What if you didn’t know how old you were? Not on paper. Not on your driver’s license. Not on Facebook when it reminds you someone you barely know from high school is having a birthday. I mean REALLY didn’t know.
Close your eyes for a second and think about it. If you had to guess your age based purely on how your body feels, how your mind feels, how you move, how you recover, how you live … how old would you say you are?
Okay, now open your eyes.
If you answered younger than your chronological age, congratulations. That usually means you’re doing something right for your body and nervous system – or you recently took Advil. Either way, that’s a win in my book.
If you answered older than your actual age, don’t panic. This is not the beginning of your demise era. But it is your body politely waving a little white flag. And that flag usually doesn’t mean you’re broken; it means you’re tired of being micromanaged.
We live in a time where our bodies are under constant supervision. We track our steps, our calories, our sleep, our heart rate, our stress, our macros, our fasting windows, our hormones, our supplements, our workouts, our recovery, and sometimes even our bowel movements. (If you’re offended by that last one, you’re probably guilty.)
Of course, if you are working through a physical or mental condition, or it’s been recommended by a health care provider, by all means keep on tracking. But remember: It won’t be forever, and it’s not sustainable.
Somewhere along the way, wellness became less about listening to your body and more about managing it like a misbehaving employee. But here’s the science part most people don’t talk about: Your nervous system does not thrive under constant correction.
When your body feels watched, restricted, rushed, judged or forced into rules it doesn’t agree with, it shifts into a low-grade stress response. Cortisol rises. Recovery drops. Inflammation becomes more welcome than it should be and stays around longer, like a cousin visiting from Buffalo in the winter.
Muscles stay tight. Sleep gets lighter. Energy feels unpredictable. And suddenly everything feels harder than it should. That’s not weakness. That’s physiology.
Your body doesn’t want to be controlled. It wants to be supported.
Micromanagement looks like: forcing workouts when your body is clearly exhausted. Eating according to rules instead of hunger. Resting with guilt. Needing data to validate how you feel. Believing every ache means something is wrong. Thinking discipline has to hurt to work.
And eventually, the body starts to respond the only way it knows how: by slowing you down. Fatigue. Stiffness. Brain fog. Low motivation. Random aches. Emotional flatness. The feeling that your body is “aging faster” than it should.
But it’s not aging – it’s asking for permission to breathe. Age isn’t about how many candles are on your cake. It’s about how much freedom your body feels inside itself.
When people start treating their bodies with trust instead of control, something wild happens:
They move better. They recover faster. They sleep deeper. They crave simpler foods. They feel lighter — not just physically, but mentally.
Your body doesn’t need more discipline, it needs more safety. And the beautiful thing? Safety doesn’t come from doing nothing. It comes from doing things with respect. Movement that feels good. Food that feels grounding. Rest that feels earned instead of avoided. Boundaries that protect your energy. And expectations that match the season of life you’re actually in.
So if you answered older than your age earlier, here’s the good news: Your body isn’t broken.
It’s just tired of being micromanaged.
And the moment you stop treating it like a problem to fix and start treating it like a partner to support, you might be surprised how young it lets you feel again.
