In today’s fast-paced and demanding world, it is easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of daily life, neglecting the signals your body is desperately trying to send you. Many of those messages show up as stress signals, but it’s helpful to get more granular and really listen to what might be behind that stress.
Ignoring or missing your body’s messages can significantly affect the quality of your health and well-being, including burnout, chronic illnesses, a decline in productivity, and simply not living your life to its full potential.
Your body helps you make informed decisions to ensure we care for ourselves better. These decisions may involve adjusting our lifestyle and diet or seeking professional medical advice when necessary. Ultimately, it empowers us to proactively safeguard our health and ensure that we can function at our best.
While the signs are there, they are often subtle and can sneak up on you. Being in tune with your body on a regular basis helps you identify the signals, micro as they may be, before they manifest into something more problematic.
The Body's Language
Your body has an incredible ability to communicate, often alerting you to potential issues before they escalate into more severe conditions. But how do you learn the body’s unique language?
Sometimes the body shouts – usually in the form of a sudden or severe illness. But most of the time, it whispers, and in a variety of ways. These signals or “whispers” are unique to each individual. While most are physicological, mental and emotional messages are also sent. A few examples include:
Physiological
- Trouble falling asleep or staying asleep
- Hunger or dehydration
- Pain in the body, such as aches, stiffness, head pain, and tension
- Stomach issues
- Breathing changes
- Vision changes
- Weight swings
Mental
- Brain fog and difficulty focusing
- Unexplained fatigue
- Memory loss
Emotional
- Unexplained mood swings
- An increase in stress
Listening to the messages your body sends you allows for an honest evaluation of what your body is experiencing and helps clarify what your body needs.
Tips to Create a Habit of Listening
The key to listening to your body is to create a habit of awareness. It’s much easier to notice a trend or pattern if you have been paying attention on a regular basis. If you wait until the body shouts, it may be too late to make lifestyle or health changes to mitigate further problems.
Three ideas to consider:
- Keep a journal to note patterns and trends in your life.
- Meditate to create a space to quiet the mind and get in tune with your body.
- Practice activities such as yogo or tai chi to help to strengthen the connection between body and mind.
Embracing these three practices empowers us to cultivate self-awareness, strengthen our ability for self-care, and make wiser choices concerning our overall health and well-being.
Talk Back to Your Body with Truvaga
While your body has much to say, so do you! When stress is getting the best of you and triggering your sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight response), stimulating your vagus nerve can quickly activate your parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest response), bringing back a state of balance to your body and calming those “whispers.”
One great way to stimulate your vagus nerve is with the Truvaga vagus nerve stimulator. Truvaga activates the vagus nerve helping to balance and strengthen your nervous system, which reduces stress so you can feel calmer, think clearer, and sleep better.
It only takes 2 minutes morning and night. Give it a try; your body will literally say, “Thank you.”
