Notes From the 6 Train: When the Body Talks, Listen!

With everyone diving head first into midterms, it’s important to remember this cardinal rule. I, for one, ignored this earlier today while bleaching my hair and burned my skin a bit. (Ow) I’ve bleached my hair a million times, but I got a new haircut this way and didn’t realize it was on my skin. Though, I felt it burning (but bleaching hair always feels like burning, so I couldn’t tell the difference), but this minor experienced reenforced how we must pay attention to out bodies!

This clicked for me yesterday while I was in a fitness class and the instructor began by saying “be gentle with yourself. This is not the same body it was yesterday, and it will not be the same tomorrow and has different needs and wants.”

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Now, we can think about that on a metaphysical level, or we can think about it on a very scientific level, we lose and regenerate thousands of cells daily. To take it to the next level, every seven years all the cells of our bodies have regenerated from every organ, it’s basically a different body.

Literally, we are not the same people we were yesterday.

After hours of studying, if you’re tired, take a power nap. Power naps are my secret weapon. I do twenty minutes at the most. If you’re in the middle of working on a project and are becoming distracted, take ten minutes to meditate and refocus.

If worries are plaguing your mind, upon waking up create a “worry list.” You release your worries by writing them here, so you can get back to the project at hand. You can add to it throughout the day if need be. You will feel so relieved once your worries are “somewhere else” instead of plaguing you.

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Once you go home, if you’re still worried about these thoughts you can create a plan of action so they are less stressful and distracting. (Granted, some of them may not be easy fixes, but we also like to make bigger deals out problems that can be easily solved.)

What about your body? Do you pay attention to the messages your body sends you? How do you respond?