Expert Advice

Acella Pharmaceuticals, LLC., is partnering with Helene Zahn-Chilberg, MA, LPMHC, LCAS-A to bring greater awareness to the importance of thyroid care and education. This post was sponsored by Acella Pharmaceuticals and should not be construed as medical advice. Please talk to your doctor about your individual medical situation.

Disclaimer: The information provided is for educational purposes only and does not substitute professional medical advice. Consult a medical professional or healthcare provider before beginning any exercise, fitness, diet, or nutrition routine.

We exist in this life in a body. It sounds very straight-forward, but most people walk around never considering this simple fact. Just as our car or vehicle takes us places every day and requires care to continue running, so do our bodies. Our bodies are the vehicles that allow us to be here in the world. If we do not take care of them, just like a car that is neglected, they will break down.

What is the language of your body? Perhaps you have never considered this before. Many people wait until their body is literally screaming with pain or disease before they take steps to listen to it. Most of us never learned the skill of union with our bodies; because you are reading this it’s not too late to do so. Wherever you are on your journey, I encourage you to begin to connect with mindfulness to your body and develop a deeper caring and union with your physical body.

Are you willing to develop a greater relationship to your physical body? What if your wellness, quality of life and healing were directly related to that self-care? Would you be willing to consider making you and this relationship a greater priority?

What would or could this this new relationship with your physical body look like? You might not know. These are all areas that we will explore here. I will be suggesting easy ways to build your relationship with your body. There are certainly infinite ways, and I encourage you to explore.

Here are a few steps to begin:

You may want to keep a small notebook just for you and your observations and growth:

Step 1: Giving Yourself Permission

Permission to be a priority. Permission to take care of yourself as you do others. Permission to be kind to yourself.

Step 2: Willingness to Explore

Try, and you’ll discover new things even if you are not sure what you like or might enjoy. This starts with Step 1 and not judging yourself if you try something new and it is less than what you had hoped. Perhaps take a risk and do it a second time to make sure it wasn’t a self-imposed disappointment caused by not meeting the story you created about how it would be.

Step 3. Learning, Practicing and Integrating New Skills

Know it is a journey – see Step 1 – and let go of perfection (our greatest unkindness to ourselves).

New Skills to Practice to Enhance Your Mind-Body Connection

Skill 1: Listening to Your Body’s Feedback

Take a moment and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths, focusing on the sensation of your breath entering your lungs and abdomen, and then leaving. Take a moment to scan your body from your head to your toes. Where do you notice tension, pain, discomfort, relaxation or ease? What do you notice? Now continue to take deep breaths. Let your focus remain on the inflow and outflow of your breath as you practice conscious breathing. If you get dizzy, open your eyes. Many people have never done conscious deep breathing, so don’t worry if it feels awkward at first. Go at your own pace.

Before you move on, pause and check back in with a body scan. Do you notice any changes in the areas where you originally noticed tension, pain or discomfort? Is there any greater ease in your body? Take a moment when you finish to make notes on what you noticed and the changes you are aware of.

Skill 2: Stress and Tension Check-in

Once you feel that you have the breathing exercise down, start with your body check-in and rate the level of stress or tension you currently notice on a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the most discomfort and one being the least. Then do the above exercise. Before you finish, check in again and notice what has shifted.

Body Awareness to Support Thyroid Health

By practicing these exercises, you can continue to grow your body awareness in new ways. Practice allows for the mind/body system to gain comfort with and memory of the activity. This allows for the activity to build effectiveness in reducing overall stress, and to give you a greater gauge of your body’s feedback. When you expand your awareness and acknowledge what you are aware of, you are aligning with the wealth of data your body is providing you. This acknowledgement creates a much deeper union with your body as a living, breathing sensory system.

In our future articles, we will continue to look at ways to increase mindfulness. We will be discussing:

How to actively engage the parasympathetic system to increase calm and lower stress and anxiety

Ways to prevent burnout and lower stress by creating greater life-balance and self-care

Enhancing quality of life by engaging in activities and relationships that bring you joy

I look forward to continuing to encourage you to grow in your body awareness as you move along your journey toward greater health.