Mental Health *Is* Physical Health

When you pay attention to what your body needs, you send yourself the message that you are precious and deserve to be cherished. Many of us love that idea but we still don't live it.

Drunk Woman Is Tired (1902), Pablo Picasso

I’ve spent my whole life expecting myself to feel optimistic, ambitious, serene, and grateful without offering my body what it needs to function correctly. Day after day, I ate haphazardly, slept badly, indulged in a beer here or a cocktail there, exercised too little (or way too much!), and still encountered my moods, fixations, insecurities, and sullen spells as moral failures. Week after week, I would trudge around feeling weary or dehydrated or undernourished or faintly hungover and then blame myself for not writing well enough, for not being up for anything, for not want to explore the world and try new things. Year after year, I would shy away from big commitments because it meant consistently sticking with work that I might find dispiriting or alienating or pointless when I was in the wrong mood.

Even when I was relishing my intense, sensitive, opinionated nature, even when I was trying to honor my feelings and respect my body, even when I was attuned to the glory of the universe of cells under my skin, I still refused to consistently and thoughtfully give my body the care and attention it required to feel good. I didn’t want to be that woman who said no to things, who ate a tiny slice of pie or none at all, who waved off a daytime glass of wine, who ordered leafy salads and fish and remarked on how hydrated she was, who noticed how well or how badly she slept and adjusted her schedule accordingly. And to be honest, I STILL DON’T WANT TO BE HER!

But I realize now that most of my emotional struggles have begun with physical neglect or at least passivity. It’s not enough to simply reassure yourself to feel everything, to let your sadness in, to make room for your fears and vulnerabilities so they can be addressed and validated. It’s not enough to notice that certain kinds of people and misunderstandings and rejections and societal norms can make you anxious and angry. It’s not even enough to drop your oldest stories about how you are and how other people are and try to just be present and enjoy what’s here instead.

Your mind IS your body. And when your body is undernourished and dehydrated and weak and overworked or underworked, your mind is also suffering. When your mind is blunt and slow and resistant and dragging, something if off. You need more fuel, more rest, more water, more compassion for how your microbiome thrives and when it stalls out.

Lately, I’m not spending as much of my time and energy analyzing what’s going wrong with me emotionally or attitudinally. My emotional goals are very simple lately: to stay present and listen to others without busting in and speaking as much. (I still fail at this regularly; blabbing too much is my big weakness, not surprisingly!) I can suddenly see how my complicated stories about what I require to feel close to other people sometimes backfire, preventing me from noticing the wide range of possibilities presented by the wide range of humans in the world.

But even more revolutionary than keeping my emotional goals simple is recognizing that, no matter how things play out around me, my optimism and gratitude are PHYSICAL. Eating what fuels my body and mind, treating sleep hours with respect, recognizing how I feel from day to day, giving myself adequate down time, letting myself exercise very hard (which I do love!) but also rest a lot (and relish the rest, and treat it as essential) — these are the primary drivers of my overall mood. Whatever stories I’ve told myself over the years — my writing isn’t going well, no one loves me enough, I’m doing it all wrong again — there is almost always something physical going on underneath it.

Over the past 14 years of writing Ask Polly, I’ve repeatedly advocated exercise as a means of feeling more hopeful, grateful, energetic, and expansive. I’ve promoted compassion and forgiveness towards the self, even (or especially!) when it looks lazy or selfish or absurd to other people. But through it all, I’ve often driven myself too hard while dismissing my body’s real needs as the realm of health freaks and softies. And I’ve sometimes, unknowingly perpetuated the notion that emotional struggles are a matter of FIGURING OUT THE CORRECT ANSWER.

And that’s got to be okay, because fuck, this IS an advice column after all!!!!

That said, I want to indulge in a BIG record scratch here. Because the people who are the most attracted to this column — the intense, sensitive, thoughtful, brainy people out there who sometimes FEEL THE STRONGEST EMOTIONS after reading 3k words about them! — are the exact ones who need to dial into their bodies the most. I see this over and over in your letters. People like us want to THINK OUR WAY FORWARD even when our engines are stalling. We want to kick the tires when we should be changing them. We want to announce what’s wrong instead of giving ourselves what we know will feed and nurture us — not just right now, but next week and next month and next year, too.

Intensely emotional, intelligent people (this includes you if you’re here, trust me on this, I’ve been doing this for a long time now, so I know!) have a terrible habit of believing that THEY SHOULD BE ABLE TO THRIVE NO MATTER WHAT. We are people who say to ourselves, day after day, no matter how hard we’re already working to feel good, “GODDAMN IT! GET WITH THE PROGRAM, ALREADY! STOP FUCKING AROUND AND FEEL MORE GRATEFUL, YOU SOGGY DRAG-ASS CHUMP! WELCOME THE MOTHERFUCKING JOY INTO YOUR LIFE ALREADY!”

We grow and we learn, of course. But even our INTEREST in improving ourselves sometimes reflects the fact that we’ve always been neurotic drill sergeants at heart, always at war with ourselves because at some level, we only know war. We’re used to being on the battlefield and we just can’t stop mapping out lines of attack, even when our C rations are in short supply and our jeeps are stuck in the mud and our canteens are empty.

When you eat shit too consistently — whether emotional shit or shitty food — you feel like shit. When you don’t move, you feel sullen. When you exercise way too much every day, you feel depleted. When you work too hard, you feel exhausted. When you don’t sleep enough or drink a little too often (no matter how little you drink!), you disrupt your mind and body. (I love a good drink, but it’s so important for me to at least notice the drag it places on my spirit after the fact.) These factors don’t just affect your mood, they often determine your mood. They can’t be seen as merely INFLUENCING your happiness, because your joy depends on and is shaped by thoughtful and careful you are in feeding and resting your body.

Ask anyone struggling with a chronic condition. When you’re physically taxed, you can’t expect yourself to be magically upbeat or ambitious or expansive. You have to work with where you are and do your best to address your body’s needs, every day.

YOU HAVE TO PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR BODY. For many of us, that’s the absolute hardest thing to do. We just don’t want to do it. We refuse! Refusing to notice our bodies is our way of life!

But that way of life is punitive. We think of it as indulgent and luxurious to do whatever we like, but it’s the opposite. When we ignore outcomes, we ignore our own hearts and minds. We treat our precious spirits like trash.

Moreover, we can’t keep blaming ourselves when we feel negative or sad or lazy simply because our bodies are starving or dehydrated or overfed or bogged down in toxins. We have to address the real problem without avoidance, shame, or anxiety about what it means to commit to living sensibly. We have to be realistic and pragmatic about what a big difference it makes to care for our bodies first and foremost.

I’ve been writing about emotional health and exercise for years. I’ve worked out consistently and had a therapist for a long time. But I still LOVE to ignore my body and my feelings. I am very good at both. What I realize now is that I have to pay MUCH better attention to how I feel physically if I want to feel good emotionally. I have to notice what works and what doesn’t.

When I do what works for my body — sleeping extra hours, working out, not drinking much, avoiding sugar and flour (I HATE THAT ONE!!!!), eating very healthily — it’s not that hard to feel optimistic or ambitious or grateful. It’s also easy to prioritize the things I love the most. It’s easy to make clear, thoughtful choices about how I want to live. Life looks pretty simple and not that confusing. I’m here to be close to the people I love. I’m here to support the physical and philosophical and emotional growth of everyone who reads this column. I want to keep doing a good job here, because I believe that we are all precious and brilliant and full of enormous potential.

To that end, I’m going to mention things that work for me physically more often. I might even offer good, healthy recipes here and there. I’m not trying to be a fucking foodie or chef or lifestyle motherfucker of any stripe. I have zero sponsors outside of you, my readers, and that won’t change because I hate that shit, personally. But I do want to share anything that works. On that note, here’s my favorite Ottolenghi recipe ever, which I make with ground turkey. (It seems high maintenance at first, but once you make it a few times it becomes a delicious, healthy staple.)

Supporting yourself and believing in your dreams requires SO MUCH EFFORT, motherfuckers. In fact, having dreams at all is such a motherfucker! You have to rework and realign and rethink and redesign your dreams all the fucking time, because the world keeps changing and YOU keep changing along with them. So it’s crucial to do everything you can to support your body, first and foremost.

So today, respect your physical needs first. Be soft and kind to yourself. Get some fresh air, move a little, and also rest and eat something fresh and delicious and green. Notice how well it works to just make sensual, attuned choices about how healthy food tastes and how taking a long break to read a good book can recharge your body and change your outlook. Notice how respecting your body makes you feel more alive and loving toward the people around you.

When you neglect your physical needs, you punish yourself. I think I’ve been subconsciously punishing myself — setting myself up to have to dig out of a deep hole, physically, over and over again — for years now. I deserve better. So do you.

We can feel luminous and alive, every day. We don’t always think it’s possible, but it is. You are a sparkling light in the world, underneath your pain and angst. Treat yourself like you’re precious, because you are.

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Thanks for reading! I am so grateful to you for being here and supporting my work. I love writing this column and you make it possible for me to keep doing it. THANK YOU SINCERELY!!!!!

Send your letters to askpolly@protonmail.com. Remember that we all fail and flail over and over out there. No matter how ridiculous and pathetic you feel, remember that you are never EVER alone. We have ALL been there, over and over, because life is a motherfucker sometimes. Be good to yourself and give yourself the self-compassion you require to feel okay. FORGIVE YOURSELF AND START OVER. Sending you love!!