How do you trust your body?

Your heart, lungs, stomach and intestines are trying to tell you something. It is possible to trust your body and improve your mental health with a few methods that will allow you to listen to them.

Our body often warns us with some signals, but again, we often ignore them. Freelance journalist and introspective Saga Briggs lists ways to listen to and trust our body's voice in her article published on the Psyche website.

We quote some parts of the article:

Trust our body's voice

“(…) Most of us know what it means to 'act on our instincts'. And many of us have at times overlooked the danger signs or uncomfortable feelings, with consequences that we later regret. Trusting the body includes these ideas, but it is more. When it comes to decision-making and health, people differ in the emphasis they place on bodily sensations, from hunger and fatigue to anger and joy. Some of us may reject or suppress sensations, talk to ourselves (or let others discourage us) because of strong feeling, or place more emphasis on logic and rationality than feeling.

People also differ in how well they can detect these signals, which affects their ability to exploit them. For example, those who suffer from emotion blindness (alexithymia), a condition characterized by difficulty identifying and expressing their emotions, often do not know they are hungry until they are in pain or angry until they feel their pulse. At the other end of the spectrum are people who probably feel too much and are easily overwhelmed by bodily signals as a result, thus distrusting them.”

Body confidence can support mental health

The author states that body confidence is not only a popular concept, but also a scientific construct: “It is used to measure 'inner perception', which is the process of perceiving the body from the inside. Poor inner perception is associated with a wide variety of mental disorders, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), eating disorders, depression, and anxiety. Researchers measure people's inner perception by examining questions about body confidence, as well as seven other traits, from 'notice' to 'regulation of attention' and 'listening to the body'. Of these characteristics, 'low body confidence' is particularly relevant to mental health.

People who suffer from suicidal thoughts, eating disorders, loneliness and depression often report feeling 'insecure' or 'away' about their body, as well as not trusting their bodily signals. The reason for this link is not yet clear, but if these people felt safe enough to trust their bodily signals, it could be predicted that doing so could lead to adaptive behavior change and symptom reduction. Whatever the explanation, these findings show that body confidence is crucial to well-being. (…)

Ways to increase body confidence

Although research on inner perception is still new, one thing that has been found to improve inner perception as well as body confidence is self-awareness. To properly self-regulate and make healthy decisions, you need to be able to not only feel these physical sensations, but relate to them in an inquisitive, compassionate, and mindful way.

You should be able to do this not only when you are at home or alone, but also when you are in a variety of settings with other people. You may decide to act on some of these signals and ignore others. Regardless, it's important information to help you survive and thrive. This respectful orientation to bodily experience is what I mean by 'trusting your body'.

You don't have to face mental health issues to benefit from body confidence. Better introspection is beneficial for athletes, actors, students, or even successful finance professionals who rely on their instincts to make high-risk decisions.

Fortunately, there are science-based practices that can help develop a more trusting relationship with your body. In this article, I will focus on building body confidence in order to improve your emotional regulation. (…)

Be aware of the moment

To start building your body confidence, you should take the time to start paying more attention to your body. Research shows that two mindfulness meditation practices—breathing meditations and body scans—can increase not only inner perception but body confidence as well. Both styles of meditation are forms of 'focused attention', meaning focusing on an object inside or outside the body, your breath, or one or more parts of your body. (…)

Do a basic body scan

Begin by paying attention to your body, whether sitting or lying down. You can also close your eyes. Feel the weight of your body on the chair or on the floor. Take a few deep breaths. Breathe deeply, invigorate your body, get more oxygen and feel a deeper relaxation as you exhale.

Notice how it feels to have your feet on the ground. Weight and pressure, vibration, heat. 

Pay attention to your legs in the chair. Pressure, impact, weight, lightness. 

Pay attention to your back in the chair. Bring your attention to your abdominal area. If your stomach is tense, let it soften breathe. 

Take care of your hands. Are your hands tense? Comfort them. 

Watch your arms. Feel any sensation in your arms. 

Let your shoulders be relaxed. Pay attention to your neck and throat. 

Let them be comfortable. Loosen your jaw. 

Let your face and facial muscles be relaxed.

Then pay attention to your whole body. Take another breath. Be as aware of your whole body as you can. breathe. You can open your eyes when you are ready.

You may find this type of exercise uncomfortable at first, but remember, your body is on your side and its main function is to keep you alive. As a general rule, whenever you experience discomfort, instead of trying to relieve it as soon as possible, ask yourself: 'What is this signal trying to tell me?' (…)

Practice open tracking

– Sit comfortably in a quiet place and take a few moments to calm your mind. You can also do a short period of focused attention meditation.

When you are ready, start noticing all your sensations. Notice every sensation, but don't interact. Don't engage with it, but don't try to get rid of it either. Just let it emerge, evolve, and then pass.

Eventually, you will find that your attention is focused on one thing. For example, you may notice a feeling of warmth in your chest, a tingling in your feet, or the noise of traffic outside when you are busy. Whatever the sensation, when you realize that you are focusing on it by mistake, acknowledge that it has happened and gently return your attention to the state of attention where the sensations run their natural course.

You can do this on your own at home as a timed activity. But the goal is to get to the point where you can take this form of attention anywhere in the world, wherever you go. (…)

Find what works

On my own journey of inner perception, I chose to apply a Japanese energy-based healing technique called reiki rather than a traditional body scan. (…)

I have made the most progress by doing reiki for 30 minutes a day for 30 days, spending three minutes on each part of my body. Considering your own lifestyle and health needs, you can decide which routine is best for you. (…)

Pay attention to how you think about how you feel

In the first few steps you will inevitably try to make sense of your sensations, but these steps are primarily about being open to sensations and establishing a trusting relationship with your body, not labeling or linking sensations to feelings and behaviors. (…)

Labeling

Learning to name sensations is another important step in building body confidence. Labeling helps distinguish different types of body responses. For example, an instinctive feeling about the current situation versus a conditioned response that has more to do with your past experiences can help improve your decision-making by giving you more confidence to evaluate those sensations in the future. (…)

For the exercise of labeling your emotions, ask yourself:

• How can I describe this feeling to someone else?

• What emotion is this feeling normally associated with for me?

• What does the feeling inside look like and what happened when I acted/did not act under its influence in the past?

• How does a conditioned response feel for me, and what happened when I acted/did not act under its influence in the past?

You can save your responses in a journal for future reference so you can see how you tend to make sense of your sensations. (…)

Reassessment

This is the part where we pay more attention to 'what we think about how we feel' and question whether it helps us. Let's take anxiety. While it is often assumed that anxiety is something that happens to us from time to time and that we do our best to avoid, introspection experts look at it differently. (…)

When it comes to anxiety, the problem isn't what's going on inside your body; is what you think about what is going on inside your body. Instead of worrying about sweaty palms or heart palpitations when you feel them, you can tell yourself that these are completely normal sensations.

These are your body's way of preparing you for an important event. It's a matter of trusting that your body is on your side, even if it does send strong signals occasionally. (…)

For the reassessment exercise, ask yourself:

• Is this sensation inherently good or bad?
• What do I usually think of when I feel this way?
• What is my body trying to tell me? (…)

Pausing between sensation and mood 

Then, take a step back and notice how you think about the relationship between your emotions and your bodily state. You can think of emotions as mental reactions to events in your life, which trigger a response in your body. Someone says something that makes you angry and your mood becomes 'angry', followed by a feeling of anger in your body. (…)

While your feelings are always true to you, they don't always reflect what's right for the situation. Being able to bridge the gap between response and reality is crucial because you will change your behavior (and therefore your reality) to what you believe is the state of things.”

Practice social sensation

It's one thing to develop a trusting relationship with your body at home, specifically; He says doing this in a social setting is something else entirely:

• How does your body feel when talking to someone else compared to being on your own?
• Are there people who make your body feel calm with their presence?
• Or what causes discomfort?
• Get to know your 'social body' so you can use it as a guide.

As internal perception specialist and psychologist Andrew J. Arnold and colleague neuroscientist Karen Dobkins say, Awareness of inner perception is necessary, but not sufficient, for high-quality social bonding, particularly in socially challenging situations.

Mindfulness must switch moment-to-moment between internal and external experiences so that they can be integrated for adaptive learning in social situations.

Arnold and Dobkins call this the careful transition. The better you are at changing, the sooner you learn what internal and external cues mean in relation to each other, which can help you manage your relationships.” (…)

Keep a diary of your inner perceptions

Finally, the author suggests keeping a record of bodily experiences so that you can refer to it later and understand your inner perception patterns:

Record emotions, decisions, and other behaviors. 

Focus on describing each feeling in as much detail as possible. 

Did you feel it for the first time? 

When did you feel before? 

What happened when you felt? 

You can keep these notes monthly, weekly or daily, but it's best to do so as soon as possible after each experience, while it's still fresh in your mind. (…)”