They say that the body follows the mind. My experience might be the opposite.

I remember my muscles pulsing anxiously as I steeled myself from the news I was about to receive. I had already detached my thoughts from the present as I sat on the exam table, dangling my feet like a child.

The doctor walks in and heads straight to the screen. He turns it on, pulls up my file, and projects it on the screen. I was prepared, but even still it caught me off guard.

I have scoliosis. Nice little wiggle in my spine. It looks bad but it's actually a mild case.

Scoliosis sucks. My back hurts, my hips hurt, my neck hurts. All the time. I don't want to have to deal with it.

But the mind follows the body. My pain grows fractally throughout my joints and muscles until it subtly affects how I think. I only have one option— Deal with it.

In This Post

• My Scoliosis

• Subliminal Pain

• Interconnectedness

My Scoliosis

Scoliosis is typically diagnosed during adolescence, as it was in my case. I was 12 when my pediatrician pronounced I had "minor" scoliosis. Minor. What am I supposed to think of that?

Not much apparently. I received no guidance or prescriptive measures to deal with the curvature in my spine. I'm not sure the ailment even made it to my file.

To a 12 year old what does that signal? Fuhgetaboutit!

I played a lot of sports growing up and was almost always outside. Soccer, lacrosse, skateboarding, surfing. I was very active and never felt an issue. It wasn't until much later when I recognized something was off. I was 17 working at a country club as a banquet server. I moved around a lot of heavy stuff and would wake up in a lot of pain.

I was still a kid, so I didn't do anything about it. In fact, I didn't do anything about it for 7 more years. And it only got worse.

I would always injure myself in the gym. I worked out how everybody else did— bench press, pull-ups, squats. But for some reason I'd always end up in pain and lose motivation to keep lifting.

Then my gait started to look funny and I hobbled around a bit. My Mom (who is quite observant of me) would tell me I had terrible posture and needed to get checked out. I always made a fuss.

One day I'd had enough and went in to get an x-ray. The results were loud and clear.

I'm not a victim by any means, it's just life. Life happened. It's not hard for me to accept.

I suffer mainly from structural issues in my hips, lower spine and neck. These are the epistemic problems that affect the alignment of my posture and create muscle imbalance throughout my body. The solution isn't surgery fortunately, it's just a lot of work on my end.

It's hard for me to stay on top of healing my body. I'm young and ambitious and full of desire. I want a million different things all the time but my body needs me. All of the time. Every day.

Subliminal Pain

Modern life is not easy on our bodies. The abundance of comfort and idleness we are subject to weakens us. Our minds are so preoccupied with silly plans and derivative desires that it dulls our focus on our most innate desire— health and survival.

It's the subliminal pain that hurts us in the long run. Any ailment we suffer from—nerd neck, weak knees, tight shoulders—is painful, but maybe not painful enough for us to take it seriously. We aren't touching the stove and getting burned, we're just hovering our hand over the burner.

Then life kicks your ass and you get more seriously injured. Or you have an epiphany after an especially painful day. Or you receive a comment from a loved one. For a brief moment, you know exactly what you need to do to get started fixing it.

I had the revelation that health needed to be my #1 priority after I could hardly walk following a big move out of my college house. I never wanted to feel that way again. It was somehow lost on me that my body wasn't invincible, that I am going to age, that I won't always feel young and energized.

Perhaps my pre-frontal cortex finally unlocked that connection then and there as I lay recovering in bed.

This 'rock bottom' health crisis that prompts immediate action might not have happened to you yet. And if it has but you didn't fully commit to a lifestyle addressing it, then you failed. Beware the compounding effect of subliminal pain— it can seriously catch up to you if you're not careful.

Interconnectedness

I implied earlier that the mind follows the body. That might not be true. But they are interconnected.

There are few things more important in determining the quality of your life than how you feel in the present. The physical state of your body plays a huge role in that. The preoccupations of your mind are also important, and more often than not our thoughts cause us pain by existing in some arbitrary future or nonexistent past.

Working out, eating clean, and sleeping well solves most if not all of these problems.

I'm back lifting weights, I learned that training exclusively unilateral exercises helps to build muscle more evenly throughout my body. I stretch every day and do supporting exercises to help out my spine, hips, and neck. I only eat non-inflammatory whole foods and have a meal prep system that makes everything run smoothly. And I get decent sleep (WHOOP).

None of this is easy. It’s a lifestyle I had to build. It’s a commitment to myself and my body that I make daily. But my mind and my body wouldn’t have it any other way.

(p.s. I know these are just the basics and nothing that I’m saying is revelatory. I don’t think you need too much regarding your health, beyond ensuring you get really good at the fundamentals. Don't listen to biohackers and podcasters, their additive solutions are how they make money. Listen to your body.)

Before you have any big undertaking in life, I'd advise you first conquer your body. Build the physique you always wanted. Sustain a lifestyle where you take good care of yourself and treat your body with respect. And prioritize sleep.

Not only will you prove to yourself that you can do hard things, the extra energy you radiate in peak physical health will make doing hard things down the road much more enjoyable. Your mind will thank you for it.

This newsletter serves as nothing more than a reminder, you know all of this already. Taking action is a different story. I'll leave you with this quote from Steinbeck's Cannery Row: