It's quite interesting - the way we have evolved as a society has completely broken the link between "us and our body". We have stopped listening to it a long time ago. If we really listened to our bodies, we wouldn't eat/drink/consume stuff we don't need, we wouldn't be overweight, and we'd rapidly be aware of any health-related imbalance which needs restoring.
But no, we forget our original (and free-of-charge) way of functioning and desperately turn to commercial and unnatural solutions.
As a start, I recommend looking into the mindful meditation technique, championed by pioneers like John Kabat-Zinn.
If I really listen to my body it's telling me to eat and drink everything I can get my hands on. That's what it's programmed to do. What you're trying to say is that the more primal cravings should be ignored and we should be very conscious of what we eat / drink / do.
Body still tells me to sit in a couch and eat myself to an early death though.
If your body appears to be telling you that it is probably because there is something wrong with the way you’re living your life.
Now, you can wait until you’re on your death bed before you realise it, or you can pay attention to this signal your body is giving you right now that something needs to change in your life. The latter is too terrifying to consider for most people, and the former feels quite distant, so most people just carry on as “normal” with their mostly dysfunctional lives.
Listening do your body doesn’t mean acting on every impulse you feel. If I feel like smashing something, that doesn’t mean I need to immediately do it. But it is wise to ask myself, why do I feel this? Am I angry? Why am I angry? What just happened that cause this reaction in me? What clarity can this anger bring me? Should I do something about it?
The same for your body’s signals. Why do you feel like this? What has caused this unhealthy craving? Your hypothesis that this is an evolutionary pressure is interesting but easily disproved by speaking to a wide cross section of people with balanced lifestyles who don’t seem to be perpetually driven by cravings to eat everything in sight. Are they fundamentally different from you? Probably not. So what is different about the choices you make each day that lead you to live in a constant state of craving food and drink, rathet than a more balanced state of being?
Those are important but tough questions. Most people don’t bother.
Hypertension presents no symptoms and left undiagnosed can lead to kidney failure. It's often referred to by doctors as 'the silent killer', and you don't need to eat like shit and be fat to have it.
Going to your GP 2-3 times a year and getting your blood pressure checked (and your blood tested for the 'regular stuff') solves the problem. 'Listening to your body' pseudoscience doesn't really solve the problem.
Meditation isn't "listening to your body" BS, it's a discipline that needs to be taught and practiced and developed as a skill. You can't just sit, close your eyes and try it on your own. And there are actual studies [1][2] that show the benefits (particularly related to stress and blood pressure), so not exactly pseudoscience either. It isn't particularly difficult to learn to recognize the feeling of different blood pressures in the body during meditation and develop some measure of conscious control over it.
GP is absolutely right that we're a society that has taught ourselves to tune out important signals from the body. If we can unlearn that and better attune ourselves to the relevant sensations in the body, we'd be a lot healthier.
When I had a medical test for my Australian permanent residency - full thorax x-ray, HIV test, the works - I asked the doctor doing the final once-over if "a routine checkup" is something I should be doing.
He asked me how old I was. 30-ish, at the time. He asked me if I felt healthy. Yep.
Pretty sure it's an American thing, the idea that you need several checkups a year as if you were a car that constantly needs maintenance, and we can debate forever why that is (my bet is money). It doesn't seem to happen in countries with socialized healthcare where care is distributed accordning to criticality and population risk rather than what generates the most revenue. If you're in your 20's or 30's the odds of you being affected by something are miniscule. It doesn't hurt to get a checkup every few years I guess, but several times a year is ridiculous.
Exactly; no need to pressure an already overworked health care system with a "what if". Especially when you can check a lot of basic things yourself with e.g. a smartwatch, as this article suggests. I'm fairly sure an at-home BP measuring thing isn't too expensive either.
Or don't do it, maybe you'll develop cancer and not find out until it's too late!
EDIT: It's also free to go to the doctors in Australia so at least go once a year and do your routine bloods. Abnormalities can catch things before they progress too far that you have worse outcomes. You're paying for Medicare, use it! :)
The "annual physical" is not evidence based. It might seem to "make sense," however, that's not how science works.
Not only that but there's no such thing as "routine bloods." The reason I say that is because 1) to my knowledge there's no evidence based group that recommends any sort of blood test annually and 2)I have been to many GPs over my lifetime (~10?) and I was well into my 30s until I saw one that ordered routine bloodwork as a matter or course. All the ones before that just listened to my heart, took vitals, felt organs, etc. Then that doctor retired and I her replacement also ordered routine bloodwork. The two doctors differed greatly on which test they considered routine.
>Not too long ago, the “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” mindset changed. It became customary for everyone to have a yearly checkup with a doctor even if they were feeling perfectly well. The doctor would look in your eyes, ears and mouth, listen to your heart and lungs with a stethoscope and poke and prod other parts of your anatomy. He would do several routine tests, perhaps a blood count, urinalysis, EKG, chest-x-ray and TB tine test. There was even an “executive physical” based on the concept that more is better if you can afford it. Perhaps the need for maintenance of cars had an influence: the annual physical was analogous to the 30,000 mile checkup on your vehicle. The assumption was that this process would find and fix any problems and insure that any disease process would be detected at an early stage where earlier treatment would improve final outcomes. It would keep your body running like a well-tuned engine and possibly save your life.
>We have gradually come to realize that the routine physical did little or nothing to improve health outcomes and was largely a waste of time and money. Today the emphasis is on identifying factors that can be altered to improve outcomes. We are even seeing articles in the popular press telling the public that no medical group advises annual checkups for healthy adults. If patients see their doctor only when they have symptoms, the doctor can take advantage of those visits to update vaccinations and any indicated screening tests.
>The physical exam of a healthy, asymptomatic adult is unlikely to reveal any significant abnormality (1) that would not have been detected eventually when symptoms developed and (2) whose earlier detection and treatment would reduce morbidity and mortality in the long run.
>A directed physical exam is sometimes indicated in patients with risk factors for specific conditions. A Pap smear is indicated in most women, but not every year, and the accompanying pelvic exam is likely a waste of time.
>For healthy adults between the ages of 18 and 65, The American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) recommends only these components of the traditional physical exam:
>For men, a blood pressure measurement.
>For women, a blood pressure measurement and a periodic Pap smear.
>They have other recommendations including vaccinations, counseling, and screening tests; but none of those require a physical exam.
>There is a general perception, among the public and among doctors, that there’s no such thing as a bad screening test, that early detection is important, that knowing is always better than not knowing. If something is wrong with you, you need to know because, if you find a problem in time, it can be treated effectively to prevent morbidity and mortality. If you get a checkup and everything looks OK, you can breathe a sigh of relief and relax. Unfortunately this is all wrong.
>A recent book explains why: Overdiagnosed: Making People Sick in the Pursuit of Health, by Drs. H. Gilbert Welch, Lisa M. Schwartz, and Steven Woloshin. It’s a comprehensive explanation of how test results make people sick and why visiting a doctor can be hazardous to your health.
>For a healthy, asymptomatic patient, the physical exam with the laying on of hands and stethoscope and other rituals is pretty much meaningless. If nothing is found, it can produce false reassurance. If something is found, it is not likely to prolong the patient’s life and it has a significant likelihood of leading to harm from unnecessary treatment or from a diagnostic cascade of tests, unnecessary surgeries, unnecessary expense, and unnecessary worry.
"Listening to your body" is an un-falsifiable statement, though. What does it mean to listen to your body? If you don't notice anything, are you not listening hard enough?
Genetics can be a factor, so you have to get it checked.
A bloke my sister knows (she's a nurse), was diagnosed with 'hypertension not otherwise specified', at the ripe old age of 31. But they didn't catch it early because he 'felt fine'. He wasn't overweight unhealthy. But he needs new kidneys now!
It's misinformation to say otherwise. I mean, I live in Australia, where you can visit the doctor for free, so it's like, no skin off our back to go and see one once or twice a year.
EDIT: Also, I have hypertension AND sleep apnea. I am overweight. It is most likely the cause, though we do have a history of high blood pressure in the family so until I drop 20% of my weight I'm not going to know for sure. I don't disagree with that you need to look after yourself physically and be glad if you don't have any other illness that ain't your goddamn fault.
> A bloke my sister knows (she's a nurse), was diagnosed with 'hypertension not otherwise specified', at the ripe old age of 31. But they didn't catch it early because he 'felt fine'. He wasn't overweight unhealthy. But he needs new kidneys now!
It's possible that kidney disease caused hypertension in that case. It's pretty much impossible to prove which one came first in many cases. None of this argues in favor or against regular checkups, it was just something I thought was interesting to refer.
I recommend reading Wilber’s Grace and Grit for a more balanced view of “aren’t things like hypertension the result of something”?
Otherwise you might find yourself on a slippery slope where you start implying that cancer sufferers brought it on themselves, etc.
Wilber’s book, about his wife who died of cancer, offers a powerful perspective that’s also grounded in mindfulness and explicitly discusses this topic and how to approach it more sensitively.
Mmmh… The watch tells you to meditate and can even help you do it.
It’s less about “listening to your body” than remind you regularly about obvious things. Some people (like me) can focus quite easily (which is great to write code) but can get lost in their task. I know that I regularly realise that the sun is up when I keep on coding after dinner. That’s eight to ten hours that have gone by without me moving an inch. Having a reminder to go to bed has helped.
But no, we forget our original (and free-of-charge) way of functioning and desperately turn to commercial and unnatural solutions.
As a start, I recommend looking into the mindful meditation technique, championed by pioneers like John Kabat-Zinn.