ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates some practical skills for listening to the language of the body. Some of the skills can be easily implemented in clinical practice, and some need further training before putting in practice. Tracking is the skill of paying attention, as an active witness, to outward physical signs of our patients’ present-moment experience. Breathing is one of the most constant forms of our life, and yet at the same time it is dynamic and changing. It is a sensitive indicator of blood oxygenation, cardiac output, lung function, and a variety of other systemic medical conditions, and therefore observing our patients’ breathing and listening to their lungs are fundamental in any routine physical examination. When patients decide to see a doctor, they have to choose how to convey their symptoms in the medical encounter. Some symptoms might be clear and unequivocal, whereas others are much more complex or opaque to put into words.
