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 too. 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 yes, that pain could be a simple stress headache, or a result of you doing too much work in the garden at once. But the simple fact is: It's a message from our body 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 diarhhea 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 unfortunately, 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. And 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 instead. And 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.
Note: Some statements in this article may not be approved by the FDA. This article is for informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional medical advice.
