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Learning to Listen to Your Body
One of the most natural ways to help keep yourself healthy and well is to
learn how to listen to - and respond to - your own body. Modern life has
everyone so stressed and busy that they barely have time to sit down and take
a breath, unfortunately, and it's because of this that most people have
forgotten how to actually listen to what their body is telling them.
When we're thirsty for instance, we often think we're hungry instead. So we
stuff more junk food into our mouths as a quick fix, only to find that not
only does this not help much, it also keeps packing on fat pounds as well. The
same things happen when we're tired or crankier than normal, we have an upset
stomach or indigestion, we have aches or pains, and so on. Instead of actually
listening to what our body is telling us and fixing the problem, we simply go
for the quickest "fix" we know of, and often those quick fixes simply mask the
problems instead of resolving them.
When your body feels pain for instance, that is usually an indication that
something is wrong. Now, the pain could be a simple stress headache, or a
result of you too much work in the garden at once, but the simple fact
is: It's a message from our bodies that can help us improve our overall health
and wellness if we only listen to it.
The stress headache, for instance, tells us that we're not getting enough rest
and relaxation. This is our body warning us that we're pushing too hard, too
far and too fast. If we don't slow down soon, the body could start having
"break downs" in the form of illness and disease.
When our muscles ache because we overextended ourselves with recent exercise,
this is a message from the body that it's working on repairing itself. It is
telling you that you already did a bit too much, and if you try to do too much
more right now you may cause severe injuries.
Taking pain killers may quiet the body's messages to you drastically, but they
don't change the fact that you are setting yourself up for more problems if
you're not listening to what your body is saying.
When people get diarrhea for instance, their first reaction is to drink or eat
some kind of medication that will stop or slow down the bathroom visits. When
the body has diarrhea, though, it's usually because there is some sort of
harmful virus or bacteria inside that it needs to get out quickly. By stopping
this natural process, you are keeping the virus and germs inside
you where it can cause more damage and long term problems.
Cough medicine is another common example of creating more problems. When your
body is coughing, this is a natural means to expel viruses, germs and bacteria
from your lungs. This cough mechanism is especially important if you have
fluid and phlegm in your lungs, because the coughing action helps expel that
material. By taking cough syrups which suppress the cough, though, you're
retaining the phlegm and fluids, which can cause much more severe problems
such as pneumonia or bronchial infections.
Food is another area which our body will talk to us about, but which most
people don't pay attention to. If you consistently get indigestion when you
eat a certain food, for instance, this is your body's way of telling you not to
eat that food. Either the food doesn't agree with you for some reason, or your
body is sensitive to it, or it creates additional problems deep within.
Each person is unique, too, so the body may send you warnings and complaints
about one type of food while not seeming to have any problems at all with
another type of food. Some people, for instance, will get extremely bloated and
"icky" feeling if they eat white rice. Others, however, may get very gassy when
they eat wheat products. Other people, however, get nauseous or have diarrhea
when they consume milk products. These are all individual messages
from each person's body.
The foods that are causing problems are the ones the body is asking you not to
eat much of in the future. Many times where foods are concerned, the body's
response is trying to tell you that you're allergic or sensitive to that food.
Not all allergies are blatantly obvious, though, so most people have no idea
that the upsets caused after they eat things may be caused by this.
So, learning to listen to and respond to the various personal messages your
body is giving you will take you a major step forward in your overall health
and wellness routines.
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