Listen To Your Body

The human body is a miraculous instrument. Taking into consideration everything we do in a given day from something as simple as getting out of bed, to something more complicated like driving a vehicle, to a completely automatic response such as breathing, we do almost ALL of it without even a thought.

And that's the thing, how much do we really think about our bodies and are we listening to them when they are talking to us?

I didn't consider the complexities of my body nearly as much as when I started noticing the symptoms of RA. At that point it was hard not to listen because my joints were literally SCREAMING at me, which made it difficult to ignore.

Our bodies tell us things every day, and we do a pretty good job of ignoring them. We're tired, we drink caffeine, we have a headache we take pain pills, we have acne, we spend billions of dollars trying to clear it up. But have we ever stopped to consider that there may be underlying causes to our ailments?

Recent studies, along with my own personal experience, have shown that there is a link between diet and auto immune diseases and the food that we put in our bodies has a direct effect on our overall wellness. In other words, you eat like crap, you feel like crap. Plain and simple.

Or is it?

Eating is an automatic response to our bodies telling us that we're hungry, but it is also an emotional process that incorporates feelings such as comfort, joy and pleasure.

At my last check-up my doctor asked me why I thought more people who have similar health issues don't take a proactive approach and try eating more healthy. My response was that many people don't know that the food they're eating may be the cause of their problems, and also that food is such an emotional subject that it takes time for people to not only come to terms with it, but also to adjust to a new way of doing things.

With that being said, there needs to be better education on holistic alternatives for the general medical community and less emphasis on "there's a pill for every problem." Not saying that I don't believe in modern medicine, I do however believe that our bodies have the remarkable capabilities of healing themselves and not only are we not always listening to them, we're not giving them enough credit.

It's time we make a conscious effort to listen more to our bodies and what they're telling us, and to take the time to figure out what we can do to live more happily and healthfully. After all, it's the least we can do.