Commit to Calm Day 8
Listening to your body can be difficult. Read recommendations for learning to listen to your body. You too, can create more calm.
Today was the day to give yoga another try. Whether it’s from this week’s workouts or just old injuries and my age, I woke feeling sore and stiff this morning. During the pandemic, we built a decent home gym in the garage out of necessity. It is littered with bikes, garden tools, and random toys. The equipment is covered in a fine layer of AZ desert dust, but it gets the job done. I usually try to get a workout in before the kids’ school begins, but I struggled to motivate myself as I drank my morning coffee. So, I decided to listen to my body and do a yoga class instead.
The struggle to listen to my body
“Listen to your body. That’s what Elmo taught you to do.” has become an inside joke in our house. It refers to the Sesame Street video we showed the kids during potty training. Elmo instructs the children to listen to their bodies and go potty to prevent accidents. We are still working on this as adults! In our household, we don’t have a great track record of listening to our bodies. Both Andrew and I have injured ourselves in the gym multiple times. This usually occurs when we push through pain or fail to accept our bodies’ limitations.
There are many reasons why listening to these signals is a challenge. Often, I struggle with the frustration of having to be flexible. I don’t want to fail to meet my high expectations, goals, or plans. More importantly, there are mental and physical benefits of exercise I want to reap. I needlessly put a lot of pressure on myself. That inner mean girl can be a real bully! But after the last back injury, I swore I would start listening.
If you listen to your body when it whispers, you won’t have to hear it scream.
Anonymous
How to start listening to your body
I couldn’t find much research on the notion of “listening to your body” given it can be difficult to define and study. There can be multiple reasons why and ways in which our bodies speak to us. However, I did come across both tangible and spiritual discussions and recommendations.
A physical health perspective
A concrete discussion of the physical aspects of listening to your body was given in one publication by the University of Maryland Athletic Training Department. They recommend the following considerations.
If it is from muscular soreness:
- Take a recovery day
- Make sure to do a warm up and cool down before and after a workout
- Do yoga/stretching, foam rolling, or both
If it is mental fatigue:
- Plan ahead so you can take time for yourself or schedule breaks
- Make sure you are getting quality rest and enough sleep
A mental health perspective
The more spiritual discussion was in this article by Deepak Chopra on Oprah.com. He argues the mind and body have a strong connection and feedback loop that cannot be denied. His recommendations are as follows:
- Feel what you feel: Instead of denying your feelings, allow yourself to feel them.
- Accept what you feel: Avoid placing value judgements on your feelings.
- Be open to your body: Be willing to listen to the constant messages your body is sending you.
- Trust your body: Each and every cell of your body sends you a signal that is worth listening to.
- Value spontaneity: Instead of becoming frozen in fixed beliefs, allow change to occur as your mind and body change.
- Enjoy what your body wants to do: Seek out the pleasure your body needs, whether it is in resting or being active.
Both the physical and mental health perspectives offer good solutions if I can just learn to put them to use.
Listening to my body and my Commitment to Calm
It is hard to feel good, both mentally and physically, if your body is aching. This is why “caring for my body by stretching or doing yoga” is the second activity listed in my Commitment to Calm. This morning was the perfect opportunity to listen to my body. I felt both mentally and physically fatigued and needed to be open to skipping the home gym workout. In addition, I’m working on some much-needed self-compassion, so it was an opportunity for me to be kind to my body.
I did an easy 30-minute yoga video meant to awaken the body in the morning. It was nice to get some deep stretches in and start to heal some of those aches and pains. Although I wouldn’t consider it an intense workout, I was surprised how tired my arms and legs became with a few of the poses. Yoga is just a different way of exercising, one that can benefit my body if I listen to the signals. Now if I can just figure out how to get Scooby off my mat!
How about you? Are you incorporating any stretching or yoga into your routine? Leave me a comment!
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