Physical Health / Understanding Your Body

Drawing from my own experience, I was fortunate to have the type of constitution which didn’t require much maintenance. I could eat whatever I wanted and demand as much or as little of my body as my circumstances required. That is until I reached my forties. Suddenly, the years of neglect had caught up with me and I began having debilitating health issues, such as a compressed disk in my neck, a reoccurring gastrointestinal ailment and worst of all heart problems, the first indication of which was a heart attack at the age of 45. Prior to that, I thought I was doing all I needed to do for my body, because it was performing well for me. I now understand that what we neglect in the present, will most likely affect us in the future, and in ways we can’t even imagine. Furthermore, it’s not just the big things like exercise and nutrition that are important, but maybe even bigger factors like rest, attitude, mental workouts and introspection which may provide more lasting benefits as we age.

But before you can begin making significant changes in your lifestyle that will affect your health today and tomorrow, you really need to have a much better understanding of and relationship to your physical body. It is after all, a most marvelous machine and like any machine, requires periodic oversight by a trained technician to keep it running at its best. Most people will respond to this by saying ‘I go to the doctor once a year, he is the one trained to maintain my body’. I am here to tell you, that is not enough. Not only is your doctor too busy to ask all the necessary questions to ascertain whether or not your health is on course, he will never have one very important piece of information, the daily experience of living in your body.

Unfortunately however, many of us have lost a real connection to our body’s daily experience, we are increasingly living in our heads, with more and more of our time committed to solving problems and processing mundane bits of information. Our bodies have become little more than a scaffolding to support our busy brains, receiving only minimal attention while subtle processes begin running awry, setting the stage for a future time bomb. The best way to begin to reestablish a connection with your body is to learn how it works. Your body doesn’t come with an owner’s manual, but it should! Why is it we know more about our computers or our cars than we do about your most precious possession? I believe as you learn more about the interconnectedness of your bodily functions, that the very process of informing yourself becomes a synergistic one. Not only is your awareness heightened, but you’re actually building new neural superhighways between your brain and body. These can act as a conduit for receiving and sending important signals which will be necessary to maintain oversight and control of your health.