from the balance organs from the ears. The consequences are, as with the physical imbalance, dizziness, nausea up to bad balance disorders.
In rare cases, a disease is the cause of balance disorders.
How can you train your balance?
Independently of mental exercises, there are a lot of balance exercises that can be used to train balance and the sense of equilibrium. Posture, coordination and concentration are improved along the way. The exercises are about activating and strengthening the deep muscles of the back and torso.
This is also very well possible while sitting with seating furniture that allows three-dimensional movement such as the Swopper from Aeris. Through continuous forced changes in posture, the deep muscles are also used and trained, which is good for balance.
