How often do you find yourself exhausted after a day (or week, or month) of pushing yourself to your limit? Whether you work too much, have a lot of household chores to handle, or don’t practice enough self-care, it can be easy to get lost in the daily grind and stop listening to your body.
But have you ever considered why you sometimes feel like you need a nap? Or why you’re craving certain foods during a stressful period in your life? Or why you can’t seem to fall asleep but are, instead, jumping off the walls with energy? Well, all of these symptoms have a cause behind them.
So, if you’re ready to get to the root of that cause, here are a few ways to take care of your mental and physical health by listening to what your body has to tell you.
The Way the Body Communicates
As you’re well aware, there are many ways our bodies communicate when something’s wrong with us.
For example, if you have a fever, you’ll know that your body is fighting an infection. Or, if you have a sore throat, you’ll have the information needed to conclude where that infection is happening.
But what about the more subtle signs? Like acne, or sugar cravings, or anxiety? These can also be great clues to listen for. And, do it regularly enough, and you’ll find yourself preventing a lot of issues.
Mental Health Symptoms
Most of us go through periods of highs and lows in regards to our mental health. And that’s perfectly normal. However, sometimes it’s easy to lose track of how we’re feeling. And, during those times, we might miss the signs telling us that we need to take better care of our emotional wellbeing.
For example, burnout is a condition that’s easy to miss. Because we’re all programmed to go after our goals (even when we shouldn’t), we will often ignore the fact that we need rest. And so, burnout sets on.
But sometimes, we don’t realize that the irritability, headaches, or detachment that come with this particular condition stem from our habit of working too much. Instead, we allow ourselves to think that these symptoms are a perfectly normal occurrence of our daily lives.
Skin Problems
Another sign that there’s something wrong and which we often overlook are skin problems such as acne, psoriasis, dermatitis, etc. While these do depend on nutrition and several external factors (like pollution), they can also be caused by chronic stress or lack of sleep.
So, if you find that you suddenly have a less than perfect complexion despite taking great care of your skin, it might be time to take a moment and listen to your body. Even if you just find that you’ve been dealing with a lot of stress at work, knowing the cause of your problems will help you come up with a strategy to properly take care of them.
Food Cravings
How often do you get cravings? For most women, these will depend on their cycle. But, they can also occur when there’s something else going on in the body.
For example, being constantly thirsty may be a sign of diabetes. Or, having a strong craving for chocolate may be a sign of Magnesium deficiency.
If you find that you have a strong hankering for certain types of foods, it might not be a bad idea to take a closer look. On the one hand, it may just be stress or hormonal changes in the body. But on the other, these symptoms may also be a sign that there’s something bigger going on.
How to Listen to Your Body Better
Now, the one thing to understand about the body’s ability to communicate with our minds is that hearing its complaints is just the first step. To truly understand the message, however, we must be ready to listen. And, sometimes, that’s the most difficult part of taking good care of ourselves.
For one, many people, especially women, don’t feel empowered enough to listen to their bodies. Over the years, there have been numerous examples of doctors misdiagnosing women because they didn’t have the knowledge to differentiate between symptoms in different bodies. And, it’s not uncommon for women themselves to lack trust in the messages their bodies are sending them.
With this in mind, there are two key elements to taking better care of our bodies:
- Trusting ourselves enough to seek out the real causes behind what’s bothering us.
- Training ourselves to make listening into a habit.
Some Final Thoughts
Unfortunately, it’s extremely difficult to catch all the signs our bodies send us. Even if we decide to take the biohacking route and employ a full arsenal of health-focused gadgets, there will be some things that won’t be 100% clear from the get-go.
Nonetheless, it’s still incredibly important to listen. Because no matter how small the symptom, noticing it in time and doing your best to treat the cause will surely prevent a bigger consequence. And, who knows, it may also teach you a bit about how your body reacts to certain circumstances. With that kind of knowledge, you’ll be better prepared to handle them next time.