You absolutely must make a body scan meditation part of your daily routine.
It takes ten minutes or less and is well worth the effort.
What is a Body Scan Meditation?
A body scan is less meditation and more like checking in with your emotions — no clearing your mind or focusing on your breathing.
Do a quick check of your body to see how it’s feeling: any tension, pain, tightness, heat, or other sensations?
The CALM method is straightforward:
- Chest
- Arms
- Legs
- Mouth
Check these areas to see how they’re doing.
When you feel the sensations, check your emotions and note them.
If you’re angry, afraid, or exhausted, this is how your body feels.
How Does a Body Scan Help?
Sometimes our body feels the sensations before we can identify emotions.
Knowing how your body feels when you are angry gives you time to determine your reaction.
You can decide not to react and instead work on relaxing those areas that feel the anger.
According to Mindful,
when we relax our body zone by zone, it becomes physiologically almost impossible to also be stressed, anxious, angry, or otherwise overwhelmed with difficult emotions.
Imagine being able to make your body immune to stress! That’s like a superpower!
My Experience
Body scanning is new to me, but since I have been under a lot of stress lately, I decided to try it.
I closed my eyes and concentrated on how my heart felt.
I felt adrenaline, a tightening in my throat, and noticed my hands clenched. I also identified fear.
Was it real, or was my mind reading into it? More practice will tell.
This post was created with Typeshare