Affirmations for Health

The body keeps score of how you talk to it. That isn't mysticism; it's the plain fact that people who speak to themselves with contempt tend to skip meals, skip sleep, and skip the appointment. How you think about your body shapes what you do with it, and what you do with it is most of what health is.

An affirmation won't cure anything, and these don't claim to. They're about the relationship — the daily negotiation between you and a body that is doing its best with what it's given. "My body deserves to be taken care of" is a sentence a lot of people have never heard from anyone, which is a reason to say it to yourself.

Use these on the days you're tempted to treat your body like a machine that's letting you down. Before the workout you don't want to do, after the meal you feel bad about, in the mirror. Say the sentence to the person in it, out loud.