Body scan

“In my last column I introduced mindfulness as a marvellous tool for managing the stresses and strains of life and outlined a very simple and accessible mindfulness practice, the ‘three-minute breathing space’, which anyone can introduce into their normal everyday routine.
   I evoked the experience of mindfulness as: ‘live in the moment, notice what is happening and make choices in how you respond to your experience rather than being driven by habitual reactions.’ This is an evocation rather than a definition, as mindfulness is essentially a non-verbal experience of present-moment awareness that’s impossible to pin down in words. But to get a flavour: imagine what life would be like if every moment you continually felt alert, alive and awake: wise, clear, receptive and able to engage with, and appreciate, the world around you.
   In this column I want to introduce another crucial mindfulness practice - the ‘body scan’. This is a mindfulness meditation practice that is similar to Yoga nidra. It is usually done lying down and in the practice you very gently and gradually allow your awareness to inhabit all the different parts of your body in turn. You can progress from the head to the feet or vice versa or even from the centre of the body to the edges. The main intention is simply to drop your awareness as deeply as you can into your body and get to know the nature of your bodily sensations from the inside out. It’s rather mysterious in that you don’t have to do anything at all in an active sense and yet deep changes of awareness almost always take place. As you let go into the flow of the practice, you can imagine you’re washing your body, on the inside and the outside, with a flow of mindful awareness...”

The article, which is written by Vidyamala Burch, continues to discuss the three things she particularly loves about the body scan. The author is founder of Breathworks and author of LIVING WELL WITH PAIN & ILLNESS, published by Platkus.