Health Beyond Civilization

The Body Scan discussed in the previous post is one way of establishing a baseline. Its advantages are that it connects you intimately with the moment-to-moment experience of your physical being, exactly as it is. It trains the mind and builds concentration power. It helps to seat you more comfortably in your body.

The potential drawback is that, like all mindfulness techniques, it runs the risk of building a body of experience without a mental framework with which to understand that experience. You can meditate or pay attention all you want, but these activities need context to be meaningful.

The context is your own life: Your activities, your interests, your behavior, your character, your idiosyncrasies and quirks, your goals and your life purpose. A practice such as the body scan temporarily removes you from the flow of all those details because they can be distracting to the experience of your being in the moment, and for that reason it’s very valuable. It’s also valuable to be able to reintegrate that awareness into the chaos of life.

How is this relevant to health? As I will say again and again, what I’m trying to do is endorse a concept of health as more than not being sick, more than a vague sense of being well, more than having good blood pressure or having a good body-mass ratio. Health is quality of life. To know how to improve your quality of life, you first have to know what your quality of life is right now. That includes attention to the physical and the nonphysical aspects of your life.

The Body Scan helps you build a base awareness of your physical body. But there are ways to go farther, or to approach it from other angles.

In the Chinese medical practice I’m familiar with, patients are commonly asked what are archaically known as the “Ten Questions,” which are really ten (or more) broad areas of interest. Similar things are done in other forms of medicine, of course; Western medicine will have various ways of reviewing your respiratory system, your cardiovascular system, etc. Different people and styles and systems will have different lists and methods. Here is just a sample:

• Pain
• Digestion/Appetite
• Urine and stools
• Thirst and drink
• Energy
• Head, face, and body
• Chest and abdomen
• Limbs
• Sleep
• Perspiration
• Ears and eyes
• Menstrual symptoms
• Temperature

A thorough exploration of each of these is beyond the scope of this post, but just from this list you can see how useful self-questioning can be even for the “layman.” As a medical practitioner, I consider one of my main duties, not to treat someone, but to bring awareness where there is none. In a sense, the process of asking detailed questions does exactly this, and therefore, the treatment begins immediately with the first question I ask. And, in that sense, you don’t really need someone else to bring awareness to these own areas in your life.

For instance, have you ever sat down and asked yourself where you hurt? And, more specifically, where you hurt like crazy, where you hurt a little, where you’re stiff, where you’re numb. Of course, the Body Scan will help you become more aware of things like that. But there are things it doesn’t cover. For instance, how well do you sleep? Do you go to sleep easily? Do you wake up during the night? Do you sleep restfully? How many hours do you sleep?

Or, how often do you have bowel movements? Do you have them once a day, twice a day — or only once a week? Are they easy to pass, or are they dry, or are they sticky?

Do you find yourself sweating more than other people?

Do you run hot or cold? Are you putting on a sweater when other people are running around in T-shirts, or are you the kind who goes shirtless in the winter?

As a health care practitioner who is a man, I’m always a little astonished that I have as much or more interest and knowledge of menstrual cycles than some women. That’s not a brag, it’s just a commentary on the sad state of affairs. For you women, when you have your period, how long does it last? What color is the blood? Is the bleeding heavy or light? Do you have any clots? Is there any bloating or pain? Do you feel better before or after? How far apart are your periods? Are they regular or irregular?

This is just a small sampling of the types of questions that are asked by acupuncturists. Clearly there are other types of questions asked by other types of practitioners. My aim, though, is not to promote Chinese medicine, but rather to point out that any of this type of questioning can help you build awareness of your own body processes.

I suppose this might seem like overkill. Still, I think it’s wise to cover all the bases as we’re first starting out. I’ve already mentioned that I wasn’t even aware of my own chronic back pain for a long time. Here’s another confession: When I was younger, I honestly had no clue that what went into my mouth and what came out the other end had any relation. Seriously. I just never thought about it. I ate what I wanted, and sometimes I had diarrhea, and that’s just the way it was.

If we are to take responsibility for our own health, we have to commit to exploring ourselves in these different ways, at least to gain some rudimentary awareness. We have to crawl before we can walk, and walk before we can run. Eventually, if we cover the basics well, we can dream of flying. But first we start where we are.