Body Listening Project Study Invite

[Kelly_blp]

Dear all,

My name is Kelly Colht, and I am a graduate student at the University of Washington. I’m writing to announce a study being conducted by Dr. Annie Chen at the University of Washington School of Medicine, on “body listening”.

The study takes the form of a collaborative repository, which participants will build with moderators by engaging in a ten-week Guided Exploration to identify and elaborate on different aspects of body listening, as well as related concepts such as “body awareness.” The Guided Exploration aims to extract patient experiences to forward our knowledge of “body listening” and related concepts and, in addition, to create a resource to help people develop their own skills in these areas.

If you elect to participate, you might share how you learned what could trigger pain for you, or how you learned to recognize food sensitivities. This collaborative space is a place where you can post experiences concerning body listening and share with others how you learned/are learning to do it, as well as learn from others.

The act of “body listening” is one that people may engage in regardless of who they are. An experience like having a long-term illness, though, may lead a person to learn to become aware of and listen to body signals and cues more than they might have otherwise. Despite the likelihood that body listening is a key factor in people’s ability to manage and improve their own health and wellbeing, there are serious gaps in the availability of information about this phenomenon and how to engage in it. This project is intended for anyone who is interested in, or would like to contribute to knowledge on the phenomenon of “body listening.”

The stories that you share may be helpful for the health care community and for other patients to understand more about the information you needed to get where you are now, and the information you still need. In this way, we hope we can work together to improve people’s ability to manage their health everywhere. We hope that you will join our site and participate in the Guided Exploration effort to create a new knowledge resource on body listening! To participate by contributing what you know about body listening, or to learn more about what participation entails, please visit the Body Listening Project website: http://bodylisteningproject.org/

Thank you,

Kelly and the rest of the Body Listening Project Team

Please note that this study has undergone review and been approved by an institutional review board. The study id is: 51020

 

[Kelly_blp]

I'd be happy to answer questions anyone might have about the Body Listening Project and the Guided Exploration, which is currently in its second week.

If you are curious to know what participation entails, you can now get a sense of this by viewing what's been contributed so far: http://bodylisteningproject.org/ThinkSpace/

In order to address as many facets of body listening as we can during the ten weeks of the Guided Exploration, new topics are introduced weekly, and within each week, new subtopics are posted almost daily. A schedule of what is to come can be found here http://bodylisteningproject.org/guided-exploration-blueprint/

Again, please do not hesitate to come forward with any questions or concerns

Kelly

 

[Esther12]

I'm not sure if you're being a bit evasive or if I'm just being unfair. I don't want to be rude to a new poster here, but there are some of my trigger words in that post.

Is "body listening" just being aware of feeling stuff?

An experience like having a long-term illness, though, may lead a person to learn to become aware of and listen to body signals and cues more than they might have otherwise.

Is that going to be assessed? How?

Despite the likelihood that body listening is a key factor in people’s ability to manage and improve their own health and wellbeing, there are serious gaps in the availability of information about this phenomenon and how to engage in it.

Do you mean that there's some good evidence showing that "body listening" training is of use? Or just that "body listening" is defined in a way that means anyone who did not do it would be disabling themselves in the most bizarre of ways?

We hope that you will join our site and participate in the Guided Exploration effort to create a new knowledge resource on body listening!

I'm not sure that knowledge resource creation would be aided by my participation in a guided exploration effort.

I'm very likely being an arse here... sorry. Engaging in the phenomenon of some collaborative body listening has guided me to the realisation I need a nap.

 

[Christian Godbout]

Hi Kelly - On the theme of "body listening" I would share with you this one thought which you might not expect but I hope it can be of help for your project: ME/CFS is a rare instance of an illness where listening to your body is actually a bad idea! When you feel the very first sign of exhaustion in your body, it's too late to listen and stop and rest, you have already screwed up, you will crash, it's irreversible… You must stop and rest BEFORE your body sends you any signal. And should your body "feel" ok and as though it could withstand another 10 minutes of activity, here again, do not listen to it! And stop instead at 5 minutes. Only "listen" to your past errors…

(it took me some 2-3 years of ongoing push-crash cycles before I truly got the idea, but I still often fail, and that happens whenever I trust my body too much…)

 

[Kelly_blp]

Hi Esther12 and Christian Godbout,

Thank you for taking the time to think about and provide feedback on the study.

We recognize that the knowledge people acquire while learning how to manage their health over time can be vast, which is why this study was designed to allow participants to take a more active part in the research, not just through contributing content. In addition to contributing experiences related to body listening, participants help determine the directions of the research, based on what is important to them in the day-to-day management of their health.

The study isn't intended to “assess” anyone on their ability to engage in body listening, but to bring patients, clinicians, and researchers together in order to build a repository of experiences of body listening. The study also involves participants in organizing and classifying this content so that the resulting knowledge resource can be more useful to others, to include patients as well as clinicians and researchers wanting to better understand health management from patients' perspectives. (For more information, see the "How it Works" section of the project website.)

We are thinking of body listening as being more than just awareness of your body. It's also about how you use the knowledge and awareness of your body to manage your health. This includes what Christian expressed about knowing when to stop even without a cue.

I hope this clarifies things a bit. This project may not be for everyone, but if it sounds like something you'd want to contribute to, we hope you'll consider participating!

Kelly