Get Quiet and Listen to the Clues

Self-care, awareness, mental health month, end of exams, start of the next phase of your life ...

We’ve all been there: ignoring our body’s demand to flip the laptop closed, turn over the phone on the nightstand, turn off the TV, step away from the fridge, get up from the sofa and go for a walk or to bed.

I get it, and I’m sure you do too. Tough times mean pulling out all our tried-and-true coping strategies, as well as looking for all kinds of adaptations just to get through the storm. 

But in our desperate (and very natural) rush to protect ourselves we might miss out on what our bodies really need. Very simply that could be a break or change of routine. On a deeper level, it’s the necessity of being truly seen, heard and understood.

When we don’t pay attention and get quiet enough to really hear the messages our bodies are sending us, and we push straight on through even though it’s probably not in our body’s best interest to do so, do you know what happens?

Nothing - for a while.

Because our bodies are pretty incredible. They adapt. And so we make do and become incredibly resourceful in how we move and live. And then seemingly all of a sudden, things don’t work right, and then we can’t cope, and so we don’t even try.

How did this happen? Very, very slowly. 

Temporary compensations for our regular routines and behaviours are important. They allow us to continue doing what we need to do for a while. But they are meant to be just that - temporary. When the training wheels of orthotics, proprioceptive tape, wraps, and supportive knee braces become permanent fixtures, then we lose touch with our body’s natural signals. 

Over time those signals get louder and more frequent, demanding a response. They show up as pain and dysfunction that changes how we move through our day, how we exercise and possibly how we perform in our sports of choice. Are you paying attention?

Join our completely ‘on demand’ course coming up in late May: Functional Testing for the Upper & Lower Body. Work through the content at your own pace online and join us for a future 90 minute ‘Movement Lab’ via Zoom. You’ll be able to watch a wide range of assessments in real time and try them along with us together with your partner of choice. Hop on to our waitlist today to find out more as soon as the BIG REVEAL is ready!