What is your body trying to tell you, and are you listening?
NOTICE
Sophia Mohammed
8/13/20263 min read
Your body doesn't wait until burnout to tell you something's off. It usually starts small: a shorter temper, shallow sleep, tension in one specific spot, a mind that won't settle on one task. The trouble is that busy seasons, exam periods, deadline weeks, the finish line of a big certification, reward pushing through those signals.
We call it discipline.
Sometimes it is.
Sometimes it's avoidance dressed up as productivity.
This past week was heavy. Between homeschool lessons to plan, client sessions to run, and the final stretch of my Advanced Coaching Certification, which I passed this week (a milestone that took a lot out of me), my brain didn't really stop, not from the moment I woke up to the moment I gave up trying to sleep.
I know these signals well. I coach other people through recognising them all the time. And I still nearly talked myself out of listening to my own.
No plan, just a walk to let my head clear and my cup refill a little. I forgot just how much I love the beach: the calming sound of water kissing the shoreline, the sand beneath my feet, the gentle, cool breeze across my face. Add a walk to that, and it was completely grounding.
Saturday evening, I went to the beach instead.
By Friday, I could feel it. A short fuse and low patience. Tension sitting in my shoulders. That low background whir of "just one more thing" that didn't quiet down even when I knew the to-do list technically was done… for the day at least.
Why do we override the signal in the first place?
I want to be honest about something: it would have been easy to keep going. There's always a version of "productive" ready to take priority over "rested," especially right after finishing something hard.
But the walk gave me what it always does: the mental space to hear what my body had been saying all week, and permission to actually respond to it instead of pushing through.
What does noticing actually look like?
Noticing is usually smaller and quieter than a dramatic reset:
Catching the moment you're short with your kids, and asking what's actually going on underneath it. Naming physical tension instead of stretching past it. Choosing twenty minutes outside over the next item on the list, even when the list isn't finished.
That's really what the walk was for me: a response to a body that had been asking for it all week.
Pick one moment today where you notice tension, shortness, or fog, and pause before pushing through it. Ask: what is this actually telling me? You don't need the full picture straight away. Just start noticing.
If any of this is landing, if you're the one who's been pushing through for way too long, I'd love to chat. Book a free Discovery Call and let's figure out what actually listening to your body could look like for you.
We live in a culture that demands efficiency and productivity. People write whole books about it. Use every moment, don't waste it, that's the message everywhere you look. There's some truth in that.
I think we've told ourselves a story along the way: that sitting in solitude is bad, that being ourselves is bad, that not physically doing something is bad. So what does rest actually mean to you?
One small thing to try this week
There's research behind this too. A 2025 study found that when people's minds wandered during a short break, they came back to their work with noticeably better ideas. I've learnt that rest is when your brain quietly keeps working on whatever you left unfinished
