On the other hand, outside of my professional education in physical therapy, nobody ever taught me to any detail about the language of the human body, a place where I live every second of every day. And I quite like to live in my body, and I quite like to feel good in that body.

It’s an amazing vessel that I constantly work on maintaining especially as I get older. Yet, I see so many people who don’t “speak” the language of the human body.

For example, as a physical therapist, I treat and think a great deal about Parkinson’s disease and the many ways that the human body is sending signals about what it needs to fight back successfully against that disease process. And, how that fight is much better served if we can address all those body signals early and often.

I consider myself an “interpreter” when I am working with people with Parkinson’s.

What am I talking about? Well, every system in the human body is talking to you many times throughout the day. You feel things like pain, fatigue, upset stomach, dry eyes, difficulty concentrating, numbness, bloating, weight gain, extreme thirst, twitching muscles, mood swings and on and on. I could list 100 signs that something is not in balance in your body.

Everybody knows what to look for when something is wrong with their brick-and-mortar home, but we don’t really pay as much attention to the language of the human body nearly enough.

Not to go off on a tangent, but may I suggest you begin first by listening to your body when it comes to your nutritional intake (or lack thereof). I’m well obsessed with the idea that many diseases in America can be prevented through proper nutrition. There is proof, too. The Hadza tribe in Tanzania lives off the land and they have no heart disease, no obesity, no Alzheimer’s, no diabetes, no Parkinson’s disease, etc. Take some time to research this more and you’ll see how there is a correlation between the “American” diet and disease. But I digress.

The fact is that the earlier you detect something that may be damaging to your health, the better your outcomes will be in almost all cases.

So, I’m hopeful that you will take the time each day to inventory your feelings, physically, mentally and emotionally so that you make the right timely choices to speak to a professional early.

We only get a relatively small number of trips around the sun, and I’d like to see you all take as many of those trips as possible living a fruitful joyful life while doing so.

Joel J. Digris is a Schuylkill County resident with a master’s degree in physical therapy. He is currently employed by Achieva Rehabilitation as an outpatient provider of physical therapy and serves residents in Carbon, Schuylkill and Luzerne counties.

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