Hey, pay attention to me!
I never really understood the saying “it’s important to listen to your body” until my body made me listen to it today. I guess in some naive way I thought I was paying attention to my body, especially since I suffer from anxiety and learned to read my body signals many years ago.
The problem is, I became great at the art of reading my body signals but not at the art of listening to them. And it was an episode of rapid heartbeat today (which is scarier than it is dangerous) that finally made that distinction for me.
In a way, I saw it coming all week. I had been under a great deal of stress and I could feel the slight, constant tension in my muscles. Everything that went wrong made me angry. In fact, I got angrier as the week went on. With the anger came the higher blood pressure, the rapid, shallow breathing, the headaches, the fatigue that doesn’t let you sleep, and the jittery sensation where everything makes you feel on edge.
I recognized it all… I just didn’t pay attention. And it bit me in the ass.
So perhaps listening to your body is twofold… recognizing what your body is doing and paying attention enough to interpret what it means.
April 3, 2010 at 12:39 pm | Health | No comment