How to effectively ignore the fact that you have a body.

This is going to be one of those "do as I say, not as I do" posts. (Just ignore the fact that it took me 2 weeks to finish it)

It's month end.  As I write this, I really should be finishing up my billing for the month so that I can get it out in the mail tomorrow.  Instead, I'm reflecting on what a crazy week it's been and how tired I am.  I worked late last night, you see.  My choice - I own it.  I had a couple in my office who was really in the thick of doing some great work and my last session ran long.  I love those sessions.  After that, I started working on billing.  Long story short, I haven't gotten enough sleep over the last few days and my body was quite assertive this morning about letting me know all the ways that's not ok. 

As usual, animals do a better job.  When they are
tired, they sleep.  Go figure. 

Bodies do that, you know.  They're designed to give us the heads up that we're running on empty.  Ideally, we would listen to this alert, and get some rest, but NOOOOOOO.  What do we do?  Keep going.  Going harder most of the time.  So even with my years of clinical experience, and practice paying attention to and (mostly) respecting what my body tells me, my first reaction to my gritty eyes and heavy eyelids this morning was "I wonder if they make some kind of drops that make your eyes not feel tired??"  Then I chuckled at how my first reaction is to find some way to ignore my body so that I can keep going. 

That's what medications are about, by and large.  We take Sudafed so we don't have to feel the symptoms of our cold.  We take Advil so we can ignore pain and inflamation.  We take Tylenol to reduce fever . . . even though fever often has a very important function in fighting off illness.  We pride ourselves on getting to work when we feel awful.  A couple of years ago I took my daughter in to the doctor with a nasty sinus infection.  She had had a cold.  But for 2 weeks, she'd been coughing all night and running around with dark circles under her eyes.  Yep, he said.  It's a sinus infection all right.  I WENT to the doctor because I was ready to circumvent nature and use Western medicine.  I would rather have had my daughter stay home from school, rest a lot, drink fluids and let her body heal.  Unfortunately, the public school system does not seem to share that opinion.  And so, I sought antibiotics.  Imagine my surprise when I was told that "we don't treat sinus infections with antibiotics."  I agreed.  And I asked for a note excusing my daughter from school and schoolwork for the length of time she would need to let her body rest and heal because I was unwilling to continue to ask her to go to school looking like something out of "Night of the Living Dead."  I got the prescription. 

Antidepressants?  Anti-anxiety medications?  Same thing in my book.  They allow us to ignore the messages our body sends about needing to develop better coping skills, find better life balance, and deal with "negative" emotions.  That being said, we have to live in the world we're in.  Jobs don't respond well to a request for time off to regain life balance.  That happens in other countries better than it does here. 

So while we may choose to seek "better living through chemistry," it's important not to lose sight of what we are doing.  The more you learn about how your brain and body work, the more able you are to take "symptoms" as information and address the root cause rather than continuously have to mask symptoms and keep going until our bodies give out and we finally HAVE to listen.  Of course by that point the problem is bigger and takes longer to fix. 

LISTEN to your body.  Regularly, but especially when you're feeling symptoms, sleep. eat well, drink a lot of water.  If you have to turn to something outside your body to get through a tough time, do it.  Don't lose your job or relationships because you can't function.  Don't fight taking an antidepressant on principle, but don't get dependent on it either because sooner or later, your stress level exceeds your medication's ability to cope too. Use medication to function until the crisis resolves, and then build coping skills and self-care to keep from getting back to that place again.


Take home message?  Early identification and attention to the information our bodies are happy to give us without fear or the need to label emotional experience as "WEAK" or "CRAZY" leads to overall better functioning and a less crisis-oriented band-aid approach to treatment! 
(might this apply to government too???  ponder.)