EXERCISE: THE BODY SCAN

As the name suggests, the body scan entails bringing awareness to each part of the body, starting with the feet and moving up from there.

Tips for the body scan:

1.          During meditation, you may get distracted, fall asleep, find your mind wandering, and feel body sensations. Consider that it’s part of and a challenge of the exercise. There is no right or wrong to meditation practice. The moment you realize that you are not present in the exercise, you are, in fact, already present. Simply acknowledging that you are not present is a success, and non-presence makes success possible.

2.        If your mind wanders a lot, consider these thoughts as passing events, nothing special). Then try to gently bring your attention back to the body scan in the present moment.

3.       Try not to make ideas such as “success”, “failure”, “doing really well”, or “trying to relax the body” the main focus. The body scan is not a competition; it is not a skill to be achieved. The only thing that is important and that really helps is practice.

4.        Try to approach your experience with an accepting attitude, or in other words, to let it just happen: “That’s just how it is right here, right now”. If you try to avoid or suppress or expel unpleasant thoughts, feelings or physical sensations, chances are high that they will just return more often.

INFORMATION: THE BODY SCAN

·      The body scan teaches us to recognize and experience physical sensations. Much of our attention focuses on our thoughts and on matters outside our body, such as our job, social environment, etc. This creates the risk that one pays very little attention to physical signals. Recognizing physical cues such as tension or restlessness is essential, especially for preventing stress and burnout (Shapiro, Astin, Bishop, & Cordova, 2005). The body scan is a method to get more in touch with body sensations and signals and to become familiar with them.  

The body scan is a method that allows us to experience how strongly we experience the noise of our thoughts throughout our bodies. The simple instruction binds attention to one part of the body at a time, which can be much more difficult than initially thought.

The body scan is a method to learn how to draw attention to a specific point. In the body scan, the point of attention is one part of the body. The effect of the training of attention in this way can also transfer to other areas, such as focusing (concentrating) the attention on a specific task, a conversation with someone, etc.

The body scan is a method that helps to learn to detect when attention wanders. Being able to notice when attention wanders is a critical component of successful self-control. Within the self-control literature, this function is indicated by the term “monitoring” (for more information, see: Carver, 2004).

The body scan can provide insight into the general nature and pattern of thoughts. In this way, you may notice recurring themes of thoughts and realize how some thoughts are played repeatedly, like an old record.

How attention is returned to the body, gently without judgment is an exercise in an essential part of mindfulness: self-compassion.

NB:

So practice with the body scan file attached below and give feedback on how it went in the comment section.

You can find a shorter version of the body scan on youtube. Feel free to do a quick search for a shorter one to use on subsequent days if you are pressed for time. Make sure to practise this daily and journal how each day went using the workbook structure as a guide.