What Is Your Body Trying To Tell You? 22 Signs You Must Know

Your body speaks to you. What it is saying can indicate so many things, starting from illness throughout the wrong diet, too much stress and lack of sports activity but in a nutshell, it is an ultimate indicator of our way of living. 

Understanding the “body language” is a whole field of expertise in eastern and western medicine but if to be simple about it – I would ask you to just listen. Your body is also well known as a genius self healer as it has all the tools to fix itself on its own, under the understanding that it is healthy enough. But you can help it.

The wisdom is to be sufficiently aware of the body signs as an illness or pathology is also a way of our physical body to tell us that something might be wrong, or that it needs something additional, else or different to be improved in our self-care.

Please note that in general, I recommend advising your doctor in general if some of the below occurs and don’t go away. But here are some signs that can help you cope and be more aware of your own body.

So what is your body trying to tell you? Here are some basics you can work with to better understand what’s going on inside your body.

There are tons of signs once you start to pay attention, I chose to give the main and most common signs to work with, so what is your body trying to tell you when it “gives” you a:

1. Headache
2. Stomach ache
3. Migraine
4. Bone ache
5. Hair loss
6. Weakened nails
7. Poor sleep 
8. Snore
9. Muscle ache
10. Earache
11. Eyes
12. Beginning of a cough
13. Mucus
14. Rash
15. Gas
16. Dizziness
17. Yellow teeth
18. Bad breath
19. Mood swings
20. Paresthesia
21. Constant hunger
22. Constant fatigue

Headache

Aside from my “refer to all disclaimer” mentioned, headache can also mean signs of dehydration, stress, lack of sleep or too much sleep (yuuup too much sleep can def. cause headache), hormonal imbalance, exposure to toxic materials and even some sort of allergic – intolerance to a certain food or beverage.

Stomach Ache 

Tummy ache is also, same as headache, a very common pain that comes in vast shapes and locations around our abdomen. Goes without saying that tummy ache should be taken seriously but sometimes the reason can be a small sign given to us by our body to stop eating something that our digestive system does not agree with, stop being afraid, or keeping what we feel in the stomach instead of sharing it out loud. 

Stomach ache can be caused also by not breathing properly when we train and again by allergy or intolerance to some ingredient in our diet

Migraine 

A somewhat ugly cousin of the classic “ I did not drink enough” headache, only here the story is a bit different. Migraine is caused by the expanding and shrinking of blood vessels in our head. 

The action of the difference in blood flow when the diameter of our blood vessels changes creates an uncomfortable feeling. A migraine can be light, medium and even unbearable in its severity. It happens sometimes after a night out of alcohol drinking and it can definitely be caused by an imbalance in the hormonal state of our body. 

Migraine can indicate some blossom allergies and even hot weather can stimulate it. Migraines are not usually caused by stress but they can cause stress as they can be highly painful. Check your hormonal balance or allergy test or reduce alcohol consumption if you tend to suffer from migraines. And chill …

Bone Ache

In minor cases when our body wants to signal us aching bones can indicate inflammation, beginning of flu or cold, lack of calcium and other things. Sometimes we can get bone pain simply because we are tired. 

The thing about it is to check how often we feel that pain, and for how long it lasts. Sometimes it’s just a “heads up” for the coming cold. If it lasts more than a few days or/and increases, this might be a good time to visit your physician to get a blood test. That way you could also track any lack of essential vitamins or minerals.

Hair Loss

Stress, stress, stress and maybe lack of zinc. But yea – researches show that stress is a very significant factor in hair loss. 

Our hair is the king of “body waste” and in case of prolonged stress the body will eject all the unnecessary parts attached to our body in order to pay its most attention to necessities only. 

Hair was always presented as strength so by losing it we can imagine ourselves weakened a bit. Hair loss can also indicate zinc deficiency so run a blood test – taking zinc in food and supplements (picolinate derivative) can make wonders with your hair, skin, and even fingernails, which are the next body sign on our list. 

Weakened Fingernails 

Ok so regardless of biting our fingernails (which is a symptom for something else) some of us can suffer from fragile weak fingernails that break easily, have kind of a striped structure alongside and can even get yellowish color. 

In Chinese medicine, weak fingernails can be related to our liver and the strength of our bones as the liver is the strainer of our blood and our blood is created in our bones. Fingernails are made from the same material as our ligaments so as you can see all are related. 

Weak fingernails can be caused by either liver, bone density decrease, wrong diet for us and sometimes as a result of aging. It is recommended to have some blood tests to check liver function plus minerals and vitamins deficiency, but in general Zinc (picolinate), vitamin C, and some vitamin D (in specific instructed amounts) can make wonders here.

Oh, and taking a break from nail polish for a while is recommended. 

If you want to handle the issue from a deeper perspective, know that the liver is the body’s “general” and as a commander in action issues in the liver (even minor) can be related to anger that causes body heat and stagnation.  So relaxation is in order…

Poor Sleep 

Ahhhha, insomnia, light sleep, difficulty to fall asleep, and multiple waking ups or in short poor sleep – the crown of issues in modern living and a well-respected sign from our beloved body.

Sleep is one of the most important factors in our body’s revival and structure. It is connected to longevity, good appearance, and high performance. As such must be taken under consideration significantly so unless we have any other major problem, poor sleep (quality) is next in line to indicate high levels of stress (even unconsciously), anemia, blood flow issues, and possible lack of iron and/or vitamin B12.

Please do make sure before considering any of the above, that your sleeping environment is proper and well maintained – meaning, darkened room, quiet, and clean sheets bedded. It is called “sleep hygiene” and I elaborated lengthy about it in my article 8 Simple Ways To Improve Your Personal WellBeing. 

Other than that, your body might wanna also ask you to put aside your tablet or mobile phone at least a couple of hours before bedtime as the led screen stimulates your nervous system (through your eyes and brain) and prevents you from falling asleep properly. 

Snore 

Snoring is another poor sleep optional indicator and a possible unfitted diet, resulted in respiratory system struggle either by various allergies, mucus accumulation while lying horizontally and general discomfort. 

From experience, I have noticed that if you reduce dairy products, eat light dinner, locate your head on a proper cushion and avoid a diet that causes over mucus (and allergies) through your upper respiratory system you might make this annoying issue go away or significantly reduced. Worth a try.

Muscle Ache

There’s muscle ache, and there’s muscle ache. Our muscles can “hurt” for many reasons which we should differentiate from one another. We can have sore muscles after intensive training, long days, lack of minerals/vitamins, and right before we catch a nasty virus or a cold. 

All of the above involve muscle ache but each expressed in a different type of pain. After an intense workout it will be a “good kind of pain” meaning, it is there and it sores alright but you will simultaneously feel strong and healthy. In lack of vitamins or minerals it will usually come with great fatigue and maybe low mood, whilst prior flu or a cold it will be a classy “I’m coming down with something achy” kind of pain, so let me be and lye down.

It can be a strong, medium, or weak sore and will usually start from our tips, legs, hands, etc. To conclude, you got muscle ache? Give yourself a couple of days’ rest first.

Earache

As a person with sensitive ears, I have done my own private “master’s” in the ears department and explored from every angle the phenomenon.

Starting from plain ear pain through infections, acute pain, chronic pain, ear itch, ear wax, the Chinese medicine interpretation for earache, the psychological meaning that might hide behind it and even the spiritual version.

Ears are so important, THAT important that we need to take good care of them.

So for starters, the Chinese and Asia correlated the ears with our kidneys, meaning, earache, pain or discomfort can be caused by kidney weakness, problems, or even a temporary process they have been going through. As for the psychological sign, ear pain can be our body telling us that we don’t like what we hear or do not want to deal with it. 

We should consider eliminating what makes us feel uncomfortable in life.

in general, ear pain is treated with… nothing. Unless it requires antibiotics, most of the time our body handles the pain perfectly on its own. At best there are ear drops pain relief to take but it is merely for easing the discomfort – your body knows how to take care of itself. 

Ear pain can also indicate of a sensitive person and at times can be avoided simply by wearing a hat or ear cover on cold windy days. 

In South America I heard, they say that when someone speaks ill of you, your ears might itch.

Eyes

Eyes are the windows to one’s soul… the gift of sight is a precious gift that must be kept safe, and preferably healthy for as long as possible. 

Sore eyes, swollen and puffy, any change of color all should be checked by a physician. However, some signs can also indicate messages from our body to us, for example, in Asia eyes are considered to be linked to the liver as reflecting what is happening in one’s liver. 

Yellow eyes (on the inside) are one of the most popular signs of hepatitis and as we know, hepatitis occurs in the liver. 

Puffy swollen eyes can also indicate tiredness, dark stains beneath our eyes can indicate Iron deficiency and reddish swollen eyes (usually happens in one eye) can indicate an ear infection that can be treated with a well-cooled tea bag. 

Be kind to your eyes, they are your only external light source.

Beginning Of A Cough

There are many types and severities of coughs. There’s a dry cough, wet cough, mucus cough, shallow cough, there’s cough caused from a momentary irritation such as allergies or something we inhaled or ate, there’s bronchitis cough and lung infection.

A cough is our body’s way to tell us our lungs or any part of our respiratory system trying to get something out – an intruder. This intruder can be a jurm, virus, dust, food, smoke liquid or anything solid invaded our repertory system, and that the main goal is to get it out.

The problem with coughs is also that they cause an itch and that itch causes more coughs and creates a vicious cycle. On the philosophical spiritual and perhaps psychological angle a cough can indicate of difficulty to express ourselves. It can also show that due to some difficulty to express we have created an emotional issue as the respiratory system is located physically in one’s heart, so sadness, grief, disappointment, not being listened to, etc. can be expected through a cough.

Mucus

Mucus can be our body’s discharge. It can also be our body’s immune system as contains white blood cells but do not confuse it to be always good. 

Over mucus means that the body is over struggling and trying to fight something in an exaggerated manner. A bit of mucus is moist and is good but all should be balanced. 

In Chinese medicine mucus is moist. A lot of mucus is a lot of body moist and a lot of body moist is not positive. It can be caused due to digestive system problems, lack of proper body heating and to some overheating can manufacture over moist. 

One of the ways our body translates this moist is into mucus, and as such indicates on imbalance. Try to see why your body is struggling so hard to defend itself…

Rash

Ooooh, the notorious century’s prob after diabetes and obesity. Rash has multiple faces amongst allergic reactions, dermal (skin) contact with something that causes itch, consumption of food ingredients that the body does not agree with and the list goes on and on.

A rash is our body’s way to show it detected something that it does not recognize as self (aka intruder) and wants to eliminate it so sends its troops for an exaggerated epidermal reaction – the rash.

The rash can get itchy, red, and can spread in multiple areas such as the neck, back, legs, hands, etc. our skin is another oxygen source as it breaths so in a way a rush can reflect a respiratory system problem.

A rash can be also caused by stress and mental discomfort, air pollution, and extreme weather but as you can see all can be related to our main respiratory organ – the lungs and at times our digestive system, something we eat that less suits us.

Gas

I was always taught to never keep bad things in…but let it out. Gas is one of these things, despite social behavior conduct one must release gas.

Gas can indicate digestive difficulty, sensitivity to some ingredient in our diet, low tolerance to certain ingredients, and yes stress as well. How come? As we have an additional nerve system in our digestive system any nerval influence (such as stress or excitement and anxiety can cause tummy ache and gas), so chillax.

Dizziness 

Feeling dizzy is a very common thing and can be an indication of several causes. Sometimes it is simply lack of dehydration, fatigue, Iron deficiency, momentarily stress, or even ear problems.

The first thing to start from when feeling dizzy is to sit down and drink water. After getting some rest and evaluating how you feel, the next step will be to go to a doctor for a checkup and blood test, but only if that doesn’t pass the next day. 

Yellow Teeth

What you eat is shown on your teeth, unlike dentine darkness yellow teeth are a direct result of eating habits, not of age.

So if you smoke, drink lots of coffee and tea your teeth might get yellowish, however, as for most this is the main reason for a change in color. Some yellow teeth are the result of plaque buildup due to poor mouth maintenance.

Keeping a clean and healthy mouth is important as in the case of plaque buildup other microbes might find this environment nurturing and induce growth. Thus, having a large number of microbes in the mouth can result in bad smells but also as the digestive system is open with continued problems in the stomach.

Bad Breath

As maintained above the oral hygiene is super important both to your looks and to actual health, bad breath is usually a sign that a larger effort should be invested in cleaning the teeth and mouth.

The bad odor could also be a sign of health conditions such as infection of sorts in the mouth and throat area, or metabolic disorders which produce several chemicals that spread bad smells.

Mood Swings

Nobody likes a roller coaster of emotions as it makes life harder to live and unpleasant, but though some of us will have the casual “mood swings” others might suffer from them more regularly.

Having to deal with a constant change of mood is a sign of disharmony in the body and in life, which requires a balancing act. This could be the result of some internal health issues but also external influencers such as stress in work, home, and relationships.

Health-wise, there could be several drivers which can induce your emotions to get out of control, those might be things like dementia, concussion, or even stroke. Additionally, some internal neurological conditions such as diabetes, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, sleep, and thyroid disorders, can cause these mood swings. Go for a check-up.

Paresthesia

This abdominal sensation of the skin can signal that something is wrong in the central nervous system. In western medicine, Paresthesia can indicate stroke and transient ischemic attacks (mini-strokes), multiple sclerosis, transverse myelitis, and encephalitis. So first things first, it’s always good to go on a doctor’s check-up to be on the safe side.

Be that as it may, if not anything serious such as mentioned above, looking at numbness feelings from a Chinese medical point of view can be linked to issue in blood circulation and might direct us to certain organs of the body, and by that determine the organ by the area that the numbness occurs.

I can spend a whole article on the sensation of numbness and the organ related but in short, a symptom of numbness would refer me to check my blood circulation so other than what mentioned above I would try to add sports activity to my schedule, consume more protein, have some vitamin that helps with the manufacture of blood (i.e. vitamin C, D, B12 at times, etc.) and perhaps check my sugar blood level as diabetes or prediabetes can interfere with blood circulation as well.

Oho, and check the shoes you’re wearing. You might find this surprising how shoes are significant to our blood flow, and don’t give up on my advice to start moving yourself as this would be most effective. 

Constant Hunger

Other than boredom (which is a dominant reason for constant hunger), these phenomena can indicate high sugar levels in your blood. It does not mean you are diabetic but can definitely be an indicator for you to “watch out”. 

Constant hunger might also indicate an insufficient diet. Maybe you are not eating enough, maybe the food you eat is not being properly absorbed or maybe even you have a certain issue in your digestive system, which prevents you from digesting the food you take in.  In this case, if not having a serious problem I would recommend looking into your diet and eating habits – try to see maybe another adjustment is needed there.

As for the high blood sugar, run a checkup and if that is the case, just let go of industrial food, white sugar, and bread for a while. Try to eat a light dinner with protein rather than carbs, and see if in a couple of weeks you feel more full and less hungry.

There’s a third aspect that is a cousin of boredom… and it is called emotional eating. Food can be very comforting for the short run and very saddening for the long run if not consumed right. In these cases I would recommend trying to ask yourself what is there that bothers you, what can you do about it and yea, maybe even going to some therapy to let go of this inner pain, sadness feeling, etc.

It can be someone professional to talk to, art therapy, horse riding, speaking to a good friend, and everything that comes to mind that can help you to simply let it out. There are also 1-800 centers to call to with amazing people on the other line that listen and help.

Constant Fatigue 

Fatigue is one of the most common symptoms in modern times. It can indicate depression, lack of vitamins and minerals, lack of sleep, too much stress on one’s daily schedule, mild sadness, bad food, and many other causes that can be minor or major.

I would definitely start with sleeping more, eating better, exercising, run blood tests and take vitamins and minerals if have a lack of some and cheer myself up. Then I’ll take it from there with the “more serious stuff”.

At the end of all things…

The best advice I can give above all is:

No need to panic, just be proactive about how you feel and how you improve this feeling.

Acknowledging the problem is halfway through solution and solution is always possible as your body is an epic machine that knows EXACTLY what to do and how to do it – you just need to let it do its job and provide it with the best fuel possible.

Gesundheit!

Her Side