Body Scan Meditation Benefits
Try this 5-minute relaxation body scan meditation any time of the day-in the morning when you first wake up, in the middle of the day to take a break from your busy schedule, or at the end of the day before you go to sleep. With everyday life, our minds tend to get very busy and we are often more “in our heads”, thinking about all there is to do, instead of paying attention to our physical bodies. With a body scan meditation, we start to develop a greater awareness of tension or pain in our bodies and learn to release the tension in a healthy way. A body scan meditation is a form of meditation where you are purposely guided to feel through your body for any sensation of tension or pain or tightness.
Research shows that body scan meditation has many mental and physical benefits including reducing pain, releasing anxiety and stress, increasing your focus, improved self-awareness, and improving sleep and reduced inflammation in the body. It also has been shown to reduce age-related memory loss. Practicing body scan meditation is associated with greater levels of mindfulness and higher levels of psychological well-being.
With a continued mindful body scan practice you will begin to be better able to RESPOND to stress in your life. We often cannot change the stressors in our life, but we can train our minds and bodies to respond better to the stressors and not cause the physiological damage that stress can incite- such as raising blood pressure, increasing blood fats and blood sugars and creating tension in our muscles. Stress hormones also shut down the digestion process so practicing a relaxation technique can even help improve digestion so that you are better able to absorb the nutrition from the food you eat.
Besides counteracting the negative effects of stress, body scan meditations can help to ground us. Grounding means that we sort of pull our body and mind together in sync and stay focused on the present. You will begin to be able to start to notice tension developing in your body and be able to release it before the muscle tension becomes a real problem.
Enjoy this guided relaxation body scan, you will be led to focus on and purposefully relax your entire body – one area at a time.