Body Awareness… What’s That?

What is body awareness, simply being aware of one's body obviously. But maybe it’s a little more than that. It’s a conversation with your body that allows for greater knowledge of how to support your body in times of stress and overload. 

I use the term body awareness instead of somatic, because I feel like it fits better for the tools I am trying to optimize. Somatic, which is the latin word for body, is often used to describe getting in touch with your body and storied emotions. Or how our problems or issues are expressed physically. With the term body awareness I want people to start understanding what their body is communicating, when and why… 

From a training perspective it is understanding which muscles are working, what the prime mover is and how to bring awareness to utilizing the correct muscles for healthier more functional movement. 

Using body awareness within an energetic sense allows us to understand what signals our bodies are trying to give us and why Our bodies have a lot going on, on many different levels and all this information is just squirting within us, information we can tap into but often we dismiss, then wonder why we do not feel good.

If you are tired, even though you slept enough, what is the body telling you? Maybe you have to open your lymph channels and clear congestion, maybe you need to bring in slow movements to awaken your body, or work up a sweat to feel your heart pulse and move your circulatory systems. The only way to start finding out what is needed to support yourself is to know your body and how it communicates. 

Just like when we are hungry, or tired, your body gives you signals, it also gives us signals on when to move, or stretch. Signals a lot of us have been taught to ignore. Unfortunately most of us live in a way that we have to go out of our way to move and nurture our bodies. 

 For school, we were told to sit, listen and pay attention. For office work,we have to sit and engage with electronics all day, for manual labor we need to push through discomfort to perform as needed. Overriding our mind-body connection to perform tasks either expected or rewarded of us. 

So then what is the point of connecting to your body then? Well, to find joy and pleasure in your body, which is our physical connection to this world. Without it, we are not here. Everything we experience is through our senses, our body communicating with us. That gut feeling you have, the tension you feel when you're upset, the adrenalin that curses through you when stress is placed on you. There is so much going on that we often do not take the time to unpack, and then we lay in bed at night and wonder why we can not sleep even though we have felt tired all day. Or come home after working at a computer and can not alleviate shoulder tension, tension that had been building for hours, but ignored. 

Our bodies are endless sources of comfort and pleasure, but also pain and discomfort. Some people get so locked up in these pain cycles that it ends up being all they feel from their body. Or people can become so cruel to their body, finding all the faults in it, and not seeing how it shows up for them everyday. And it does, if your pulse is beating then your body is doing so much for you to exist and experience this world. And that is what body awareness is about, experiencing your body, connecting with it, understanding all the ways it communicates with you. And as much as your body shows up for you, you can start showing up for it. Below are a couple of ways to start a body awareness practice that focus on the physical aspects of when and how to move your body depending on mood and energy levels.

Body Awareness for if you feel tired, overwhelmed and or are having tension in your body but the thought of any type of exercise or movement feels like too much start by lying down and 

Checkin In:

First step in body awareness is checking in with your body. This can be done lying down, on the floor with a yoga mat or on a soft carpet. If neither of these are available, lay on your bed. 

Start by scanning your body from top to bottom or bottom to top and asking yourself, where is your body tense? Where do you feel pressure? What feels good? This practice can be one to two minutes in length. Maybe that is enough… or maybe you fall asleep, then you were really tired and that’s what your body needed! If you don’t fall asleep and want to go on, try breathing into the places that feel pressure, and picture them releasing like a balloon on the exhale.  Rescan your body, what still needs to be released? Breath into those tense places. Visualize the tension dissolving and flowing out of your fingers and toes. Scan again, If something feels good in your body, amplify that feeling. Thank your body for carrying you throughout the day and all the ways it shows up for you. Scan your body again, what changed? What didn’t? Open your eyes, start looking at one corner of the room then the other, slowly, start moving your fingers, toes, lifting an arm or a leg. Continue this slow movement within your body until you are ready to slowly sit up. 

Move a Bit:

You can then transition very easily to a five minute stretching routine if you still feel tense but feel like you have a little more bandwidth for movement than before. You can just freely move your body, stretching and breathing however it comes, slowly, not demanding but nurturing and meeting yourself where you are. There are also many 5 or 10 min routines that can be found for free on Youtube, You can also search youtube by specific locations such as low back stretching, shoulder stretches, neck stretches. This whole body awareness routine can be as short as 10 minutes to as long as you want. Maybe after stretching you feel good enough to go for a walk. Or to the gym. Maybe after you feel like that was enough. You can also swap the 5 minutes of stretching with 5 min of dancing or standing abs. All available on youtube if wanting some guidance. 

Body Awareness for when the simple act of laying down is too much for you to handle because you feel pent up. Maybe after work you are feeling super stressed and the idea of laying down and body scanning is way too much because you need to release excessive energy. Try listening to some up beat music that engages you and helps release the pent up tension or stress, move with the music, yell with the music, express all that is inside. Try a  quick kickboxing or african dance routine, youtube is a great source for this once again. Or if you have time, get out and go for a run or quick paced walk. Once you have burned off some of the excessive energy, then try laying down and doing a body scan as mentioned above. Finishing with some nice stretching and centering.

Take Away:

Learning to practice body awareness is not about pushing your body to the limit. It’s about being able to talk with your body, and understand what it needs so that you can support it, like it has always supported you. Always start small, with the intention to do it more often. If you have kids, try to include them in these activities so that you are all practicing it together. And they learn tools to support their bodies when feeling pressure, tension, or anxiety. Try to be fluid in your approach to this new behavior. You can do it in the morning, evening or multiple times a day. Wherever it works for you.

If you are interested in learning more body awareness techniques to bring about more healthy movement and support for your body I offer both Body Awareness coaching and body awareness training. The goal is a happier more peaceful body.