The Body Scan
GOAL
The body scan teaches you how to recognise and experience physical sensations. Much of our attention focuses on our thoughts and on matters outside our body such as our job, social environment, etc. This creates the risk that we pay only little attention to physical signals. The recognition of physical signals such as tension or restlessness is important especially for the prevention of stress and burn-out. The body scan is a method to get more in touch with bodily sensations and signals and to become familiar with them.
While the seemingly simple instruction to keep your attention focused on a body part is often much more difficult than originally anticipated, the body scan being a method that involves drawing your attention to a specific point, is also a form of mindfulness training. The effect of the training of attention in this way can also transfer to other areas, such as focusing (concentrating) the attention on a specific task, a conversation with someone, etc.