Do you suffer from aches and pains that seem to have no obvious cause? Have you tried countless treatments and remedies, but still find yourself in discomfort? The truth is, many of us experience aches and pains on a regular basis, but too often we don’t take the time to understand the root cause of our symptoms.
In today’s post, I’m going to share exactly where to start in figuring out the root cause for why your body hurts. I’ll also give several of the most common reasons bodies hurt. And, I’ll share three steps you can take today to start getting relief.
And if you’re looking for more, I’ve put the rest of my guidance for figuring out your body in my book, Becoming Unbreakable: How To Build A Body You Love To Live In, which you can get in my shop or on amazon.
As a strength and fitness trainer of 20 years, I’ve heard a lot of things people think are true about bodies, but that aren’t actually true at all. Believing these myths actually takes you further from discovering the root cause of your pain, which makes the journey take longer.
Here are the four most common myths about what your body is telling you:
Myth #1 – That getting older means your body is going to hurt no matter what you do.
Myth #2 – That since you’ve had this particular body pain for awhile, the damage is done and it’s too late to do something about it.
Myth #3 – That you probably need some kind of invasive surgery or heavy-duty medication to fix your body.
Myth #4 – That pain is something to ignore and push through. This one is less common in the general population and much more common in the athlete population.
If you believed any of these myths, it’s understandable. The world around you routinely reinforces each of them through the messaging you hear in advertisements, from peer groups, and sadly, even from many doctors.
But once you know these are not the root cause of your aches and pains, you can get on to figuring out what is!
Instead of falling for one of the myths above, or asking the Universe “Why me?!”, ask this most important question first and you’ll have taken the first step to finding the root cause of your aches and pains:
What signal is my body responding to?
This question comes from the number one principle your body lives by – The Signal/Response Principle.
I teach about the Signal/Response Principle in part one of my book, but here’s the 30 second description of it:
Your body is always responding to the signals it receives. Every day. Until you die. Thus, if your body hurts, that’s a response to something.
That achy back? It’s a response to something. Your joint pain? Also a response to something. The injury you sustained? Yes, that too is a response.
Everything your body does is a response to some signal that your body received.
Your job is to figure out which signals you need to add, remove, or alter so that you can get the body responses you desire.
And while that sounds like it might be hard to figure out, it’s really not. Start with the most common reasons for aches and pains and work out from there.
I’ve put several of them on this handy infographic to help you get started. If you find it useful, please share it on your pinterest or facebook page so others can get this info, too!
And if you want to fast track your process of figuring out why your body hurts, use the Assessments Module in my Becoming Unbreakable course. That will give you detailed insights into what your body needs.
You’ll go through 14 unique assessments to learn where your body is missing range of motion or strength.
Then in the Training Module, you’ll learn the exercises that build up what your body needs and enjoy a variety of full body workouts that further your fitness.
It’s important to remember that the body is complex and what works for one person may not work for another. It may take some trial and error to find the right combination of things that addresses the root cause of your aches and pains. But by taking action, you are taking control of the situation.
While I don’t know what your unique root cause is for your aches and pains, here are three solutions you might consider as part of your action-taking efforts to get relief from your aches and pains:
1. Move more.
Most Americans are sedentary. Even if you exercise, there’s a strong chance that for the majority of the hours of your day, you’re sitting.
Movement signals to your body that it should upkeep and upgrade the muscles, tendons, ligaments, bones, and joints in your body.
Movement gets your lymphatic system moving, which moves waste products out of your body and shuttles nutrients in.
And, specific movements can help the structures, tissues, and systems of your body to reorganize themselves so that they provide lasting relief for your body.
2. Stop doing so much.
In twenty years of being a strength and wellness coach, the person I was sitting across from needed to do more in order to achieve their goals. But equally as often, the person I was sitting across from needed to do much, much, MUCH less.
Humans often use fitness and health practices to avoid, suppress, and control – themselves, their emotions, and whatever they don’t want to deal with.
The only way to know if you’re doing too much is to sit and reflect on it. Or just wait for your body to shut things down for you by getting constantly sick, injured, and completely exhausted. Your choice.
3. Address inflammation.
Inflammation is a good thing, until it’s not. It helps our immune system fight back and it helps us heal injuries. But too much becomes a problem.
Chronic inflammation causes pain in your joints and muscles, and is linked to diseases like heart disease, cancer, Alzheimer’s, and more.
There are myriad things that can contribute to inflammatory levels in the body, including:
Clean up any sources of inflammation you’re currently dealing with and seek out opportunities to include more anti-inflammatory food, lifestyle choices, and forms of exercise in your life.
To wrap this up, when you start seeing everything in your body as a response to a signal, you’re able to sit yourself in the driver’s seat of taking action.
And even if you don’t change everything that you dislike as much as you would like it to change, you’ll get far more out of the process than you’d ever have gotten had you not tried.
Ready to build a body you love to live in?
Join my Becoming Unbreakable Workout & Lifestyle Course
and learn the exercises and lifestyle modifications that YOUR body needs!
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