Listening to My Body’s Needs
Our bodies are an elite machine. They follow a fine balance to keep us at our most optimal. The catch to that is that we also have a part to play, or this elite machine cannot perform at its most optimal. The food we choose, the movements we do, and the stress in our lives are some of the key aspects that are in our control that affect our bodies and can throw the delicate balance out of whack.
In our fast-paced world, our bodies aren’t even a thought anymore. We expect to be able to go to work and do what we need to do, without even thinking about how we are treating our bodies or what that effect will have on everything else.
The human body needs the correct fuel and enough movement to work optimally. Along with that, it needs quality sleep and, ideally, lower overall stress levels. When we ignore our body’s cues for what it needs, the only person we are hurting is ourselves.
Your body tells you that you are hungry because it needs fuel. Your body hurts from sitting too long because it needs movement to ensure that everything can flow through the best way possible. Your body tells you when you have eaten enough so that you don’t overeat and maintain optimal levels. Your body tells you when you are tired so that you can sleep and allow it to repair itself.
Most of us, me included, have learned to ignore these cues in favor of a social expectations approach. Instead of listening to our body when its hungry, and eating then, we eat at specific times of the day. Instead of listening to satiety cues, we eat when we are not hungry because that’s what everyone else does so that’s what’s expected of us.
Instead of skipping dinner because we had a huge late lunch and we aren’t hungry, we force ourselves to eat more to please others, and so they don’t worry about us. It’s more important to people that we eat dinner than to honor our bodies’ cues for hunger and satiety.
The same goes for movement. A huge number of jobs are spent sitting and during specific arbitrary hours and forgotten in that is our need to move. Jobs today really should include time built in each day to spend on movement. I think it would up productivity and concentration, but companies are still too concerned with the illusion of busyness to actually consider that what might be best for the company is to allow people more time to listen to their bodies.
Sleep is just as important to health and being healthy cannot happen if you are just trading off healthy habits, only able to do one or two at a time. People have obligations, such as kids or taking care of sick family members, that make it so that it’s not always possible to add movement, or enough movement, into your day nor is it possible to cook a healthy gourmet meal each night.
Ultimately, it’s up to us to find a balance for ourselves that includes listening to our bodies and giving it what it needs with the current world, and associated obligations, that we live in.
You can learn about how different foods affect your energy level and mood. Notice what different exercises do to your body and how it responds. When do you feel refreshed, energized, happy? When do you feel lethargic, and like you wasted your time? Learn to listen to when your body is tired and take a rest.
This will take time to learn, especially if you haven’t been listening to your body for a long time. I know that’s the case with me. I have ignored my hunger and satiety cues for so long that I’m not even sure that I can recognize them properly anymore. I’m working on it, but it can be a frustrating and lonely task. I know it will be worth it though, as I learn what makes me happy and what makes my body happy and marry the two.
These are just some examples of listening to your body. It’s not limited to food, sleep, and exercise though. You can also take note, and I would encourage you to write them down, of how different social situations make you feel. Take note of how you feel when you are alone or when you are with just a close friend. Take note of how you react to encouraging words, conflict, criticism and so on.
When you learn how things make you feel, you can decide for yourself to minimize or maximize the situations as needed. If you find that you are energized by having dinner with a few close friends and you hate the feeling of eating alone, try to set up a weekly dinner with them or a couple of nights per week that you meet up. This way you always have something that makes you happy to look forward to and you can take that energy with you into the next few days. If you feel exactly the opposite, arrange your week accordingly.
Listening to your body, when you are not used to it, will take time. I’m not talking a few days or even weeks. It may take years to get to the point of being able to completely listen to your body after so many years of neglect. But it’s possible and it’s so worth it. By diligent practicing and recording, and you can develop a stronger mind-body connection, which will help improve your overall health.
The key here though is consistency. That’s the part that I’m working on right now. What is the first step you will take to relearning how to listen to your body?
