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Episode 64: 7 Tips To Increase Body Awareness

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This episode of the podcast helps you understand the benefits and challenges of building body awareness, with some tips on how to get started.

Body awareness is the first pillar of Body Intelligence. It is the foundation of all healthy habits. 

It is a simple yet powerful tool that is easily overlooked or pushed down your priority list.

What is Body Awareness?

Body awareness is simply paying attention to the signals that your body gives you. It’s another way of talking about mindfulness but in relation to your body.

And I want to talk about a few examples so that you really understand what it might involve. Here might be a typical day and where body awareness fits in.

Let’s say you wake up in the morning and the first thing you notice is that you have pretty dry, sleepy eyes so you rub your eyes to get to sleep out of them.

And then you realise you’re a bit thirsty maybe you had your mouth open last night so you have a drink of water because your body has told you that your mouth is dry and you’re attending to that need. 

Next you notice your stomach growling and you feel a sense of hunger so it’s time to have something that you know will sustain you for the morning.

All is good so far, but as soon as you realise that you need to get on with getting to work, your focus shifts to other things and your body’s gentle, subtle signals get lost in the noise.

Having worked with my Habitology members this month, we’ve discussed some interesting things that we’ve all noticed.

One realised that she just needed to take breaks to eat more often.

Another discovered that she had been pushing herself too hard and ignoring the signals.

One noticed how calm she has been feeling.

Another noticed how much more clarity she has because it’s caused her to slow down.

I noticed that when I drink water late in the afternoon, my stomach is settled and I wake up more energized the next day.

Can you see a trend here?

The Benefits of Building Body Awareness

As you can see the main benefit of building body awareness seems to be that being aware means that you will more likely take action to attend your needs better.

But what of that? Why is that important?

That’s actually where the real gold nuggets lie – in the benefits of being aware enough to commit to taking action.

  • You squash imposter syndrome

If you think about it, the first benefit for you if you’re a coach is that you truly feel like a role model for your clients. 

When I ask coaches I’m working with what their number 1 struggle in business is, they say that it’s maintaining emotional balance. 

They say that inadequate self care is a recipe for catastrophizing, judgement, fear, anxiety and lying awake at night ruminating.  All that can be largely avoided or at least tamed with some body awareness.

  • Freeing up creative thinking

What was (not so) surprising was that self-care reduces stress and anxiety, so you have more space for creative thinking.

And let’s face it, business is largely creative, and stress is the opposite of creativity. A little awareness can be a game changer in this regard. 

  • More healthy choices, more often

Being body aware means you’re noticing whether you’re moving enough and eating for hunger rather than boredom or stress. It means smarter alcohol, coffee and chocolate consumption.

I’m sure the cumulative benefits of those things are pretty clear – a healthier, calmer body and brain that ages well, has more energy and maintains a healthy weight.

There are many more benefits, but these are enough to start with and their big, juicy benefits.

How would YOU feel if you could achieve even just ONE of these four benefits?

The Challenges of Building Body Awareness

The main challenge around building body awareness is that you have an existing pattern of being distracted by other things – it’s easy to shift your attention away from your inner signals and to lose focus.

You may also be in the habit of convincing yourself that something else is more important than attending to your body’s needs in the moment – without stopping to think about the bigger impacts and consequences of this decision.

But the great news I want to share with you is that these two things are just HABITS.

They’re thinking habits you have, and you can unlearn them.

You can rewire them.

When you go back and think big picture about the benefits of using your BA on a daily basis, then it’s a no brainer to do some simple, menial tasks to rewire your thinking and get back onto the BA bandwagon.

Seven Tips for Building Body Awareness

Here are some tips to help you build body awareness, so that you can live more of your life, be more productive and feel happier and healthier.

I suggest you create a simple schedule around these things and use reminders to start building these new habits to improve your BA over time.

Tip 1 – schedule 5 minutes in the middle of the day to write down 3 negative thoughts you’ve had and rewrite them as facts.  

Tip 2 – set an alarm to do a body scan at morning tea, afternoon tea and after dinner to notice how your body is feeling.

Tip 3 – set a reminder or diarise a check in with how you feel emotionally at 1pm – good or bad, reflect on the possible influences and decide what you might have done more or less of to influence that result. 

Tip 4 – write in a journal four mornings or nights per week before bed – even a few lines is enough.

Tip 5 – work with a coach to speak out loud about your body awareness and set individual goals.

Tip 6 – meditate 1 – 5 times per week using an app like Headspace if you need assistance.

Tip 7 – use mindfulness each day to bring your awareness to your five senses – choose a random moment to notice what you see, hear, smell, taste, feel and sense.

Body awareness is simply paying attention to the signals that your body gives you. It’s another way of talking about mindfulness but in relation to your body.

Summary

Body awareness is a simple yet powerful tool that is easily overlooked or pushed down your priority list.

But if you use 1 – 3 practices each week to raise your BA, it’s highly likely that you will sleep better, have less anxiety, eat more healthily, feel calmer, feel like a good role model, have clearer thinking, feel more empowered and in control, and make better, more rational decisions in your life.

If you would like to talk to a coach about raising your BA, go to the contact page at www.melaniejwhite.com now and fill in the form.

Ready to improve your body awareness?

You can live more of your life, be more productive and feel happier and healthier. If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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Episode 62: Intuitive Eating 101

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You might have heard recently about intuitive eating. If you’re wondering what it is and what the benefits are, stay tuned, because that’s what this episode is all about.

Before you listen to this, I recommend you listen to the previous episode #61, where I discussed Body Intelligence or BQ.

Intuitive eating is a type of Body Awareness, which is the first pillar of BQ (body intelligence).

Intuitive eating is a concept that was developed by Evelyn Tribole, a dietician and counsellor, and Elyse Resche, a nutritionist.

They define intuitive eating as:

“a personal process of honoring health by listening and responding to the direct messages of the body in order to meet your physical and psychological needs.”

It is a self-care eating framework, which integrates instinct, emotion, and rational thought, and the authors of this approach call it ‘weight neutral’. 

The idea is to trust and use your inner signals, both mental and physical, as a guide for what to eat, how much to eat, and when.

I wanted to speak about this because it’s so close to my heart and it’s a big part of the Metabolic Typing process that I was trained in and use with many hundreds of my clients.

An End to Dieting Mentality

Intuitive Eating proposes an end to the dieting mentality – but what does this actually mean?

I had a bit of internal conflict around the idea of dieting and not dieting for some time, and after some reflection I got clear on my position around this.

Firstly, I believe that there are circumstances where it makes sense for some people to follow specific diets.

Here are some examples of this:

  1. Many overweight people have fatty liver and dysregulated insulin. In this case, a short period of low carb eating might be required to regain insulin sensitivity and to get rid of cravings sooner.
  2. Some people develop temporary intolerances to certain foods – and this can happen in periods of intense stress or if you eat too much of a certain food, or if your immune system is triggered – so in this case it makes sense to follow a low-stress diet for a short period to allow the body to recover from its inflammatory/reactive state.
  3. People with gut health issues might need to temporarily or permanently be on a specific ‘diet’, such as a FODMAPS diet, or a high fibre diet or a diet for Crohn’s or celiac disease, for example.
  4. People with a chronic lifestyle disease may need to follow a specific type of diet to manage their symptoms or condition, such as diabetes, heart disease etc.

The idea is to trust and use your inner signals, both mental and physical, as a guide for what to eat, how much to eat, and when.

What I’m saying is this – in certain situations, some people DO need to have a certain mentality around what they do or don’t eat, because it may affect their wellbeing.

That aside, if we look at what the word diet means, it’s simply the kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.

So to be clear, what we’re talking about with Intuitive Eating is that we are aiming to stop being obsessed by food and eating habits, to stop unnecessarily restricting ourselves, and to stop having negative or harmful thoughts around food or our bodies.

The 10 Principles of Intuitive Eating

Let’s explore the 10 principles of Intuitive Eating.

1. Reject the diet mentality

This principle is about ignoring the quick fix marketing and solutions we are sold, and the promise that the next diet will work and solve all your problems.

The truth is, when we rely on someone else for the answer, we give them our power. And in actual fact, your body is designed to give you all the signals you need to eat  in a way that nourishes and supports good health. It’s our in-built survival mechanism

2. Honour your hunger

Leading on from the first point, we must learn to recognise true hunger and to give your body enough of the right kinds of food.  

Our bodies use carbs and fat for fuel, and can also use protein if the other fuel sources are not available. We need to trust that our bodies will tell us when we are truly hungry and give them a balanced die.

3. Make peace with food

Food is not a reward or a punishment. Restricting is a sure fire recipe for creating guilt, binges and uncontrollable cravings. 

It’s important that we allow ourselves to eat healthily in a way that supports our bodies and minds and to use self-compassion when we feel urges.

4. Challenge the food police

There is no good or bad food. There is no forbidden food or treat food. There is no need to do calorie accounting. Applying these labels and this intense scrutiny creates guilt, judgement and self-loathing.

In actual fact, there is just food, and it is a fuel. Thinking this way about food, without any labels can help you to make peace and eliminate the negative thoughts and feelings about it.

5. Respect your fullness

Our bodies tell us when we’ve had enough to eat. When we make the time and space to notice these signals, we will naturally stop eating.

Mindfulness is a tool that can help us observe this simple and powerful signal.

6. Discover the satisfaction factor

Rather than busily scoffing our meal or feeling wanting for something else, we can enjoy eating and feel satisfied with our eating by simply paying attention to our food and the experience of eating it.

When you truly experience the process of eating – the texture, colours, flavours and smells – then it’s much easier to feel satisfied.

7. Honour your feelings without using food

Some of us have been conditioned to reach for food when we’re anxious, lonely, bored, stressed, angry or sad.  

But food won’t solve the problem and may make things words, by throwing feelings of guilt into the mix. 

There are healthier ways to manage your mind and your emotions and you can use those processes to replace food and honour your feelings, so that you can sit with them and let them go in a healthy way.

8. Respect your body

A lot of people think that a healthy body must look a certain way. The reality is, as I learned in my Metabolic Typing qualification, we are all different sizes and shapes and, we are biochemically unique on the inside.

Our physical bodies are adapted to different climates – cold climates, mountainous climates, hot climates.

Our biochemistry is adapted to the available food sources that are in those local environments. 

Respecting your body starts with recognising that your natural shape and size gives you unique strengths and skills, and by fueling your body with the right foods for YOUR body type.

9. Exercise and feel the difference

Further to this, each person does best with a different type of exercise. Your physiology gives clues as to which exercise might work better for you – but also consider your levels of stress, your stage of life and what you like to do.

If you’re only exercising to lose weight then you’re missing out on a wealth of other benefits like stress management, endorphins, strength, flexibility, agility, stamina and mobility.

Look for other motivators or goals around exercise and you’ll quickly learn to love it. 

10. Honour your health

Finally, nobody has a perfect diet. One meal won’t throw your entire life off track. Rather, choose foods that help your body to feel strong, clear, capable and well.

If you choose foods that create these feelings most of the time, it will make healthy eating so much easier, and you’ll be able to turn it into a habit that you love.

Summary

To wrap things up, you can see that the principles of intuitive eating are about body awareness, body knowledge and then body engagement – they are intrinsically tied with the principles of BQ, as discussed in episode 60 of this podcast.

Choose foods that help your body to feel strong, clear, capable and well.

The skills and tools that help you become an intuitive eating are mindfulness, thought watching and thought change modelling.

Changing your relationship with food is about more than just making a plan and doing it – it also means unravelling your old mental patterns and beliefs so that you can let go of past behaviours, and start taking positive actions in the right direction.

For assistance with intuitive eating, visit melaniejwhite.com/contact page.

Ready to learn more about intuitive eating?

Changing your relationship with food can be the start of a whole new relationship with yourself. If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

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Episode 61: What is your body intelligence?

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How to use BQ to attend to eat well, exercise regularly, get enough sleep and manage your emotions so you can feel calm, energized, stable and resilient.

This episode defines what BQ is and it helps you discover what your own body intelligence score is. It is based on the work of Jim Gavin from Concordia University in Montreal and Margaret Moore in 2016 and it’s something I’ve been studying recently as part of my professional development.

You’ve probably heard of social intelligence – how well you handle social interactions – and emotional intelligence – how well you handle your emotions. 

Body intelligence is therefore how well you manage your body.

Why is it important?

Well, if you have enough BQ, then you will be able to notice and attend to your physical and mental needs.

It nudges you toward vitality, health, and consistent healthy habits. It means you eat healthily, exercise regularly, get enough sleep, and manage your emotions so you can feel calm, stable and resilient.

In other words, BQ is the foundation of your wellbeing and your ability to look after yourself properly and adequately in all areas.

The Pillars of BQ

Every time you start a new habit or upgrade an old one, you are using BQ – body intelligence.

Whether it’s exercising more regularly, reframing your inner critic, saying no to the third biscuit or switching off your computer consistently at 5pm, BQ is the basis of these habits.

To be able to make these decisions and perform these actions, you are using the three pillars of BQ.

These are:

  1.     how aware you are of your body (body awareness),
  2.     what you know about your body (body knowledge), and
  3.     what you do for and with your body (body engagement).

To have BQ, you need to have adequate capacity in all of these pillars. They work together, integrating 

As you could imagine, BQ is central to the work of fitness and wellness professionals, as well as to your self-care.

So right now I want to run you through these pillars briefly and then give you the quiz at the end to help you rate your level of BQ.

Before we start, the rating scale that Gavin and Moore assigned to each of these pillars is: 

  1. deficient, which means you lack skill or attention in that area.
  2. sufficient, which means you have adequate skill or attention in that area, and
  3. evolutionary, which means you have a keen awareness, knowledge and practice, working in flow with your body and mind.

Ok, with that in mind, let’s talk about the pillars.

Pillar 1 is Body Awareness

Awareness is about being tuned into your body and its signals. 

If you have high body awareness, it means that you are aware of how and when your body “speaks” to you and what it is telling you – and you listen to it and honour it. 

A lot of people have physical sensations that they ignore and hope will go away. This invariably leads to injury or stress, because we have ignored an important need.

If you have high body awareness, it means that you are aware of how and when your body “speaks” to you and what it is telling you – and you listen to it and honour it. 

Compare that with someone who has high body awareness – they listen to what their body is telling them and they make adjustments in the moment.

For example, you’ve eaten a chocolate biscuit with your cup of tea and you notice it gave you a sugar rush. It doesn’t feel too good. On that basis, you say no to the second biscuit.

Or perhaps you feel a deadline looming at work, so your brain is telling you to ‘push on’ and finish it, even if you have to stay a little late. However, you notice that your neck is sore, your eyes are starting to burn and your brain is feeling a bit fried. 

You park the work for tomorrow and shut your computer off, knowing that you’ll be better off going home now and finalising this when you are fresh and have renewed your energy and resilience. 

As you can see, the greater your body awareness, the more you are in control of bodily outcomes. 

The awareness you need is at two levels – the gross sensations like muscle soreness, and the subtle sensations like the awareness that your energy is flagging.

The skills you need for body awareness are therefore mindfulness, reflection, and also, the ability to experiment and learn from your experiences. 

To rate your body awareness, ask yourself:

  1.   When does my body feel good, and why is that? 
  2.   When does my body feel not so good, and why is that? 
  3.   What are the best and worst I have ever felt physically? How or why did this happen?
  4.   How do I know something is wrong with my body – what are the signals I get? 
  5.   What proportion of the time do I consciously notice and act on those signals?

If you could answer all of these questions clearly and definitively, and if you answered positively to question 5, then your body awareness is probably pretty good.

Right now, give yourself a point for each question you answered immediately, easily and positively.

If you scored 0 – 2, then you are probably deficient in this area.

If you scored 3 – 4, then you are probably sufficient in this area.

If you scored 5, then you are probably evolutionary in this area.

Pillar 2 is Body Knowledge

Body knowledge is partly our knowledge of what to do (e.g. accepted standards for healthy living and a healthy body).

The other part is our intrinsic knowledge of what we as individuals need to do to feel or function better.

How many of us knowingly do things that are unhealthy?

Why do we do this to ourselves?

You (or your client) might say things like, “I know I need to exercise more often, but I never seem to find the time.”

This indicates knowledge of both what to do and what’s stopping you from doing it.

Body knowledge is much like what scientists call “health literacy.”

It includes knowledge of recognised standards, your own personal markers for health such as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol etc, as well as your own knowledge of what your body needs to be healthy, vital, and to engage in healthy habits.

To rate your body knowledge, ask yourself:

  1.   What do I think I have to know about my body to take good care of it?
  2.   What is my pattern of checking in with health professionals for checkups, issues, or concerns?
  3.   What do I know about healthy lifestyle habits?
  4.   What is my personal formula for healthy eating, regular exercise, adequate sleep, sufficient recharge, building energy and mental resilience, and weight management? 
  5.   How healthy is my relationship to alcohol, drugs, cigarettes, caffeine, and other addictive substances?

If you could answer all of these questions clearly and definitively, and if you answered positively to question 5, then your body knowledge is probably pretty good.

Right now, give yourself a point for each question you answered immediately, easily and positively.

If you scored 0 – 2, then you are probably deficient in this area.

If you scored 3 – 4, then you are probably sufficient in this area.

If you scored 5, then you are probably evolutionary in this area.

Pillar 3 is Body Engagement

Even when you have adequate or high levels of body awareness and knowledge, engagement may not come easily. 

This is where the rubber hits the road. 

Engagement is about doing the best thing repeatedly until it is a habit that you are tuned into and in flow with. It means you are committed to taking intelligent action based on what you need at this point in your life. 

It’s about how you configure your life so that your body fully supports your work in the world.

Habits are hard to break and build and that is why the industry of professional health and wellness coaching is being developed. 

If you want to make lasting change, you need a solid foundation of self-motivation and self-efficacy so that you can stretch beyond your comfort zone and experimenting with new habits, in a curious and non-judgemental way. 

And, with enough focus and persistence to make change stick.

If you want to form a new habit, you need to do certain things regularly in a way that integrates awareness, knowledge and action. 

To rate your body engagement, ask yourself:

  1.   What habits do you engage in consistently that make your body feel better?
  2.   How do you experiment when you are developing a new habit?
  3.   What works best for you when you are developing a new habit, for example your approach to setting goals and experimenting?
  4.   What life factors help you engage more consistently in a healthy lifestyle?
  5.   What new habits do you want to develop as your next step?

If you could answer all of these questions clearly and definitively, and if you answered positively to question 5, then your body engagement is probably pretty good.

Right now, give yourself a point for each question you answered immediately, easily and positively.

If you scored 0 – 2, then you are probably deficient in this area.

If you scored 3 – 4, then you are probably sufficient in this area.

If you scored 5, then you are probably evolutionary in this area.

Analysing your score

Reflect on what you scored for the Awareness pillar, the Knowledge pillar and the Engagement pillar.

If you are at least sufficient in all three, then you are likely the type of person who can tune in to their needs, knows what to do to meet those needs, and can do that consistently.

If you are deficient in awareness, then thought watching, journaling and mindfulness are three tools you can use to build your awareness. 

You would need to schedule at least one of these in for a few minutes every day or every other day, as a regular practice, to build awareness.

If you are deficient in knowledge, then doing a course, attending a webinar or reflecting on what has worked for you before are three tools you can use to build your knowledge.

Once again, you would need to schedule these activities in to gain knowledge.

If you are deficient in engagement, then getting support and accountability, reflecting on your success and finding ways to get into flow with your wellbeing habits will help you to be more consistent and engaged with those habits.

Working with a health and wellness coach can help you fit new habits into your existing lifestyle, and get the accountability you need to succeed.

Summary

Being consistent with your habits starts with your awareness of what your body is telling you.

It means you will treat yourself with more respect because you’ll be honouring your body’s needs and taking better care of yourself.

Being consistent with your habits starts with your awareness of what your body is telling you. 

Then, if you know what to do and can find a way to enjoy do it consistently, you will raise your BQ and live a more vital, energized, engaged and happy life.

You will build resilience and each day will feel easier.

You will enjoy emotional wellbeing, balance, resilience, energy and joy.

If you need help to find a health and wellness coach to work with, or would like help in a membership setting, visit www.melaniejwhite.com and fill out the contact form. I have access to coaches with specialist skills who may be a good fit for you.

Ready to get the accountability you need to succeed?

Working with a health and wellness coach can help you fit new habits into your existing lifestyle! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.

Learn more here:

Learn More