Your Body is Talking, Are You Listening?
Your body isn’t trying to ruin your life. It’s trying to save it—one symptom at a time. Let’s get real about how to know if you’re out of tune.
Let’s cut straight to it: Your body is always talking to you. The question is, are you listening—or are you brushing off its cries for help with excuses like, “it’s just my hormones,” “getting older sucks,” or the classic “ugh, my period again”?
Spoiler alert: It’s not normal to feel like a drained, cranky, bloated shell of yourself. Common? Sure. But normal? Not even close.
Your body isn’t trying to ruin your life. It’s trying to save it—one symptom at a time. Let’s get real about how to know if you’re out of tune, what those signals mean, and what it takes to start thriving.
Telltale Signs You’re Out of Tune
Some signs are loud and obvious. Others creep up on you so quietly you barely notice them. But every symptom is a signal—your body’s way of saying, “Hey, I need your attention.” Here’s the breakdown of what to watch for, backed by the science behind why it happens.
1. Chronic Fatigue & Burnout
What’s Happening: Chronic stress dysregulates your hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, throwing off your cortisol levels. This leaves you feeling tired, wired, and unable to truly rest.
Why It Matters: Your body is in survival mode, prioritising short-term energy over long-term balance. This eventually burns out your nervous system and drains your energy reserves.
2. PMS or Irregular Periods
What’s Happening: Symptoms like cramps, mood swings, and irregular cycles are often linked to estrogen dominance and low progesterone levels. Chronic stress, under-eating, or over-exercising can further disrupt hormonal health.
Why It Matters: Your cycle is one of your body’s most important biological rhythms. Ignoring its signals can lead to bigger issues like infertility, chronic fatigue, or worsening PMS.
3. Digestive Drama
What’s Happening: Bloating, food sensitivities, and irregular bowel movements can stem from poor gut health or chronic stress, which diverts blood flow away from digestion. This disrupts your gut microbiome and leads to inflammation.
Why It Matters: Your gut is connected to nearly every system in your body, including your brain. Poor digestion isn’t just uncomfortable—it can cascade into anxiety, brain fog, and systemic inflammation.
4. Skin Issues & Brittle Hair/Nails
What’s Happening: When your body lacks essential nutrients or is under stress, it prioritises survival functions over vanity projects like glowing skin and luscious hair. Mineral deficiencies, particularly in zinc and magnesium, are often to blame.
Why It Matters: If your skin, hair, or nails are struggling, it’s a sign your internal systems are too.
5. Low Libido
What’s Happening: Chronic stress and hormonal imbalances suppress sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen. This tanks your desire for connection or intimacy.
Why It Matters: Libido isn’t just about sex—it’s a sign of vitality. Low libido is your body saying it’s too stressed or depleted to prioritise pleasure.
6. Decision Paralysis & External Validation
What’s Happening: Chronic stress impairs your prefrontal cortex, the part of your brain responsible for decision-making. Over time, this disconnects you from your gut instinct and self-trust.
Why It Matters: Struggling to make decisions or constantly seeking external validation means you’re outsourcing your personal power.
7. Feeling Flat or Disconnected from Joy
What’s Happening: Chronic stress and nutrient deficiencies reduce dopamine and serotonin production, the chemicals that make you feel good. Over-reliance on external “hits” like social media or sugar can leave you feeling flat and uninspired.
Why It Matters: Joy is your natural state. Feeling disconnected from it signals your body and mind are out of alignment.
8. One-Track Thinking or Nit-Picking
What’s Happening: High cortisol levels narrow your focus and trigger black-and-white thinking—your brain’s survival mechanism during stress.
Why It Matters: This rigidity in thinking keeps you stuck in cycles of overwork, over analysis, and perfectionism, blocking creativity and growth.
9. Restlessness or Fidgeting
What’s Happening: An overactive sympathetic nervous system (fight-or-flight mode) leaves you unable to relax or sit still. This often results from unresolved stress or a lack of grounding practices.
Why It Matters: Restlessness is your nervous system crying out for regulation. Ignoring it perpetuates a state of chronic stress.
10. Overreacting to Small Things
What’s Happening: Chronic stress reduces your resilience, making small triggers feel overwhelming. Emotional dysregulation often shows up here.
Why It Matters: Overreacting to minor annoyances signals your stress bucket is overflowing, leaving no room for emotional balance.
11. Social Anxiety
What’s Happening: Poor vagus nerve function (key to nervous system regulation) can leave you feeling unsafe or hyper-aware in social settings, even when no threat exists.
Why It Matters: Social anxiety often stems from unresolved trauma, chronic stress, or disconnection from your body.
Stop Ignoring the Signals
Here’s the tea: Most of us ignore or normalise these symptoms. We blame our “period,” our job, or our life without taking ownership. Your body isn’t trying to shame you—it’s a barometer of how you’re treating it. Symptoms aren’t there to punish you. They’re your body’s way of saying, “Hey, I need your attention. Can we work together on this?”
You want to understand your bodies signals better but you don’t know where to start? Enter: my comprehensive Body Decoder Kit that includes an info chart of 18 of the most common symptoms, their causes & triggers and how to solve them. Plus a video on how to use it (to reduce overwhelm and help you feel supported), daily check in worksheet & my daily body scan practice to start the habit. This is a game changer for starting to build a partnership with your body - check it out here.
The Fix: Simple, But Not Easy
Here’s the thing: Every single one of these signs has a fix. The solutions are actually pretty simple—basic, even. But simple doesn’t mean easy.
Self-Awareness is Step One
It Starts with Radical Honesty
Real transformation begins with a hard look in the mirror. You have to get radically honest about your behaviour and habits. Ask yourself: “Am I truly taking care of myself, or am I avoiding responsibility?” It’s not about blame—it’s about clarity.
Owning your choices means dropping the excuses and refusing to cling to a pathology to define yourself. The body doesn’t need a label to fix itself; it needs partnership.
Your body is the smartest, most brilliantly designed machine on the planet. It’s wired for balance, for renewal, and for evolution. But here’s the catch: it can’t do its job if you keep pouring gasoline on the fire and expecting it not to blow up. You can’t treat your body like an afterthought and then wonder why it’s falling apart. It’s not sabotage—it’s feedback.
When you shift from seeing symptoms as enemies to seeing them as messengers, that’s when everything changes. It’s not about finding what’s wrong with you—it’s about figuring out what your body is asking for and meeting it with curiosity, care, and commitment.
The Red Pill
The “magic pill” you’ve been chasing doesn’t exist. There’s a well-known critique of modern medicine: it offers a pill to treat the disease, but often, it doesn’t truly fix the issue—it just moves the problem somewhere else. Every pill or quick fix you rely on places pressure on another part of your body, creating a cascade of compensations. You can’t outrun yourself, no matter how many shortcuts you take.
The truth is, your body isn’t broken—it’s asking for change.
The “red pill” is this: change your lifestyle, your habits, and your mindset.
It’s not easy, but it’s effective. Real transformation happens when you stop outsourcing your health to quick fixes and start showing up for yourself in a meaningful way. This isn’t about perfection—it’s about building trust with your body and taking small, consistent steps that add up over time.
On the Other Side of Discomfort Lies Freedom
That discomfort you’ve been avoiding? That’s the exact place you need to go. On the other side is the vibrant, thriving version of you—the one who doesn’t just survive her days but lives them with joy, vitality, and creativity.
That dream body you obsess over during late-night doom scrolls? It’s not in filters, miracle products, or even perfectly curated meal plans.
It’s in partnership with your body.
Reclaim Your Power
You are so much more capable than you give yourself credit for. Every symptom is your body asking for partnership, not punishment. When you listen, take action, and start living in alignment, you don’t just fix the symptoms—you thrive.
Your body is your greatest ally. The question is, will you finally listen?