Inspired by the most recent emergency of the tsunami that ended falling flat on July 29, 2025, I felt it appropriate to take a look at how it could serve as an analogy for our bodies and lives. The interesting facts that I gleaned from the newscasters was that the tsunami was generated by an 8.8 earthquake off the coast of Russia underneath the sea. The fact that an unseen earthquake under the water surface could generate a tsunami on the surface is intriguing. If we didn’t have a network of seismic stations, DART buoys, coastal tide gauges, and satellite radar altimeters to detect an earthquake has occurred and a tsunami been generated, we literally would be in the dark. An interesting side note: even with all this technology, we still had to wait and see if a catastrophic tsunami was going to hit our precious islands.
If you apply this to your own body’s constitution and health, there are many clinical tests that can be run to monitor and make sure your body is operating at its optimum. This is where the rub occurs though – if the regular diagnostic tests end up with no clear diagnosis or cause, the next step is to undergo more extensive diagnostic tests which tend to be expensive. Furthermore, even the extensive tests can still yield inconclusive evidence of why someone is suffering from a health ailment.
I still remember during my chiropractic internship, I got the x-rays of my father, who was examined by a radiologist. He thought that my father was unable to walk and was in a wheelchair, based on the x-ray findings, but in reality, he was walking and fully functional. Through the past 26 years of being in practice I have also seen MRI’s, CT scans, and x-rays that were unremarkable, yet the individuals were suffering from pain.
This is why I take the time to ask my practice members the right questions – to hopefully prompt them to discover what current stressors may be the underlying cause of their health ailments, whether acute or chronic.
Our bodies constantly give us feedback to make us aware of something that is bothering us and starting to create dis-ease (out of ease) within us. Oftentimes the busyness of life – financial, familial, vocational, and social stressors – distract us from paying attention to the initial, subtle body signs. Some of these signs are tiredness, tightness in muscles, stiffness, slight increase in blood pressure, irritability, mood swings, and shortness of breath to name a few. Many times, these signals go unheeded, and it is not until some weird sensations, pains, or bizarre health crises happens that force us to address what we’ve been ignoring for far too long.
The mind body connection is a strategy to help you learn to listen to your body’s signals and become more in tune with your body’s natural rhythms and tendencies. Instead of putting your trust only in diagnostic tests, build a relationship with your body and strengthen your own intuitive sense so you can know when something is askew. You will then have the wherewithal to pivot and make some life modifications that can assist in your healing process.
Instead of waiting for a body or health tsunami to hit, be more proactive and know when you need to address certain things to stay healthy and vibrant. You have the choice to avoid a catastrophic body tsunami by increasing your awareness of how life stressors impact you, or choose not to take action, and wait for a big one to hit. The latter takes longer to recover and heal from, and will also affect your family and loved ones. Once again, you have the power to become aware or choose to stay unaware.
