4. Your Body Knows: Reconnecting with Physical Wisdom for True Wellness

In this eye-opening episode of Nourished, Dr. Anikó shares how the body holds the keys to deeper wellness if we learn to listen. Drawing from both personal practice and clinical experience as a double board-certified Integrative Pediatrician and Postpartum Specialist, she explores why tuning into your body’s subtle messages is essential for healing, presence, and lifelong vitality.

Too often, we override hunger, discomfort, fatigue or even joy in the name of productivity or perfection. But our bodies are constantly communicating through sensation, rhythm, and need. In this episde, Dr. Anikó invites us to step out of autopilot and into intentional embodiment.

Whether you're seeking better energy, clarity in your healing journey, or tools to help you become more connected this episode offers a gentle roadmap for returning to what your body already knows.

Episode Highlights:

• Why we’ve stopped listening to our bodies and how to start again
• Simple ways to ground yourself in the present moment
• How mindful eating reveals your body’s true response to food
• The surprising impact of movement, sunlight, water, and rest
• Using body scans and the 5-4-3-2-1 technique to reconnect with your senses
• The link between embodiment and better decision-making around therapy and wellness
• Empowering kids to notice how their bodies feel especially around sugar and screen time
• How to set small reminders that build body awareness throughout the day

Tune in and return to your body because that’s where healing begins.

Connect with Dr. Anikó:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.aniko/

Website: https://www.draniko.com/

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Disclaimer:
The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Anikó  [00:00:00] One of the most powerful things that we can do to enhance our lives and our health and that of our kids and families is to start listening to the wisdom of our bodies. 'cause so often our bodies are sending us all kinds of messages and we are just not listening. We're just not paying attention. In our daily life, it's pretty rare that you're feeling your foot in every step you take, or feeling the seat beneath you when you're sitting down.

And in fact, a lot of times we end up sort of a weird [00:01:00] position in front of our computers or at, you know, our table. And we're not even noticing that our body is uncomfortable because we're just in our heads, we're reading something, we're writing something, we're doing work, and yet sometimes we start to notice our body and notice, oh, that's not comfortable, or, oh, I'm hungry, or something like that.

I think we've all had that experience of realizing because you've been working so much, or maybe drinking a lot of coffee or caffeinated beverages that you haven't eaten all day. And what a strange thing that you just have been ignoring your body's hunger signals, and that's a pretty common experience.

And so plugging back into our bodies is not an easy thing, but it is simple in that it really just requires grounding in and starting to feel your body again. And techniques that I have found to be really helpful for this are things like yoga nidra or a body [00:02:00] scan where you start practicing feeling every part of your body individually and just paying attention.

It's amazing how difficult it can be to do this at the beginning, I promise it gets easier, so don't be discouraged if you have a hard time doing it at the beginning because it really is hard. But once you get the hang of it. It's pretty easy to drop into your body and get out of your head, and once you start noticing that, you start also noticing how your thoughts are just kind of ever present and will take you every which way.

But your body is the constant that grounds you into the present moment. Because at the end of the day, your body is your connection to the present moment. Your body is what allows you to smell a flower, to hug your child, to feel. Grass on your skin to feel sunshine, to taste fruit, to do all of the things that we think about as life, as the present moment to dance, to music, to listen to [00:03:00] music.

All of those things happen through your body, not in your head. Now, that doesn't mean that cerebral work and being in your head is a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. The only time we run into issues with being in your head is when it's so out of balance with how much we're in our bodies. Because our heads can tell us a totally different story that can be antithetical to what our bodies are telling us, but we don't know that unless we start listening to our bodies.

So one easy, and I think fun way to do this, uh, just with yourself or with kids or other friends and family, is to start paying attention. To how you feel before, during and after you eat. It can be really interesting to eat in silence. That's a little bit harder with kids, but they can do it too, and it can be valuable for them.

Actually. It can be very valuable for them. But to start to pay attention to your [00:04:00] hunger signals and start to pay attention to when you're eating. How your body feels when you start eating and when your body stops being hungry, which is a really different thing than being full. And this is a way to sort of get into mindful eating, to just start noticing your body's response to food.

And you can do this at any meal. With any different food and it actually can provide a lot of information when you use different foods. So to see how your body feels after eating bacon and eggs, or while eating bacon and eggs, then see how your body feels eating fresh fruit at different times of the day after different activities.

Just noticing that your body has a response to food and that that may change depending on the day, on the weather, on the time of day, on the activities that you're doing, is really valuable [00:05:00] information, and it can be the beginning of you starting to listen to what your body wants. Rather than just imposing your own schedule and ideas and thoughts about what you should want, what's good to want, what's not good to want on your body because your body has so much wisdom.

I find this to be particularly empowering with kids because even kids that love sugar and crave sugar. Can notice and do, notice how they feel after they eat sugar, right after they eat it. Well, first of all, how they feel before they eat sugar, that they want it. Then they describe how they feel after they eat sugar, while they're eating sugar.

And then if you circle back in 15 to 20 to 30 minutes. They notice how different they feel afterwards, and if they get a stomach ache, that's another great signal for their bodies. Again, we're not saying anything is good or bad. We're just starting [00:06:00] to open those lines of communication between our bodies and our consciousness so that we can act on it.

Right? Our body is giving us messages and a lot of times we're not even. Tuned in enough to pay attention, much less respond to what our bodies are telling us. So as I said, this can start really young. It's actually a really fun thing to do with kids. And you can really do it with anything. So you could do it with movement.

You could say, you know, let's go on a walk. Let's notice how we feel before the walk. Let's notice how our bodies feel while we're on the walk, and really tune into your senses. So again, being in your body is connecting to your five senses. A nice exercise is the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 exercise, which people do use in moments of anxiety to kind of ground yourself into your body.

But I also like to use it to tune into the world around you and tune into your body's experience of the world around you. So for the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 grounding exercise [00:07:00] you notice five things you can see four things you can touch, three things you can hear, two things you can smell, and one thing you can taste.

And that can just be a taste sensation. So it could be what you've just eaten or even. What you've had to drink, or even just the air in your mouth, which has an interesting sort of very, very subtle, sensation and slight flavor, and just doing that helps you connect to your body in the environment that you're in.

So that's the first step is noticing the messages that your body is sending you and not overriding them. What would it be like if you felt a little bit tired during the day and instead of pushing through or having some caffeine, you allowed your body to rest, or you went outside to get some sunshine, or you walked around the block, or even you tried all these three different things [00:08:00] and noticed which one your body responded to.

It is an incredible to have a responsive relationship with your body where you are not only tuned in, you are listening, and you are responding to your body's needs. Rather than imposing the structure that your mind believes or society believes should be happening, you are actually responding to your body's needs.

 It is certainly easier said than done, but with a few different habit changes, you can see really significant changes relatively quickly. I like to set an alarm, sometimes just a gentle one, but every 30 minutes and when it dings, I do a body scan and see where my body's at. See if I need to change position, see if I need to stretch, see if I need to go outside, see if I need to take a sip of water or eat or go to the bathroom.

How many of us don't go to the bathroom because we're not even noticing it, because we [00:09:00] essentially dissociate from our bodies when we're in our heads. So it's just an other way to reconnect, and the more you practice this reconnection, the more natural it becomes and the more consistent it becomes.

Perhaps, obviously mindful meditation is a really wonderful way to connect to your body. Paying attention for a time on purpose to your body, to your surroundings, without getting caught up in your thoughts. Your thoughts will still happen, but you start to be able to watch them float by rather than be carried along with.

Them. And the more that you cannot be carried along with your thoughts, which take you out of your body and really out of the present moment, it takes you into your imagination, either into the past or the future or to someplace completely different. But it's definitely not your present 

So if you're out of your body, you're not really in the present moment. So mindful meditation is a wonderful way to practice that, but I find that one of the easier [00:10:00] ways to start stepping towards mindful meditation are these grounding techniques, and are these reminder body scans where you do a body scan every 30 minutes or so with a reminder. And just start to anchor back into your body so that you can start to understand what your body needs, what it's telling you, and how to respond appropriately. 

And this becomes especially meaningful when we think about how to approach different therapies. So typically there's a lot of different therapy options for different health conditions or even things that are just improving life. So think about how you feel when someone says meditation to you or how you feel when someone says exercise or running or dancing.

Your body has a response to that. And this can be extremely helpful in figuring out the next best place to start, the next best thing to do for your health, your overall wellness, It can be [00:11:00] incredibly powerful.

To know that our bodies have wisdom and can guide us to the right choices in our lives.