The Language of Health: Learning Our Body’s Communication Style to Achieve Wellness
by: mike morse, 04/08/2021
Language and communication are two concepts that not only span the majority of human history, but also link us with other species. Language is the foundation of all of our thoughts; we process most of our emotions by applying words to our feelings and behaviors. However, it is essential to remember language is not a universal experience. Linguists estimate, on the lower end, that at least 31,000 different languages have existed throughout the course of human history, 81% of which are now extinct. On an individual level, the ways in which we process and express language differ for a variety of reasons, including (but not limited to) geographic location, gender, race, socioeconomic status, age, literacy, and brain wiring. Communication, as an abstract concept, may be easier to process as a cross-species experience. Animals communicate with each other through non-verbal means all the time; some explanations have shown ways plants communicate as well, such as at times of harvest. Language and communication are features of all life; however, recent attempts at global hegemony have shifted modern concepts of language to prioritize ‘grammatically-correct’ English as the epitome of literacy. Communication is not limited to this strictly-crafted proper English language; by unlearning the idea that well-spoken English equates intelligence, we can open our minds to appreciating other mechanisms of communication and language as well.
My focus in this essay is not on the broader concepts of language and communication, but rather on redirecting the ways in which we process and understand the significance of the language we use on a daily basis, specifically with regards to our wellness. Recently, I unpacked the history behind the creation of the DSM, the diagnostic manual that has shaped much of the language we use in America when discussing mental and behavioral health; the medicalization of human behavior over the past century has resulted in the ‘othering’, infantilization, and criminalization of people with psychological differences. This outdated manual has provided generations of mental health practitioners with a rigid, biological model that has been shown to be an incomplete and socially constructed perspective on our mental functions. Many of the recent movements towards mental health acceptance have been focused around normalizing mental health disorders, rather than aiming to radically change the system that oppresses neurodivergent people. Normalizing diagnostic labels stops short of the overall goal of mental health liberation, which views all people as subjects of their circumstances, and aims to empower individuals to become active members of their communities, rather than continual victims of the psychiatric industry. Rather than focusing on the diagnostic labels we receive as being a specific, individual identity, imagine what would happen if neurodivergent people could instead focus on building community and working towards true freedom from the confines of capitalism’s expectations.
The language we use when talking about mental health goes beyond diagnostic labels; even among the neurodivergent community, there is regular discourse surrounding self-chosen identities. For example, I read a thread written by Twitter user @iwritecoolstuff discussing the reclamation of the term “mentally ill”; they reminded me that there is no use in reclaiming a term created by white supremacist eugenicists. Although I’ve loved to lazily throw around the term as a catchall label for my daily struggles with focus, motivation, and emotion or mood regulation, I have decided that I want to find a better way to self-identify my mental state. Even the term ‘mental health’ itself has, unsurprisingly, a sinister history; it stemmed from the term ‘mental hygiene’, coined by white supremacist eugenicists such as Stanley Hall and Adolph Meyer, which included aspects of both ‘mental health’ and ‘mental illness’. During this time period, the majority of psychological scientific research was focused on proving biological superiority of white people (see my previous thought piece on this subject). The point I want to emphasize here is the intricacies behind the meanings of words we use regularly and challenge people to consider and investigate the history behind language we find important to ourselves; words are social constructs, but they still hold meaning.
Language is further complicated when analyzing its various layers — implicit and explicit meanings, verbal and nonverbal cues, and the colloquialization of terms are just a few of the ways in which language continually transforms. The intention behind our words is rarely understood fully; therefore, it is essential that we are purposeful with our language. Just as is true with regards to our behaviors, the phrase “intent does not equate impact” carries over to our communication as well. With regards to health and wellness, I often bring up my preference in using the term ‘wellness’ more than the term ‘health’, specifically due to how I believe each is perceived. ‘Health’ tends to connotate a more polarized, categorical approach; we either experience good health or bad health, and people tend to separate health into boxes (such as physical, mental, emotional, etc). Wellness, on the other hand, suggests a more integrated, holistic frame through which we can view ourselves and others. Although the English term originated about 400 years ago to mean the absence of illness, modern uses place wellness as more of a spectrum — a fluid state of being. I hope one day we are able to find an even better word to describe our existence, one that doesn’t define us as being good or bad, healthy or unhealthy — a word that allows us to just be.
Regardless of the wellness lexicon we adopt for ourselves, I believe our primary goal in learning to care for and heal ourselves should be understanding how our body communicates with itself. Human bodies are composed of a multitude of interconnected systems that work tirelessly to maintain homeostasis — to keep us functioning. Every time you injure yourself, neurotransmitters have already instructed your inflammatory response to initiate before you even consciously register your pain. The complexity of every human body amazes me. It is not the individual parts that keep us alive, but the multiplex of interconnected systems that creates consciousness. Many Indigenous cultures believe in healing that occurs between the mind, body, spirit, and emotions. Carl Jung, a neo-Freudian psychoanalyst, was inspired by similar beliefs in his establishment of holistic psychotherapy. We can train ourselves to listen to the language of our minds, bodies, emotions, and spirits; we can learn to heal ourselves through tuning in to our body’s own communication.
I previously wrote a thought piece discussing how we can think about the ways in which imbalanced neurotransmitters impact our mental functioning. This is just one example of how we can think about our body’s communication mechanisms. When our neurotransmitters are unbalanced, we begin to have experiences and symptoms that may be perceived as a ‘mental disorder’. For example, people who do not process enough dopamine may struggle with motivation, concentration, impulse control, and emotion regulation; a psychiatrist might quickly slap on the label ‘ADHD’ to someone with these symptoms. One solution to this chemical imbalance is through psychiatric medication; another is to learn to listen to your mind and your body to discover ways in which you can function best for yourself. This process requires time, focus, attention, and even some experimentation in order to nurture our mind-body relationship. Western approaches to medicine (whether behavioral or biological) are oriented towards maximizing profit and rehabilitating one’s health to a place where they can return to functioning under systems of capitalism; our health tends to be measured through our return to normal productivity as opposed to an individual’s actual wellness goals. By moving away from an all-or-nothing framework with regards to our wellness, we can open ourselves up to being receptive to the ways in which our body unconsciously cares for itself.
Next time you don’t feel well, rather than jumping directly to finding a diagnostic label to slap onto your condition, take some time to reflect on your specific symptoms and what areas you may have been neglecting in your self-care routines. If you find yourself feeling fatigued regularly, are you providing your body with proper nutrients throughout the day? Are you allowing yourself to decompress and remove yourself from stress at the end of your work? Next time you catch a cold, think about what else has been going on recently in your life. Have you been allowing yourself to become so busy that your body’s immune system is not able to effectively do its job? I am not trying to recommend abandoning all medical care and only rely on self-healing; I am merely challenging you to really expand how you understand your body’s communication. All bodies have basic needs: nutrients, water, rest, shelter, and air. We also have more complex needs, such as socializing or being occupied. Whenever we have unmet needs, our unconscious body tries to find ways to compensate and bring conscious awareness to what we are missing. By bridging this disconnect between our conscious mind and physical body, we can become a step closer to gaining self-understanding into how our emotions, spirit, mind, and body are one.
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