Tip #9 - Learn to Listen to Your Body
What do you need? Rest? Better nutrition? A walk in the park? A good laugh? A heart-to-heart with a friend?
Identify and honour your needs. It's an important aspect of self-care. Stress can hamper your ability to hear what your body is asking for. When you learn to quiet the cacophony that is stress, you are better able to listen to the quiet murmurings of your heart. If you fail to heed them, you might find that your body turns up the volume. You may experience more discontent, pain and negativity that detract from a life well-lived.
Tune in to your needs. They are often quite different from your wants. For example, I often reached for a sugar fix when I was feeling sluggish. I now know that I sugar-coated what I really needed which was a nap, or at the least, a restorative time-out.
Get in the habit of tuning in to your heart and asking for what you need. Shhhh! It's often a very quiet voice that speaks to you. Remember, it may be shy, especially if it is unused to being heard!
Read how my body "spoke" in a dramatic way in the Emergency Room!
Work to build a relationship with yourself. Stress coaching can help sharpen this skill. Contact me for more information.
tip 10: Do what Sheryl says. That reduces stress, just saying.