This short and simple guided exercise can help us slow down a little and connect with our bodies and the world around us before we begin to play our game.
So coming into your seat,
First let's feel where we're connected to the earth.
You might feel the pressure where you're sitting down or your feet on the floor,
Your hands on your lap,
And let's take a couple of big deep breaths coming in through the nose and out through the mouth.
Two more times and with that last exhalation just let your breath return to normal and as a way of grounding our attention in our bodies we're just gonna take a gentle scan from the top of our head down to the tip of our toes and as we go we're just going to notice what's there to notice.
Starting with the sensations that we feel at the top of the head and then gently scanning down through the head and across the face can then feel what ever is there on the neck and the shoulders,
Down through the arms,
Through into the hands and the torso and just letting the acknowledgement of these different sensations just light up the body.
You can feel that scan go down towards your hips,
Then your legs,
Your knees,
And finally let it drift down towards your ankles and your feet.
Now with the body lit up like this you might notice that you can feel your breath gently coming in and out.
No special way to control it.
Let's just pay attention to it and rest our attention on it for a few short cycles.
You might ground that attention where you feel the breath at the nose or it could be the chest or the belly.
Whatever feels right to you and as you breathe in you can just gently note breathing in and then when you breathe out you can just gently note breathing out.
As simple as that.
Breathing in and breathing out.
On your own now for a few cycles.
Last couple of breaths.
Coming back to breathing in and breathing out.
And on this last exhalation you can just bring that attention back into your wider body again.
Feeling what it's like to have that full body awareness here like centered in space.
Having taken just a minute to slow down,
To ground into your body,
Into your breath and now see if you can take even just a little bit of that energy into your game as you pick up your controller or your phone and enjoy playing with just a little bit more ease.
