Are you listening to
your body when it tells you what it needs? Because if you’re not, it will find
a way to reach you – and you probably won’t like it when it does.
Here’s what recently happened
to my friend. She does very long hours, often long into the night, and admits she doesn’t really understand the meaning
of the word ‘rest’. For months her body had been giving her cues that her stress levels were out of control, but she kept on going. So her body found a way to reach her that she could not
ignore.
Last week the poor thing fell
over in the most ridiculously freak-accident way – and got a concussion. She
went to work the next day – but felt so dizzy she had to go home. The next day
she could barely get out of bed. The following day she went to work and had
to come home because her head was throbbing. On the weekend she went to brunch
with a friend and had to get her friend to drive her car home as she was too
exhausted. Having had a concussion myself, I know how frustrating this can be – and that it takes a really long time to get back to normal functioning.
Look, accidents
happen – and I wouldn’t recommend going looking for a reason when they do. But
in this case I can’t help but wonder if her body and the Universe have
conspired to get her to give it what she so desperately needs – rest, and a lot
of it.
What I’m getting at
here is there’s only so long you can go on running yourself ragged. Your body
cannot sustain an exhaustive pace forever, so unless you give it regular
time-outs, it will short out in some way. In the modern age where busyness is a religion, we like to think we can do so much
more than what we have physical capacity for – our brains are writing out
cheques that our bodies can’t cash, I guess you could say. This is why
people get sick as soon as they go on holiday. This is also why people get colds
and coughs that linger for weeks at a time, then return a month later –
because they didn’t stop and let the illness take its course, allowing their immunity to build back up. Instead they took Codral and kept turning up to work.
Maybe my friend’s
accident is purely bad luck, but I don’t really believe in luck and the angels
have taught me there’s no such thing as coincidence. But regardless of the cause,
my friend is benefiting hugely from this enforced period of rest, as frustrating
as it is.
When your body tells
you to stop, it’s a good idea to listen – before it *makes* you listen.