Feeling Your Personal Best By Alice Greene


Listen to What


Your Body is Trying


to Tell You Excerpt taken from “Feel Great in Your Body”


A few summers back, I watched with concern as the pack of runners par- ticipating in a popular annual race ran by me. Many of them were clearly struggling to keep up their pace and some were swooning. Later, I heard that dozens of them ended up in the hospital due to either heat exhaus- tion or heat stroke, both of which can be quite serious. That day we were experiencing mid 90s and high humidity, which is not something any of us are used to where I live.


Disengaged From Ourselves


To run or even walk a race in that kind of heat and humidity requires a number of weeks of training in and acclimating to those conditions. So why were they running, when they put themselves at such risk? Why do


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any of us push ourselves past what feels comfortable or past our own body’s limits?


It is a good question, because it is something that many of us do. We’ve become disengaged from the signals our bodies are sending us and disre- gard the warning signs. Our bodies are wiser than we realize, and if we honored the signals it gave us we would be so much better off. What is your body telling you?


I had to learn that my body was try- ing to tell me something when I re- peatedly ended up in bed for months at a time with chronic fatigue, when I was practically living at the chiro- practors with chronic back spasms, and when my joints hurt so much I


June/July 2011


couldn’t kneel down or comb my hair without a lot of pain. I was refusing to listen to my inner wisdom.


Recognizing Our Bodies’ Signals


Some common signals to pay atten- tion to are symptoms of stress, pain, hunger levels, exhaustion, high blood sugar levels and weight gain. When we are stressed by trying to do too much or by not taking care of our selves, our bodies respond with anxi- ety, insomnia, ulcers, chronic pain, headaches, illness, or other maladies and we often feel helpless, out of control or over-reactive. Stress is a red flag that we aren’t taking care of our physical or emotional needs.


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