The Language of Symptoms

Last week, a few of my readers asked me to write on how to effectively listen to one’s own body with the purpose of achieving or maintaining a high level of health. While I maintain that there are different strokes for different folks when looking at anything concerning health and longevity (as per my last post,) it may be of interest to generalize a bit by looking at this bizarre slice of reality:

-Heart disease in the #1 killer in the US (and in the world.)
-Heart disease is almost always preventable.
-The Standard American Diet (SAD) is full of foods that instigate heart disease.

Sit with those three facts- just lean back on the couch and really think about them for a moment. Is it not insane? We are encouraged to ingest foods that are scientifically known to cause disease. Our #1 killer is preventable. I bring this up to shed light on this harmful paradigm we all live within and to emphasize that we are not culturally taught to listen to our own bodies. For most of us, learning to “listen within” is a foreign concept.

The concept that we are essentially led to sabotage our own health was first shared with me in a Plant-Based Nutrition course I took through Cornell University. It was indeed the foundation from which I began to shift the framework of my thinking around body, health, lifestyle and food.

It was about 10 years ago back when I was in the throes of a screaming list of symptoms: migraines, acid reflux, acne, bloating and painful indigestion, constipation, chronic low energy, raging PMS and more. For many, many years, I assumed feeling crappy was just a normal state of being. Nary a day would go by when I didn’t feel one symptom or another. Often the aches, pains and discomforts shifted around as if they were taking turns. They didn’t always banish me to a level of having to lie in bed (though sometimes they did) mostly they just made life uncomfortable. I never felt great.

In addition to the Cornell course, I began to read the thoughts and studies of many others who aligned with the age-old belief that we can heal ourselves through food and lifestyle. Some went so far as to posit that it is the breakdown of the immune system that invites all symptoms and ultimately, disease. A simple, obvious concept but if we really think about it, it’s very powerful. If certain actions breakdown the immune system, then certain actions can also build it up.

So now, with all that in mind, let’s go back to the original question: how do we listen to our bodies? Well, in order to “listen,” there must be a “sound” we are striving to hear. What I have come to understand and believe is that “sound” is simply the pain or discomfort associated with chronic symptoms. A symptom is an alert that something is off in the body. For the sake of this publication we are obviously not talking about a scraped knee or broken arm but rather the types of symptoms that are often chronic, nagging, or come and go repeatedly. The pain or discomfort revealed in our symptoms, whether mild or major, lets us know something is out of balance within the body and subsequently that we are below peak health.

After much study, I have come to believe that chronic symptoms are most often due to toxins in the body that cause inflammation. Certain foods, environmental factors and lifestyles can trigger toxins, inflammation and ultimately disease.

My personal health path, the one that leads me to silence my symptoms and regain my health time and time again is a combination of all the things I always talk about in my publication:

-An organic plant-based gluten- free low-protein diet
-A regular mix of strength training and cardio exercise
-My heavily researched (and specific to me) supplementation protocol
-Quality sleep
-My best efforts to live a non-toxic and low-stress lifestyle

If I go off the rails on any of the above, my symptoms will surface. That is the experiment that I have unwittingly done on myself only to witness the same results over and over.

Now. Sometimes you will hear about someone who gets cancer or some other awful health reality and they tell you they had no symptoms. Not one. And quite honestly, I don’t know what to do with that. Firstly and importantly, we can really never know another’s life. Secondly, there are environmental factors that sometimes we have no way of avoiding. Ultimately, my take on health is that we can only do the best we can do. We live in a rather toxic environment and we don’t always have total control. (Add to that there is a lot we don’t understand about the body and even doctors still guess at things. )

Still- we can choose to be honest with ourselves about how we feel. We can choose to arrive at a place where we know we are living our healthiest life, to the best of our ability, using communication with our body as a guide. I believe the body will tell us what it needs if we can be still and quiet enough to listen. I also believe the body is meant to be healthy and under the best circumstances we are meant to feel amazing.

I eat clean, I exercise nearly everyday, I do my best to make sure I get enough sleep and hydration, I stay away from alcohol and have very little caffeine. I work diligently on keeping my stress levels low and enjoying my life and… I listen for symptoms even single day. When I have them, I lean into my years of experience and study and aim to rebalance. Will this way of living ensure me a long life free of disease? No one truly knows. I only know I feel better at 53 than I did at 23. ‘Nuff said.

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