Do You Listen to Your Body?

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“Listen, listen, and listen some more.” In every of my Mental Health Nursing class, each student I teach; irrespective of his/her level of learning, will certainly affirm this guiding principle, because empathetic listening is a very fundamental facet of mental health care.

The importance of listening transcends mental health care. Developing effective listening skills requires practice. Unfortunately, most times, our ability to listen gets interrupted by several distractions; by way of thoughts and/or ideas occupying our minds.

Our bodies always communicate with us

Did you know, that our bodies are constantly communicating to us, and how effectively we respond to it, largely depends on our ability to listen?

Conversely, when we either choose to ignore or are naïve about these messages our bodies are communicating to us, the repercussions could be huge!

We are constantly receiving messages from our bodies. While some feel good, some do not feel so good.

However, we should remember that every message communicated to us by our bodies comes from a place of neutrality, people!

Your body is simply doing its job – providing the information, and that is it!

Therefore, when we begin defining and passing judgments on them as being either “good” or bad”; creates a huge barrier to our ability to truly listen to them.

Examples of ways in which our bodies communicate to us

• Feelings of pleasure
• Hunger pangs
• Feelings of thirst
• Different emotions
• Feeling sick.
• Feeling the need to be loved
• Lusting after something or someone

Different schools of thought

The value system of certain cultures and/or religious beliefs have established patterns of aversion to “bad feelings.”

For instance, in certain parts of West Africa, the typical reaction to such circumstances would be “God forbid!” This might come across as laughable, but it is a fact, people!

Let us all examine the following scenarios:

1. When we truly feel hungry, the first reaction would be to find something to eat.
2. By the same token, we would look for the nearest bathroom when we are truly feeling pressed.
3. On the other hand, when you have a persistent headache; that is accompanied by high-grade fever, you rather choose to take some analgesics which are likely to relieve you of the headache and bring down your body temperature; thereby helping you feel better, and you go about your day like nothing happened, good luck! Yes, because the potential risks here could be very high! Watch out!

Headaches and fever are indicative of many things. Therefore, listening to the messages your body is communicating to you, and making a wiser decision to go see your doctor for further medical investigations promises you, a less life-threatening outcome than it would have been, should you have chosen to keep suppressing that “message” your body was sending your way. Think about it!

More often than not, most people seldom find solutions to the messages their bodies are communicating to them.

This is due to the different schools of thought that inform our value systems.

The downside of this could be catastrophic; especially when you find people coming down with all kinds of chronic conditions which could have been properly addressed if, ONLY they listened to the message/s their bodies were providing them and acted on it/accordingly.

Going forward, consider listening to every piece of information your body is providing you, and be mindful in making every effort within your ability, to resist suppressing it.  The power is in your hand because you can do it!

What messages is your body sending your way, and how do you act on them?