Ravings and urges get miscoded over time. Let’s say you’re thirsty, and you live in a strawberry field. Strawberries contain some water and a bunch of sugar so, over time, you may start to crave strawberries when you are thirsty because you get a reward and some relief in shorter time from the need starting than the trek to the stream. This can happen for every need: sleep, food, whatever.
Trevor Noah has a great tip, that when he craves ice cream at night he breaks it down into parts: I want something cold, I want something sweet. He drinks a glass of cold water then waits to see if he still has the ice cream craving. Usually he doesn’t.
So listening to your body isn’t “follow every urge” but “decompose the urge to discover the underlying need.”
If you always feel like getting cozy in bed you may be: cold, dehydrated, and/or malnourished (maybe a need for high calories that are bioaccessible…not processed).
If you do not feel tired at bedtime you may: need to eat dinner earlier because your body is still digesting, need to exercise or go outside more during the day, get the fuck off your screen for an hour so your brain can enter sleep mode.
P.S. notice i said nothing about neurodivergence. Not that it’s not a likelihood but the over-pathologization of behaviors prevents us from taking simple actions to improve our wellbeing. Also, these tips are pretty accessible and applicable to most brain variations.
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