19th May - Please listen to your body

A few days ago, I'd endured a particularly long day. I was in London, navigating the usual hustle-bustle of rush-hour on the tubes, on what was the hottest day of the year so far in the capital. 27 celsius might not sound like a lot for some of you, but those who have lived in the 'big smoke' will testify... LDN heat feels worse. It's clammy, incredibly sticky, and overall, pretty suffocating. You can always add on a few extra degrees thanks to the level of pollution which soaks the smog-filled sky, and the underground catapults folk around at a temperature which - according to EU legislation - is even illegal to transport cattle around in. 

The day had been particularly 'acidic' with the level of focus I'd needed to dedicate to a professional task on this occasion, not helped by my lack of sleep the night before as I juggled a last-minute work crisis at 1am on my laptop, on a backdrop of Arsenal's cataclysmic collapse in the land of dodgy accents and single-mothers getting fingered round the back of 'Greggs'. (A city which contains a mind-boggling 31 of these stores, btw).

By the time I returned home later that evening, I'd been travelling across public transport for a combined total of 8 hours, with very little in the way of food/drink such was the hectic nature of my day - In fact, I think my 'breakfast' on this occasion was a Boots Meal Deal at 5pm, sandwiches already displaying that little yellow reduced sticker on them as they were about to perish - and I perched down onto a heat-soaked bus home, sitting on the seat above the back wheel. As I looked across at the man sat opposite me, glugging away on his can of Stella, wearing his high-vis vest and those ghastly 24-pocket trousers, I tried my best to take my mind off the next 30 minutes. 

I flicked through the same apps on my phone endlessly on repeat, opening and closing them again by force of habit without actually taking in anything meaningful. I even delved into my bag to pull out a magazine I'd stored in there. But nothing could control my focus. My attention span was shot to pieces, my brain frazzled from the day. My headphones, which had been filling my mind with sensory overload in the form of podcasts and music and a constant flurry of information piped direct into my brain for the past 8 hours, were removed, and placed into my bag. My phone, was now firmly put back into my pocket. I closed my eyes, and I listened to my body. I asked myself, internally, what did I need right now? 

This is a skill which so many of us - myself included - ignore, so often. We have to be in tune with ourselves, and sometimes allow our mind to switch off, and let our body take control, instead. You'd be surprised by how often the answer is right there, waiting for us. I performed a range of deep-breathing exercises on the back seat of that bus, pulling myself into a meditative state, which instantly eased my aimless anxieties and drew me into a state of tranquility. When I returned home, I knew my workload that evening would take me up to midnight, but I didn't allow it to panic me. Instead, I ran a cooling bath, and lay silent in it for at least 45 minutes, with just a soothing 'Flow State' soundtrack quietly filling the room from my downwards-faced phone, sat in the window-sill. In a crazed World filled with lunacy and chaos, please take a minute today, to listen to your body...

... And ask yourself, what is it crying out for?