Body Scan - Ease Tension

A short guided body scan to ease tension and cultivate deep relaxation with ourselves. Simple but effective. A practice to do anytime but most beneficial in the evening before we go to bed to encourage deeper, nourishing sleep.

Transcript

Today we're going to do a body scan.

So I'd like you to just lie down in a comfortable place.

It can be on your bed,

It can be on your couch,

It can be on the floor,

On a mat,

On the carpet.

Just make sure you're warm and you might feel sleepy and your mind might drift off but just remember now the goal is to try and remain a little bit alert and aware of the present moment.

So get yourself comfortable,

Put a blanket over you,

Put some socks on if you need to.

Maybe you might need something underneath the back of the head.

Just take a few moments just to get yourself adjusted,

A couple of small adjustments in your body.

Maybe bending your knees with the feet on the floor can really feel comfortable for the lower back too.

Gently close your eyes and let your shoulders drop down away from your ears.

Just bring your attention to your breathing.

Breathing in and breathing out.

Allow yourself just to continue to breathe naturally.

The aim of the exercise is to bring awareness to the physical sensations in different parts of your body.

Your mind is probably used to labeling these sensations as good or pleasurable,

Bad,

Uncomfortable or even painful.

So for this exercise we want to just see beyond that without judgement and just notice maybe sensations like tingling,

Warmth,

You might notice contraction or tightness,

Pulling sensations or pulsating.

So rather than going into the story about certain parts of our body,

We're going to just try and see if we can just take it in without putting a big story on it.

It's just about noticing these sensations.

Now continue to breathe at your own pace.

Just allow each breath to come in as it might without any conscious effort.

Notice your lungs slowly filling up with air when you breathe in.

And just notice when you breathe out your ribs and your lungs deflate.

Now bring your awareness to where your body makes contact with the floor or with the couch or the bed.

On each out breath just allow yourself just to let go,

To sink a little deeper into the surface beneath you.

This surface that's holding you right now in this practice.

Scan your left foot for any sensations.

Just become aware of your left foot,

Toes,

The sole of your foot,

The left heel.

Scan your left calf muscle,

So move up your left leg.

Notice any sensations that might be present there.

Start to move up into your left upper thigh.

Just allow yourself just to feel all the sensations there.

Sometimes might bring on a sense of sensations like widening,

Gripping,

Heaviness.

And if you don't feel anything at the moment that's really okay.

Just allow yourself to not feel anything too,

Okay?

Now if you do become aware of tension or very intense sensations in one particular part of the body,

Just see if you can breathe into it.

Just bringing the in breath into this place,

So bring a gentle awareness to the sensation that's present right now.

And remember we're not trying to change it.

Bring your awareness up into your left hip,

Your left hip joint,

All of the pelvis.

Now bring your awareness down into your right foot.

Scan any sensations in your right foot now.

In your right toes,

In the right sole of your foot,

The right heel.

Slowly bring your awareness up into your right calf.

And into your upper right thigh.

Just notice all the sensations and just feel what's happening right now in this moment.

And a little bit of just curiosity and awareness.

So a sense of openness to what's happening down there.

Scan your awareness up into your right hip joint.

And just gently scan across the whole pelvis now.

The mind will inevitably wander away from the breath and this might happen quite a lot,

So don't give yourself a hard time,

Okay?

Just come back to the breath.

It's very normal.

Just notice if your mind has become lost,

It's wandered away.

Just gently acknowledge it and return your attention to the part of the body you were intending to focus on.

So now let's focus on the abdomen and the stomach.

And just feel the expansion or rising of your belly as you breathe in.

And just kind of a sinking as you exhale.

Nice and slow now.

Maybe your heart rate might have slowed down a little bit.

Just keep your attention down on your lower torso,

Your abdomen.

Keep your attention on your breath.

Really start to feel the sensation of your breath down in this place.

Notice all the sensations in your stomach area.

Now bring your attention up into your upper chest,

Into your chest,

Into your left lung and right lung,

Collarbones.

Scan your awareness down into your right arm,

Your right hand,

Into your right fingertips.

And continue to just bring awareness and also a gentle curiosity.

Bring your awareness and your attention down into the left arm and down into the left hand,

The left fingers.

Maybe any tingling in both fingertips,

Maybe in your fingernails.

Also just bringing a deep awareness into the centre of each palm on each hand.

Come back up into your chest and start to scan along your neck and into your face.

So first just on a very superficial level,

The skin of your face.

Then start to drop a little deeper into the facial muscles and then into your jaw.

And notice how the back of your head rests against the surface underneath you.

Just bring your awareness to the top of the head.

You could say your scalp,

Your hairline.

Any sensations there.

Now take a moment to notice all of your body parts,

The whole body,

Like a global awareness.

Just bringing your awareness to all of the body,

Just scanning all of the body,

Letting all the sensations come to you.

Just notice what kind of sensation it is,

What quality is it,

What's the temperature.

Correct the meaning.

Just notice all those sensations of tingling,

Warmth,

Maybe coolness around your mouth or your nostrils,

Maybe coolness on the surface of your skin.

Notice any heaviness in the lower limbs,

In the shoulders or notice any floating,

Quality of lightness,

Maybe even noticing a sense of spaciousness as you breathe in and out.

From the inside out noticing a sense of spaciousness.

And just notice those sensations that come,

They come,

They go and they gradually change or they move on to another area.

There's just this constant change within you.

Noticing that quality of impermanence,

Even when we bring our attention now back to the breath,

That no one breath is the same.

Each breath is different,

Unique in its own way.

Coming back to the breath.

And just bringing your attention back into your surroundings now.

Noticing the surface that holds you here.

Noticing the space that you're in.

Noticing the sounds that you hear around you.

When you're ready,

Just slowly opening your eyes and just bringing your attention back.

Reviews

Lovely, soothing voice

Lovely 😊 v easy to follow 🙏🏻