Pay Attention to Your Body’s Signals for Optimal Health

Your body is a marvelous creation! It speaks to you when it’s doing great. It also speaks to you when things aren’t so wonderful.

But that’s the beauty of it – your body gives off a ton of signals to let you know it’s in need of something so you can do what’s necessary to achieve optimal health.

 Use these strategies to tune in to what your body is telling you:

1. Assess how you feel each morning - or at least once a week. The early morning hours and days when you do not have to rush out of bed are usually ideal for you to listen for your body’s signals. At that time of day, it’s usually very quiet, so you can pay closer attention to the physical signals. In the morning, determine whether you feel different from the morning / week before.

• Poke around! Don't be afraid to massage yourself, looking for any new bumps, lumps, or sore spots. The more you know your own body, the better a detective you will be.
• Determine if you experience any new aches when getting out of bed.
• Figure out if you wake up feeling lousy, even after a sound night’s sleep.
• See if you wake up with any ailments that you didn’t go to sleep with.

2. Compare the effects of different food choices. As you go through the motions day by day, it’s sometimes tough to maintain proper nutrition and eat the foods appropriate to your body type. Especially if you’re always on the go, you may end up making some poor food choices. As you do that, however, it’s important to be aware of the impact your food choices have on your body and learn to make better choices.

• How effective are you in the your attempts to exercise or meditate or accomplish anything after you’ve spent a few days eating the wrong food?
• What foods make you feel like drowsy and all you want to do is to take a nap?
• What foods seem to give you digestive distress?
• Do you function better when you've been eating right for your body-type?

3.   Get regular checkups. Even if you haven’t seen or felt anything to worry about, it’s important to get regular checkups at the doctor just to make sure everything is intact. It’s sometimes possible, for example, for your cholesterol or blood pressure to be high and you have no idea.

• If you’re about to embark upon a stressful month at work, now would be a great time to get a checkup.
• Put a routine in place for doing checkups and stick to it.

 4.   Know your body’s limits and capabilities. Although you may consider yourself healthy and in good shape overall, there’s just so much the body can manage. Whether it’s exercise or mental work at the office, or something as basic as your weight, it’s important to know your limits so you don’t end up burned out and in a physical meltdown.

• It’s not okay to work out until your muscles feel worn and torn. But if you’ve overdone it and the external indicator or recovery time keeps getting longer, it's time to reevaluate your exercise routine and find one that's better suited for you.
• A good external indicator is so very basic - your weight. This should not be your end all be all goal, but if you are severly overweight or into the obese range, the strain on all the systems of the body is huge. So I encourage you to weigh yourself at least every week to make sure you are maintaining a HEALTHY weight.
• Mental exhaustion is another body beater. You’ll feel like you’re coping through the long, stressful hours at work until you realize you’re motionless in bed with no motivation when you should be up getting ready for work! Make sure to take the time to give your brain a break. Take yourself out of a stressful environment as often as you can and practice the art of 3 minute meditations for a calmer, healthier you!

Paying attention to your body’s signals is a crucial part of maintaining good health. Remember that you rely heavily on your body to take you through the ins and outs of daily life, so you’re better off protecting it!

Listen to your body’s external signals such as weight, breath, skin, tongue ama and internal signals such as glucose and cholesterol levels and then act accordingly! Then make the choices that will bring you back into balance as quickly as you can.

If you would like additional information on what your indicators of health are trying to tell you, contact Sharon at:

[email protected] or CLICK HERE to visit me at YOUR WAY WELLNESS!