Tune into you, what's your body telling you?
/- Tracey Hancock, REALiving coach + mentor
In the busyness of life, it's easy to overlook the signals that your body is giving you. It might be aches and pains, illnesses, tiredness or something else. Your body is trying to let you know what's going on and what needs attention.
One of your most important relationships
There's an undeniable relationship between your health and how you're living life. But what do you do when the relationship is out of balance?
It's an interesting relationship - health and how we're living life. On the one hand, your lifestyle, how you live life - the food you eat, the sleep you get, how you exercise, addictions and other behaviours, can all affect your health for good - and not so good. And then there's how your health can support or restrict what you do. Maybe you want to walk up a mountain, but you don't have the fitness for it, or you want to travel more for work, but you find it too tiring so don't.
Then as we dive deeper there's another, more subtle, less obvious layer to the relationship but one that has incredible power to influence your health. It's the impact of what you think about yourself and the world around you. It's often overlooked with many people not realising the positive or negative impact that their thoughts are having on their health.
Your body is AMAZING
Your body is incredibly sophisticated and home to many processes that happen without you having to schedule them. Those processes keep us alive!
But we make it hard for our body to function well. There's an increasing tendency for people to throw any number of toxins - chemicals, poor quality food, a plethora of synthetic drugs and stress - at it. This isn't about self-judgement or blame, it's about being more aware of how we're treating our own body.
How we should treat our own body can be confusing though. There's so much information about what's good for you and not. What you should have and what you should avoid. Research papers and claims that there's no harm to the body from power lines or WIFI, while others will say there is. Headlines that tell you an egg a day is okay, coffee is an antioxidant, chocolate does this, kale does that, and then you'll read something else that's completely contradictory. It can be hard to know what to believe and of course what to do about it!
What can you do?
In the midst of all the information, headlines and confusing research findings, it pays to stop. Just stop and be still. Be still long enough and regularly enough to listen to your body. While we can't see the inner workings of our body, we can become aware of how we're feeling, of sensations, of how our body responds to certain situations or environments.
Take notice. Be curious about what you're sensing and then set about making small changes, unless an epic-sized one is right for you, that nurture your health.
Here are some examples to get you started...
Have you ever noticed the difference in how you feel when you've been in a busy town to being by the seaside or somewhere in nature? Be aware of how your breathing changes, how your body feels, how your mood changes, and anything else that shifts for you.
Have you ever noticed how you feel after eating certain foods? Do some feel like they flood your body with goodness while others deplete you of energy?
All of those sensations are your body's way of telling you what it needs – and what it doesn’t. So today, stop and listen, listen to your body. Notice the cues and clues.
Take time out from the hustle and bustle of daily life and tune into you.
Tracey Hancock is a coach and mentor passionately committed to helping people live well. Drawing on her own life experience and the lessons she's learnt trying to be and do what she thought was expected of her, Tracey will guide you to reconnect with yourself, putting you and your health at the heart of everything you do in life and business.
If you know it's time to be you and live your real life, contact Tracey today to learn more about the REALiving approach.