The first step and greatest self-care skill you can learn is how to listen to the wisdom of your own body.
Your body knows what it needs and is constantly attempting to communicate with you.
What I call body wisdom is a very primal survival system that many wild creatures can easily access, and yet has become a lost and forgotten ability in modern life.
Developing awareness of your own body wisdom can give you guidance, answers and feedback to help you create a successful personalised self-care practice.
You and your body are a partnership – you need each other!
Body wisdom is about developing a deeper connection with your own body, through active listening to a range of finely tuned feedback signals.
Awareness of this feedback allows you and your body to communicate at a deep level.
Today I am going to share the easiest body language to learn – symptoms.
A new way to look at Body Symptoms
One of the easiest ways to access body wisdom is through developing simple awareness of body symptoms.
While the workings of the physical body are extremely complex, it is possible to take a basic understanding of symptoms and use that knowledge to help you make choices as you manage and support your daily health and wellbeing.
Today I want to provide a simple view of what symptoms are, how to become aware of your own, and how to track and use symptoms from the perspective of self care.
What are symptoms?
I remember back in my mid-twenties when I was struggling with my health and feeling helpless and out of control, that I both hated my body and wished it could just tell me what was wrong.
Well, symptoms are one way your body is trying to communicate with you.
The overarching goal of the body is to stay alive and survive – and to do that it has all sorts of complex systems to ensure you remain alive.
While these systems constantly communicate with each other without you ever noticing, sometimes one of these systems may need outside help.
Symptoms are caused when the body tries to compensate because its normal systems are compromised in some way. Symptoms are designed to alert you that the body is struggling, so you can respond.
A common example of symptoms
For instance, if you don’t drink enough fluids for the body to function correctly, the only way the body can correct this is to signal to you that it needs more fluid.
Typically, we receive an ‘urge’ to reach for a drink and take a sip, without paying it much attention.
Sometimes, for all sorts of reasons, you don’t respond to the subtle urge to drink and when you drink less fluids than the body uses you become dehydrated.
Extreme dehydration is very serious which is why as soon as you are slightly dehydrated the body starts sending messages (symptoms).
Some of the early warning signs (symptoms) of dehydration include:
- feeling thirsty and lightheaded
- a dry mouth
- tiredness
- having dark coloured, strong-smelling urine
- passing urine less often than usual
The results of dehydration cause the body to adjust essential organ function to conserve fluids which create symptoms or signs designed to alert you.
The above symptoms are language – how the body asks you to make a change; in this case to drink more fluids so that your body can continue to function well.
To balance the above example, when your body feels strong, alert and there is a feeling of ‘ease’, this too is feedback.
Noticing a reduction and improvement of symptoms is a key part of communicating with your body.
Want to explore the 28-day-drink-more-water-challenge?
Are you listening to the wisdom of your body?
I certainly never listened to my body, until I was taught about symptoms when I trained as a medical herbalist.
Before understanding symptoms, I would get frustrated at my body for making me feel tired, or in pain or causing discomfort.
I would feel sorry for myself and wish I had a ‘better’ body!
The irony is that of course my body was trying to function better by alerting and asking me for help.
If we were taught from a young age how to listen to our body just imagine how different our health would be?
The truth is that most of us ignore our body most of the time.
The good news is that it is never too late to learn how to tune in to your body wisdom.
How loud is your body speaking?
In theory the louder your body speaks, the more urgent the alert.
Pain is a good example.
A banging headache is your body shouting for your attention.
I think of pain as a ‘red alert’ symptom.
Meaning your body needs you to make a change as soon as possible.
If you have just stubbed your toe on something sharp, a pain signal is an obvious shout that the body doesn’t want you to do that again because it caused damage.
In the example of dehydration, a dry mouth is an early mild symptom, fatigue would be a moderate symptom while a banging headache would be a loud symptom.
It is impossible to ignore a terrible headache (unless you take a painkiller) and so the body uses this simple system to let you know how urgently it needs you to make a change.
How to have two-way conversation with your body
So how do you have a conversation with your body?
Your body is offering subtle symptoms – feedback – all the time. And you are responding all the time often without being aware that you are in conversation.
Examples of common communication with your body.
- Experiencing hunger and finding something to eat
- Feeling hot or cold and adjust your clothing
- When you need to use the toilet
You and your body are a team.
You live your life through your body. You make many demands on your body every day.
In response your body provides constant feedback including a language of symptoms.
Good teamwork involves developing two-way conversations.
Your job is to develop awareness of subtle symptoms and signs and then to start exploring what changes your body needs you to make.
To start with, just noticing a symptom and wondering what you were doing before it started can be helpful.
For instance, when I sit for too long writing, I experience all sorts of aches and pains.
My role in the relationship with my body is first to be aware that the aches are an alert signal from my body asking for help.
Then I need to consider what might be the most obvious cause, in this case the ache happens every time I sit in one position while writing for extended periods of time.
My response is to ensure whenever I sit down to write, to remember to stop every 25 minutes or so and move my body for a few minutes.
I then notice if the aches and pains improve from the change I made in response to the symptom.
This is an example of simple self-care based on listening to my body symptoms.
Tracking symptoms
Just like the childhood hot and cold game your body will give you feedback.
If you are not making the right change – the symptom will remain the same.
But when you do something helpful, your symptoms will start to ease.
Sometimes the symptom may get worse, indicating that the change you just made has caused the body more of a problem.
This feedback, both good and bad, is the basis of simple symptom tracking. And tracking is a key component of self-care.
Learn more about Tracking symptoms when you sign up for my Newsletter and Free Self-Care Toolkit.
With practice this relationship can become so finely tuned that you are making continual micro-adjustments all day.
How Responsive are Your Symptoms?
Something I want to mention here is that I have noticed that some people have bodies that are more ‘responsive’ and provide more or greater intensity of symptoms than others.
This is so important that I have created a PDF Guide in my FREE Course
When you silence symptoms
It is well-known that painkillers and many other medications do not fix the underlying cause of your symptoms, they simply switch off the signal from your body.
In other words they silence the body.
This is a blessing for most people!
You can then still actively work on resolving the reason the body is struggling to function correctly.
The danger is when you take a pill, and your symptoms stop but the underlying issue is still causing a problem.
It’s like covering up the warning light that is flashing on the car dashboard – out of sight out of mind until there is a bigger problem.
In the case of dehydration, taking a painkiller for the headache without ensuring you are drinking enough water every day, could cause more problems and more symptoms over time.
I have noticed that when one symptom is shut down, without resolving the issue, another symptom appears.
My suggestion with something like fatigue or a headache both of which can have many causes is to ensure all the common causes of a headache have been checked and addressed as well as silencing the symptom.
In my clinic I would suggest my client use the relief from discomfort medications provided as a window-of-opportunity to make changes to support the underlying cause.
How to use Symptoms to tap into your Body Wisdom
It’s helpful to learn which symptoms relate to your specific health condition.
It is normal that we only notice those symptoms which are ‘yelling’ for attention.
But when you look at the list you may identify that your body has offered other symptoms but less frequency or that you thought were ‘normal’.
Then over the next few days start to notice any symptoms your body shows you.
Most symptoms come and go.
When do you most notice them?
Some are probably difficult to ignore especially if you suffer from a chronic health issue and others may only appear just before you take your next medication.
Where else is your body trying to get your attention?
See if you can develop your awareness of more subtle symptoms.
These can feel ‘normal’ because we have been ignoring them for so long.
Check in with your body often.
Which symptoms have changed?
Once you start to notice all the ways your body is communicating with you, start to notice when specific symptoms start and stop, and any changes in their intensity.
Conclusion
Remember the aim of this exercise is to view symptoms as communication feedback from your body – which knows what it needs.
This personal communication is crucial to getting results from your self care practice.
The first step is to become aware of your symptoms.
Listening skills improve any relationship including the one with your body.
Remember your body wants to feel good too!
It just needs your help!
