Your Body Is Trying to Tell You Something: Reading the Signs That Could Transform Your Caregiving

Your shoulders have been creeping up toward your ears all day. Your jaw is clenched. There's that familiar knot in your stomach as you prepare to call your mom about her doctor's appointment. Your body is sending you signals – urgent messages about your stress, your capacity, your emotional state – but you're too busy thinking, planning, and problem-solving to notice.

As a sandwich generation caregiver, you've become an expert at living in your head. There are appointments to coordinate, medications to track, work deadlines to meet, and children's needs to manage. But what if your body – both yours and your aging parents' – holds crucial information that could make caregiving easier, less stressful, and more connected?

According to dance and movement mental health therapist Kim Bevans, learning to read body cues is one of the most overlooked yet powerful tools sandwich generation caregivers can develop.

"When you're caring for both the older and the younger, there's a lot of emotional work going on and then there's a lot of practical work going on," explains Kim, who has 15 years of experience helping people reconnect with their bodies. "That disconnection between the mind and the body might increase. People get really cerebral because there are a lot of problems to be solved."

This makes perfect sense. When you're suddenly responsible for coordinating care for multiple people, your brain goes into overdrive. You're constantly in crisis mode, reactive, trying to solve the next problem. As Kim puts it: "We go to the thinking brain mostly... and then they're probably bubbling up in all of these ways that they don't notice either because they're just so busy."

But here's what many caregivers don't realize: while you're busy solving problems with your mind, your body is processing all the emotional and physical stress – and it has vital information to share with you.

Before diving into practical strategies, let's clarify what we mean by body awareness. Kim explains that "somatic" comes from the Greek word meaning "body," and it represents a different approach from traditional talk therapy.

"Embodiment, to me, I define that as being in the body and having experience of knowing that you have a body and that you're feeling from inside your body," she explains.

This isn't about replacing thinking with feeling – it's about integrating both. Instead of only processing your caregiving challenges cognitively, you're also paying attention to:

Think of it this way: You can grocery shop purely cerebrally (making a list, checking it off), or you can shop in an embodied way – noticing when you're getting tired, paying attention to which apple feels right in your hand, being aware of your body's signals as you navigate the store.

Kim outlines a practical three-step approach that can transform how you navigate caregiving relationships:

"What keeps you regulated or grounded when you are with your aging parents?" Kim asks. "Just taking the time just to identify that. And if you don't know, guessing, and then maybe trying it out."

The key insight: Your body is probably already doing helpful things – you just need to become aware of them and use them intentionally.

This is about developing awareness of your body's escalation patterns. What happens in your body when a conversation with your parent starts going south? What are your early warning signs?

As Kim notes: "The body is doing all sorts of things when things are maybe not going in the direction that we want to go... but also when things are going really well."

This is where caregiving becomes truly collaborative. You're not just managing tasks – you're tuning into the nonverbal communication that makes up the majority of human interaction.

"What signals are you getting from your aging parents?" Kim asks. "They could be things that have been there maybe for all your life and they could be new things."

Kim shares how simple positioning can change everything: "When you have to call them on the phone, is it better if you walk as you talk? Do you breathe very intentionally when you do that? Do you do things with your hands?"

One caregiver discovered that putting her mother on speaker phone instead of holding the phone to her ear completely changed her emotional response. "Something about her voice coming through my ear was... I felt almost trapped by it," she realized. The speaker created helpful distance and shifted her mindset.

"Where also do you feel comfortable when you're sharing space with them? How close do you want to be?" Kim asks. "What side you sit, where you place your body, knowing what feels good to you."

Consider:

Kim gives a perfect example of body cue detection: noticing when an aging parent hasn't heard something. "I could tell by my mother-in-law's body language that she did not hear what the person said. That's kind of an obvious example, but it's still an easy place to start."

When you combine all three steps, something powerful happens: "Then that dance can really start to happen," Kim explains. "We're tuning to what they're putting out there non-verbally, most of communication is non-verbal, and then we're more easily able to respond both verbally and non-verbally."

This creates a feedback loop where:

Body awareness becomes especially valuable when you consider that some things change with aging and some things stay the same. Kim emphasizes the importance of knowing your parent's baseline: "Has dad always done that?"

This awareness helps you:

Kim makes an important point about how we dismiss body wisdom: "I was more raised with the like, oh, sort of brush it aside. Right. You're fine. Oh, that phrase. You're fine. If we change it to talking about, well, yeah. You have butterflies. It's nervous. You're doing something new. You're doing something hard. Okay, how can we do it anyway?"

This applies directly to caregiving. Instead of dismissing your physical stress responses ("I'm fine, I can handle this"), try:

Validating these responses doesn't mean you can't handle caregiving – it means you're gathering important information about your capacity and needs.

If body awareness is new to you, Kim suggests starting with what feels "good or okay" rather than jumping into difficult sensations. "I don't even usually start with a body scan in session number one... Just starting there, start friendly."

Kim touches on something particularly relevant for many sandwich generation caregivers: "Menopause women... People just like, 'Oh, it's just the change of life.' It's like, that's not helpful."

Many women navigating menopause while caregiving experience:

Body awareness becomes even more crucial during this time because your physical needs and responses may be changing while your caregiving responsibilities are intensifying.

Sometimes, paying attention to body cues – both yours and your parent's – reveals important information that requires action:

Kim emphasizes that body awareness naturally supports self-care: "Self-care is anything that helps you feel calm and gathered." But instead of generic self-care advice, body awareness helps you identify what YOU specifically need:

Kim offers a free resource called "Foundations for Somatic Release" that includes exercises designed to help you:

The goal isn't to become a movement therapist – it's to develop practical skills that make caregiving more sustainable and connected.

When you start paying attention to body cues, the impact extends beyond individual interactions:

The goal isn't to become perfectly attuned to every body sensation. It's about adding body awareness as another source of information in your caregiving toolkit.

"It's a skill and if it's a skill that hasn't been practiced, it takes time to build it and that's okay," Kim reminds us. "Just because we're always existing in these bodies doesn't mean that we've been practicing those skills."

Start small. Notice one thing. Trust what your body tells you. Pay attention to patterns. Use this information to make caregiving more sustainable for everyone involved.

Your body has been trying to tell you something all along – about your stress, your needs, your parent's state, and what would help in any given moment. The question is: Are you ready to listen?

Ready to develop the body awareness skills that could transform your caregiving experience? You deserve support that addresses not just the practical challenges of sandwich generation caregiving, but also the physical and emotional toll it takes on your whole system.

Schedule your complimentary caregiving consultation with Edla Prevette today and discover how to integrate body awareness techniques with practical caregiving strategies, creating a more sustainable and connected approach to caring for your aging parents.

Kim Bevans is a dance and movement mental health therapist and embodied guide with a Master's degree from Columbia College Chicago in Dance/Movement Therapy and Counseling. For 15 years, she has supported people who spend too much time in their thinking minds to find their way back to connection with their bodies. Through body-centered therapy, Kim helps the deep feeling and body curious find more life balance, develop meaningful relationships, and live fulfilling lives. You can find her resources and support at: https://kimbevans.com 

Edla Prevette specializes in helping sandwich generation caregivers develop effective communication strategies and reduce stress while caring for aging parents. With thirty years of experience as an educator and therapist, she provides research-based approaches that make caregiving feel more manageable. Learn more at edlaprevette.com.