Listen To Your Body Tonight

 Listen to your body tonight, it's going to treat you right.

This song might be about sex, but I've always loved it for that titular line.

Listen to your body tonight. I love my body, because it tells me things. We've worked out a language of sensation. There are really only three semantic units: pleasure, pain and awareness. They're homonyms in this body language, and synonyms to a degree. You see?

You've got to listen to your body, because so far at least it's the only body you will have. When you're hungry, eat. When you hurt, change something about what you're doing.

As a dancer, runner, former rower and Kinesiology major, I also appreciate the importance of proprioception.

To feel where my body is in relation to itself is a gift, my hand distal to my elbow can find my mouth even with my eyes closed.

I've rarely experience a time when listening to my body did me wrong. Our bodies know what they need. Sometimes that isn't always what you need from them, like in an athlete's push through the pain, but that's why our bodies respond. They grow and change and adapt to what we provide them with. I can't strictly say I'm vegetarian because I recognize that my body occasionally wants or needs meat in a way that my normal diet is not able to supplement.

So do yourself a favor: Listen to your body tonight. It's going to treat you right.