Body Scan Meditation

The Body Scan relaxes your body, eases tension you're holding, and helps you settle into the present and unwind before sleep. It's the practice of moving your attention slowly through the body, part by part, noticing whatever you find without trying to change it.

Slowly directing attention through the body interrupts the cycle of busy thinking and signals safety to the nervous system, which releases muscular tension and shifts you toward a relaxed, parasympathetic state. You may feel heaviness, warmth, and deep relaxation, and now and then a body scan can surface tension or emotion you've been holding, which is normal. Body scan practice, a core part of mindfulness-based programs, has been studied for reducing stress and physical tension and improving body awareness. It comes from Buddhist mindfulness traditions and was widely adopted in modern mindfulness-based stress reduction. If you grow drowsy or drift toward sleep, that's completely fine and often a sign you're letting go, and if staying with the body feels hard, simply returning your attention is the practice.