What is Body Scan Meditation?

Body scan meditation is a form of meditation that focuses on the body through a gradual scan from one’s feet to the muscles in one’s face. Its simple goals are to bring awareness to the body and to release any built-up tension.

Benefits of Body Scan Meditation

When busy navigating the world around us, we sometimes try to push away our aches, tension, or general discomfort. Performing a body scan meditation allows us to become more aware of our body’s aches — not to heal the pain, but to release any source of tension we weren’t paying attention to before, such as a hunched back or clenched jaw muscles.

This practice may also increase our general attunement to our mental and physical needs, sensations, and preoccupations, which can, in turn, help us better attend to ourselves and others and make healthier decisions about our diet, sleep, exercise, and other priorities.

How to Practice Body Scan Meditation

To practice a body scan, one focuses on different body parts, starting from the tips of the toes before gradually working upwards and through the entire body. This can be done while sitting, laying down, or in other postures. 

As we go through the body scan, we should avoid imposing any judgment on the process or even trying to heal any pain we might become aware of. Our task in a body scan is to simply notice what is there to be noticed.

In short, we:

1. Begin by bringing attention to your body, feeling its weight on your chair, cushion, or floor. You can close your eyes if you find that helpful.
2. Cycle through a few deep inhales and exhales, enlivening the body on the inhale and exhaling with a sense of relaxation in mind.
3. Next, we begin to bring our attention to different parts of the body in sequence, noticing the sensations present: the weight of the body, any pulsing, heaviness, lightness, warmth, coolness, and so on. Start from the feet, then the legs, then the back, torso, and stomach. Where you feel tension or tightness, let it soften.
4. Next, we notice the hands, arms, and shoulders, again letting them be soft. We then continue to move our attention, one by one, to the neck, throat, face, and jaw, taking time to let each one relax.
5. Finally, we turn our attention to the whole body, taking a breath or two and noticing how the body feels.

For even more detailed point-by-point instructions, check out this guided body scan meditation for stress relief, which is designed to be practiced while sitting but can be adapted for any posture.