Trusting Your Gut: How Intuition Influences Your Health

Data, research and expert guidance can be helpful in guiding our decisions, especially in our health. But there's another, often overlooked element that plays a crucial role in our well-being. Your intuition. Learning to listen and be guided by our inner compass can not only be the right move for our own health and well-being but can be the very thing we need to see our health thrive.

What is Intuition?

Intuition is that inner voice, the gut feeling, or the subtle sense of knowing that doesn't rely on conscious reasoning. It's a type of unconscious intelligence that draws from our experiences, emotions, and even our body's subtle cues. While it may seem mysterious, intuition is a natural part of our cognitive process, helping us make decisions when logic and reason alone aren't enough.

The Science Behind Intuition

Though it might sound esoteric, there's scientific backing for the role intuition plays in our lives. Research shows that the brain can process information and make decisions without our conscious awareness. These unconscious processes are often based on patterns our brain has recognized from past experiences, even if we're not consciously aware of them.

For example, you might suddenly feel uneasy about eating a certain food, despite it being something you usually enjoy. Later, you might discover that the food was past its expiration date or contaminated. Your intuition, informed by your body’s subtle cues and past experiences, guided you away from a potential health risk.

Likewise, our dreams are often our intuition speaking to us to help navigate the lessons and stress of the day so we can navigate it better the next day. This is why "sleeping on it" can be important before making major decisions. It literally gives the body time to tune into its intuition for help. Tracking your dreams in a journal can help you identify patterns, trends, and insights that your intuition is trying to tell you.

Intuition and Health: Listening to Your Body

Your body has its own way of communicating with you, often through feelings, sensations, or instincts that might not make immediate sense. This is especially true in matters of health. Here’s how your intuition might manifest and guide you:

Physical Cues: Feeling fatigued after consuming certain foods, or experiencing a sudden craving for something nutrient-dense, can be your body's way of telling you what it needs or what it needs to avoid.
Emotional Reactions: Ever felt stressed or anxious in a certain environment or around specific people, only to find that these situations negatively affect your health? Your emotional responses can be a form of intuitive guidance, signaling that something isn't right for your well-being.
Gut Feelings: The term "gut feeling" isn't just a metaphor. The gut is often referred to as the "second brain" because it’s lined with millions of nerve cells that communicate with the brain. This gut-brain axis plays a significant role in your emotional and physical health, and your gut feelings can be a powerful indicator of what’s good or bad for you.
Energy Sensations: This is where we notice patterns, repeated trends or thoughts, or other stimuli that gives us the sense the path we are on isn't right for us or that we are going in the right direction. Some examples include Angel Numbers, seeing the same type of car and color repeatedly, hearing the same song at the same time each day.

The Disconnect: Why We Don't Trust Our Intuition

Here’s why we often struggle to trust that inner voice:

Over-Reliance on External Validation: We live in a society that often places more value on external sources of information than on our own inner knowing. We’re bombarded with advice from experts, friends, and media, which can drown out our intuition. When we constantly seek validation from others, we can lose touch with our ability to trust ourselves.
Fear of Being Wrong: Intuition doesn’t always come with a clear, logical explanation. This ambiguity can make us hesitant to trust it, especially if we’re afraid of making a mistake. The fear of being wrong can lead us to second-guess our gut feelings and rely instead on what seems more rational or widely accepted.
Disconnection from Our Bodies: Modern lifestyles often lead us to disconnect from our bodies. We’re so busy and distracted that we don’t always take the time to tune in to what our bodies are telling us. This disconnection can weaken our ability to recognize and trust our intuitive signals. This disconnection leads to stress on the body that can lead to fatigue, anxiety, and even illness.
Past Experiences: If we’ve had experiences where our intuition didn’t lead us to the best outcome—or if we were discouraged from following it—we might be less inclined to trust it in the future. Negative outcomes or external criticism can cause us to doubt our inner voice.
Blocked Energy: When you never disconnect from electromagnetic wave lengths, have high toxicity in the body, chronic stress or other situations that are impacting your health and well-being this can create a block in our intuition. We begin to swirl in the things that don't feel good making us believe there is nothing we can do about them.

Knowing what is right for you. — Intuition is simply listening to ourselves for advice and guidance

Reconnecting with Your Intuition

Rebuilding trust in your intuition is a process that requires patience and practice. Here are some ways to reconnect:

Create Space for Silence: In the midst of a noisy world, silence is where intuition speaks the loudest. Carve out quiet time each day to simply be with yourself, free from distractions. This could be through meditation, a walk in nature, or simply sitting in stillness.
Practice Mindfulness: Staying present in the moment helps you become more aware of your body's signals and emotions. Mindfulness practices can reconnect you with your intuitive insights.
Reflect on Past Decisions: Look back at times when you trusted your intuition and it led to a positive outcome. Reflecting on these experiences can help rebuild your confidence in your ability to trust yourself.
Start Small: Begin by trusting your intuition in small, low-stakes situations. The more you listen and act on your intuition, the stronger it will become.
Listen to Your Body: Pay attention to physical sensations, as they are often key components of intuitive messages. Notice how your body responds in different situations—whether it’s a tightening in the chest, a sense of ease, or a gut feeling.
Release Toxins: By removing energy, products, situations, and other stress causing elements in our life we can begin to free up the space for our intuition to be heard. Sometimes these types of detoxes are all inclusive including our physical body, emotions, mental well-being and spiritual alignment.

Practical Ways to Tune into Your Intuition

Mindfulness Practices: Meditation, deep breathing, and yoga help quiet the mind, making it easier to hear your inner voice.
Journaling: Write down your thoughts, feelings, and experiences. Over time, patterns may emerge that reveal how your intuition has guided you in the past.
Body Scanning: Regularly check in with your body. Notice where you feel tension, discomfort, or relaxation. These sensations can be clues about your health.
Trusting Small Decisions: Start by trusting your intuition in small, everyday decisions. The more you practice, the more confident you'll become in its guidance.
Oracle Cards: A form of energy medicine, oracle cards use our own energy to help bring a voice to our intuition.
Energy Medicine: Using deep relaxation and gaining balance in our energy centers can help improve intuition because our energy centers (chakras) and pathways (meridians) are clear.
Grounding: This is the practice of connecting your body to earth in a way that allows the energy from nature to nourish your own energy. It is easy to do and provides way to increase our own mindfulness and intuition.

Energy medicine can help with intuition — Energy medicine and oracles are helpful in reclaiming your intuition's voice

Balancing Intuition with Reason

While intuition is a powerful tool, it’s important to balance it with rational thinking, especially when making significant health decisions. Intuition can guide you toward further investigation or prompt you to seek professional advice, but it shouldn’t replace evidence-based medical care.

For instance, if you intuitively feel that a particular treatment isn’t right for you, it’s worth discussing. They can help you explore alternatives that align with both your intuitive feelings and medical knowledge. This is a particular area in our life where we need more of a louder voice as many times what we feel is right for ourselves if shadowed against experts telling us what we should do. The beauty of working with a naturopath is they are trained in navigating your health by leaning into what you, your body, emotions, and spirit are telling you are right for your health journey.

Your Inner Guide to Wellness

Your intuition is a vital, often underutilized aspect of your health. By tuning into your body’s signals and trusting your gut feelings, you can make more informed, holistic decisions that support your overall well-being. Remember, your health is not just about what you know but also about what you feel. So next time you’re faced with a health decision, take a moment to listen to that inner voice—it just might have the wisdom you need.

To work with me, please schedule your in-person or virtual session at www.dragonspitapothecary.com