When we lose trust in our own bodies

When doctors can’t explain your symptoms, something subtle but powerful can happen: you start to doubt your own body. This bodily mistrust can show up in so many areas of our health. 

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since recording a recent episode of the thefifty1percent podcast, where I spoke about behaviour change and about living with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder.  

Listening back, one thing I said really stuck with me: 

“My main symptom was fatigue - and I went back to the GP so many times, even I was starting to think it was all in my head.”

That sentence captures something I’ve been grappling with for years: what happens when we lose trust in our own bodies - and how that loss of trust can spill into the way we approach health behaviours like eating and movement.

How healthcare can erode bodily trust

My experience isn’t unusual. I had persistent bouts of fatigue and kept going back to the doctor asking what might be causing it. Tests came back normal. Nothing obvious showed up.

No one ever explicitly told me I was making it up. But when there’s no explanation (and no solution) the implication can start to feel like “there’s nothing wrong”. Or worse: “it’s all in your head”.

Over time, that message gets internalised. You start to question your own experience. You stop trusting what your body is telling you.

I was lucky. When my sister was diagnosed with a related condition, it helped unlock a diagnosis for me too. Suddenly, there was an explanation: not just for the fatigue, but for the pain that had been creeping up alongside it.

But while the diagnosis helped, it didn’t magically undo the years of doubt that came before it.

My body speaks - but I don’t always believe it

I was diagnosed with hypermobility in 2018, and even now I don’t always feel confident reading what my body needs.

There are days when I’m exhausted and there’s no clear explanation; no obvious trigger. My body just needs rest. And yet there’s often a quiet voice in the background saying, maybe you’re just being lazy.

I find myself searching for reasons to justify how I feel: replaying the last few days, Googling symptoms, looking for a causal story that makes the fatigue feel legitimate. It can be surprisingly hard to accept: I’m tired because I am - and that’s enough information.

Underneath all of this is a lack of trust. A belief that my internal signals aren’t quite reliable unless they’re backed up by evidence, data, or diagnosis.

And this dynamic isn’t limited to chronic illness.

How this shows up in food and movement

In my coaching work, I see the same pattern play out again and again in relation to eating and exercise.

Many people have spent years relying on external rules: calorie targets, meal plans, step counts, workout schedules. Being asked to listen to their body instead can feel genuinely frightening. There’s often a fear that without those rules, they’ll eat endlessly or stop moving altogether.

What’s sitting underneath that fear is the same issue: a lack of trust in internal signals.

We’ve been taught (subtly and not so subtly) that we need external validation to know what’s happening inside our own bodies. That hunger, fullness, fatigue, or restlessness can’t be trusted without some kind of guideline or metric to confirm them.

But bodies are often far more capable of self-regulation than we give them credit for, if we’re given the space and support to relearn how to listen.

Do digital health tools help - or hinder?

This is where things get complicated.

There are lots of digital tools designed to help us manage our health. For fatigue specifically, I’ve been intrigued by a product called Visible, which tracks physiological data and tells you when to slow down.

On one hand, the validation it offers feels incredibly appealing, especially after years of being dismissed. On the other, I find myself wondering: is this helping me rebuild trust in my body, or simply outsourcing that trust to an app? 

The same question applies to food and movement. Activity trackers and food logging apps can create a sense of control and reassurance. But they also pull attention outward (away from how we actually feel) and towards what the app says we should be doing.

An app doesn’t know if you’ve had an emotionally draining day and need rest. It doesn’t know you need a bigger breakfast because today will be demanding. It doesn’t live in your body.

So while these tools can be useful, it’s worth asking what role they’re playing: are they scaffolding self-trust, or replacing it?

So what actually helps rebuild trust?

Rebuilding trust in your body isn’t about abandoning structure, data, or support altogether. It’s about noticing where trust is currently being placed, and whether that’s serving you. 

For me, this is ongoing work. I’m actively working on self-trust (with the help of a very good therapist), and I’m learning to notice when I’m slipping into old patterns of self-doubt. Simply recognising “ah, this is me not trusting myself again” can be enough to interrupt the cycle.

In my coaching work, I focus on helping people rebuild this trust gently, without throwing them into the deep end of “just listen to your body” and hoping for the best. It’s a process, not a switch. 

If you’re curious about where you might be struggling to trust yourself with health behaviours, I’d love to chat. You can read more about my coaching here.

Listen to the podcast

In the full podcast episode, Neha (another brilliant health psychology geek) and I talk about our experiences of diagnosis and managing chronic health conditions, as well as how to change behaviour in ways that actually stick.

You can listen now on Apple, Spotify, YouTube*, or thefifty1percent website. 

*there’s a video here too if you’d like a peek at the VERY fancy podcast studio!