This week’s Thrive in Five is about listening to the signals from your mind and body
This is week three of our Thrive and Five series on the Cadence Approach™. So in week one, if you go back a couple of weeks, we talked about what is the Cadence Approach™? And how does that concept work? Last week, we talked about recovery and I made the point that I think most people aren’t necessarily doing too much, most of the time. That we’re just under recovered most of the time.
I left you with the question of what you could do for recovery? And then how you could pepper your diary with that.
Getting tuned in
This week it’s linked to that idea. What an athlete will also be very good at is detecting the signals. Listening to the signals and being open to receiving the messages that they are sent about how their mind and body is feeling. An athlete who performs at the very elite level, or even below that is going to need to be very tuned into their body.
What’s their body say? What does it need? How can they adapt and tweak and modify their training to take into account what those signals are saying?
Start receiving and listening to the signals
So this week is all about being open to receiving those signals, making sure you are really listening to the signals. So things like tiredness, low back pain, headaches, aching body, aching joints, a dissatisfaction with what you’re doing. Perhaps you’re not getting any joy, or anhedonia the loss of pleasure, with things you’d ordinarily find pleasurable. Boredom is another signal, all of these types of things are important to listen to. Plus some of the other signs of burnout, like external signs of irritation and anger or internal signs, like feelings of isolation, depression and so on.
A cultural shift to stop ignoring the signals
All of those are signals, but I think we’ve got really good at ignoring them. In our quest to power on, charge on, be a trojan, keep on working. Things that we celebrate in certain cultures like the city actually just educate us and motivate us to ignore those signals.
We shouldn’t do that, not if we want to prevent burnout.
This weeks challenge
So my challenge to you is just to have an open mind over the next couple of weeks. What signals is your body sending? There’ll be times when you’re just going to have to ignore that. If the signal your body is sending is ‘stay in bed’, but the kids need to go to school and you have a big presentation. Maybe on that occasion, you’ve got to push on through. But don’t ignore the signal afterwards, put in some slivers of recovery for the rest of the day. Go to bed a little earlier, have a good quality meal, get hydrated. Do something that you love at the end of the day that’s for you. Even if it’s five minutes with a book or 10 minutes daydreaming in the garden, enjoying the sunset, do something for you.
Tune in to those signals, just start to become aware of what your mind or body is telling you. Because that’s another step towards optimum health and wellbeing. Which helps you to beat burnout, helps you to have a longer, healthier life, be energised and stay in love with life as well so that you don’t get dispassionate about things.
So I hope that series has been helpful. What is the Cadence Approach™, more about recovery, and then this week listening to the signals. As always I welcome your feedback. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Share these videos with anyone who needs to watch them and get this message. And apart from that, stay healthy, all the very best for now.
