Taming my body, with intention.

The Holly Body Whisperer Challenge: Insight 5

At Holly Health, we’re running a 2 week body whisperer challenge, to kick start 2021 with a compilation of body and mind related insights. Each insight is accompanied by a mini challenge, something easy to do or think about, to put your new learning into action. Follow this account, to see when the next article is published.

You came here for body whispering insights. So today I’m going to talk about some ways to tame this animal. Let’s start with an important reminder. Each of us is simply a mass of chemicals (99% oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium, and phosphorus), going about our days on a very nice rock 🌎, flying quickly through space. We sometimes tell ourselves that we’re intelligent enough that we should be fully in control of ourselves (including our physical and mental health)….but really we’re operated by millions of chemical and biological reactions, which have been trained and honed through evolution over hundreds of thousands of years. When you put that into the perspective of the modern world, our bodies and brains were not setup for this environment. So, the best we can do, is understand more about these automatic reactions within us, and what we can do consciously to help.

It’s this combination of understanding, followed by conscious intentions and actions, which gives us a little more control. The enemy of good health, in the modern environment, is ‘autopilot’. If we leave our body to its own devices, then our inbuilt instincts will have us resting as much as possible (to conserve energy for hunting) and eating lots of the highest energy foods, particularly sweet and salty foods (to develop a fat layer for winter survival).

So, where do we go from here? Here are my top suggestions:

• Seek to understand more about your body and brain. This could involve signing up to a newsletter, listening to podcasts, or using a tool like Holly Health. It’s genuinely exciting that science is discovering more each day (particularly neuroscience — our biggest passion area!).
• In order to avoid ‘auto pilot’, try to set an intention for each day (e.g. today I will listen to my body more, and be kind to myself). Plan check-in with yourself regularly through the day. Is your body feeling stiff before lunch, and you need to stretch it? Is your brain feeling overwhelmed in the afternoon, so a breathing exercise might help? Are you feeling anxious in the evening and looking for a distraction, like a drink or late evening snack? Is there a different way you could respond to that feeling — maybe a walk or playing some music? Checkins increase our awareness, so that we can consciously problem solve and decide which actions to respond with.
• And in case we slip into auto pilot for a while (which we all do!), let’s make sure that our internal belief system is pointing in the right direction. The widely adopted psychological theory, Theory of Planned Behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), suggests that what we internally believe about ourselves is a significant driver in our actions. For example, if we tell ourselves ‘I am a healthy person who enjoys eating fresh foods and going for walks’ then we’re more likely to do these behaviours without thinking. And by the way, we can change our internal beliefs through methods as simple as repeating mantras to ourselves — the ‘fake it til you make it’ approach has genuine scientific merits!

Your Mini Challenge

With the above in mind. Your mini challenge is to become a problem solver for your body and brain, for a day. To set the groundwork, you first need to set your intention, telling yourself something like ‘today, I’m going to listen very hard to my body, regularly get to grips with how feel, and decide which actions to take in response’. As the day progresses, do regular check-ins, keep on top of how your body is feeling, and identify helpful actions to respond with. If you’re a bit stuck for how to respond, here are some suggestions:

• Feeling tired — Try getting outside for some daylight or fresh air
• Feeling frustrated — Try a few minutes of deep breathing
• Feeling hungry (away from meal times) — Try distracting yourself with something else for 30 minutes
• Feeling bored — Try picking up that book you’ve been meaning to read
• Feeling low — Try reaching out to a friend of family member to chat or arrange a call
• Feeling anxious — Try a meditation exercise
• Feeling stiff/back ache — Try 5 minutes of full body stretching

By listening and responding, we’re tuning in to our body’s internal language, and taking control of the situation. If we get used to doing this regularly, we can expect to find ourselves feeling helpless or low less often, because we catch the feelings before they materialise into something bigger.

Holly Health content, insights, and recommendations come from our excellent team of psychologists, nutritionists, and health coaches. Ultimately our goal is to support millions to create and sustain healthy lifestyle changes, for disease prevention and better quality of life. You can learn more (and join the beta service) at hollyhealth.io.