Our body is talking to us, for many screaming at us to listen. It gives us continual clues trying to get our attention.  We can feel butterflies in the stomach, hear ringing in our ears and see the hair standing up on our arm, but may not tune in to understand what it means.

More often than not we tune out because we don’t want to hear. We are all born with this innate ability to know what our body is telling us, but over time we quit trusting what we hear.

Exercise presents a great opportunity to listen to your body and to tune in to all it is trying to tell you. You can learn to listen to your body again through your exercise routine.

Breathing Develops Body Awareness

Focusing on breathing quiets the mind and relaxes the body.  When the mind isn’t racing through the day’s experiences it can focus on listening. Breathing through the nose and deep into the diaphragm redirects the thought process and brings a different state of communication in the body.  Feeling the flow of the breath brings a heightened sense of awareness giving you the chance to let go and be present.

Routine Develops Peace and Calm

A five-minute warm up sets the stage for the upcoming exercise expedition.  Take this time to focus inward and see what your body is experiencing.  Any tightness can be released through stretching and breathing, freeing the flow of energy.  When an exercise regime is performed at a set time of the day the body anticipates the release, making the activity more effective and efficient. As you develop this practice the body will more quickly get to a point of relaxation and focus, setting the stage for a creative experience.

Daydreaming Develops Thought Patterns

Free-flowing thoughts during exercise help let go of preconceived ideas and leads to creative problem solving.  it is important, as negative ideas come through, to release them and not  allow them to hang out in your thought process for long.  Developing a positive flow of thoughts leads to positive feelings of self-worth and self-efficacy.

Journaling Develops Clarity and Insight

A training log is a great tool to bring awareness to items that affect the body’s performance such as diet, sleep patterns and environmental factors. We all have days where we feel we can literally bust out with the performance of our lives and days where we have nothing in the tank.  Writing down the circumstances surrounding these experiences helps clue us in to signals the body is sending.  What’s interesting to learn is how various stimuli affect the body and seeing how the results may last for minutes, hours or days.

Recovery Develops Health and Wellness

Wellness comes not only from exercise, but also from the rest required to recover.  Learning to listen to your body teaches you when you need time for rest and rehabilitation, physically, mentally and spiritually.  The body will protect itself and knows how to compensate for injury.  This compensation creates imbalance in the body leading to a cycle of injury and recovery. Repeated healing cycles can weaken the body and requires more effort to restart the process of regaining health.

The body begins its process of communicating with tightness and restriction of movement.  Restriction reduces blood flow and the delivery of nutrients necessary for health and energy. Ignoring this tightness often leads to twinges, followed by bouts of pain and when all of these pre-emptive signals are ignored, you may ultimately be dealing with an injury.  Stay on the road of health and wellness by steering your attention to the language spoken within.  Tune into your body and trust again in nature’s way of delivering messages.

Angela Ewari, owner of Running Yogini, is a certified running coach and yoga trainer in Denver, Colorado. Follow Angela on Twitter: http://twitter.com/running_yogini

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