How To Body Scan To Soothe Anxiety

One way we can learn to communicate with our bodies is through body scanning.

This is a fairly simple approach that gets easier the more you practice it.

Body scanning falls under the first piece of body awareness – identifying.

Body scanning is the practice of applying a mental scanner to your body, as if you were walking through TSA in the airport and getting scanned. Scanning your body is the process of looking at each part of your body individually to assess for pain, discomfort, or any other issue.

Let’s begin.

1)      Sit comfortably. Try to sit with both feet on the floor for the first couple times.

2)    Start with your feet. Send all of your attention and focus to your feet. Notice the soles of your feet on are the floor. Identify what it feels like to feel the ground beneath you. As I write this, I’m barefoot at my desk, so my feet have carpet underneath them.

3)     Describe the sensation to yourself with as much specific details as possible. My feet feel slightly cold, because my AC is on. I feel some moderate pressure on the floor, and my feet feel soft and relaxed against the carpet. I can feel the carpet is plush and soft, because it’s still relatively new.

4)    Once you’ve scanned one part of your body, move on to the next part. I’m moving on to my lower legs. My lower legs feel strong, and they also feel straight up and down. They’re at a slight angle but not much, and that relieves all pressure from my calves. They’re a little sore because I did leg day at the gym in the last couple days. My ankles feel tight because I haven’t done my yoga yet this morning. 

5)     Stop. Because my ankles feel tight I will do little circles with my feet until my ankles feel loose and comfortable. 

6)     Once my ankles feel good again, I resume the body scan. This is how you address what you’re feeling – We do what we can to relieve the pain when we feel it. You can use various methods that I will teach in other worksheets to relieve the concerns. 

7)     Return to your body – I’m moving up to my thighs, feeling the pressure of the chair underneath me, my clothes on my legs, any pain or sensation I feel. 

8)     Complete this scan section by section of your body. I usually separate into my feet, lower legs, upper legs, lower back, middle back & tummy, upper back and chest, lower arms, upper arms, neck and shoulders, and head. 

9)     You can either go bottom up or top down, starting with your head or your feet. It’s entirely your preference!

10)    When your body scan is completed, SAY THANK YOU to your body and yourself for showing up today. You are precious and deserve this space. 

I’ve attached added some prompts to journal about anything that has come up today:

Did I feel any pain today? If so, where?

Did I feel relaxed at all today? If so, where?

Did I experience any new feelings today? If so, where?