COULD A BODY SCAN HELP?

When I started doing body scanning with my children, they were very little.  I didn’t know that it was called body scanning and I didn’t even know that it was a real thing. It was introduced to me by a very dear friend, who became my children’s Jewish grandmother and I just thought it was a trick she had gained with age and wisdom for calming little ones.
I wasn’t wrong of course, but body scanning is so much more than that. As a great form of meditation for beginners, it also comes with some incredible benefits, including improved sleep, relief from stress and anxiety, greater self-awareness and body knowledge and increased self-compassion.
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Here’s my very simple method.

1. Lie down in a comfortable position
2. Take a few slow deep breaths. If you feel your shoulders rising and falling, try to breathe into your stomach instead.
3. Starting with your toes (you can actually start anywhere, but this works for me) become aware of how they feel. Relax each toe in turn and then move onto the ball of your foot. Feel your foot and imagine each nerve ending in the foot relaxing. Move to the arch of your foot and relax that. Feel the tension ease away from it. Now move on to the heel… then your ankle.
4. Gradually proceed slowly through each limb of your body, taking time to mentally attend to how its feeling, and work your way all the way up to your scalp.
5. Now visualise your whole body as its lying there, comfortably, serene, relaxed.  Breathe normally and gently until you fall asleep.

I would love to get your feedback after you have tried this a few times. Also if you  are a parent of young kids, try it on them and let me know how it goes. Chances are you might get lots of giggles at first, but those are not a bad thing either! :-)

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