This term our Wise Wednesday crew sessions are focusing on how we can support our own mental well being.
Some students may feel that this will be of no benefit to them, that they feel absolutely fine, don’t need any help or techniques to help with their mental well being…
However what if we think ahead and create a tool kit of supportive strategies now, before problems like anxiety, depression, isolation, and other life pressures hit us. Hopefully, if or when any of these problems arise we are already equipped to deal with them.
Like anything, these techniques need to be practised to get the true benefit from them. By becoming familiar with them sooner rather than later, will make it easier to engage in them when things get tough.
This weeks session was the BODY SCAN. A body scan is a type of meditation whereby you mentally scan yourself from head to toe. You are bringing awareness to every single part of your body, noticing any aches, pains, tension, or general discomfort. Staying present and breathing into these sensations can help bring relief to our minds and bodies.
Our learning target was: I can identify the benefits to my mental health through taking part in a form of relaxation technique called a body scan.
As expected not everyone felt an immediate positive impact from it. As crew Hahn had already done this last term, we tried an alternative type of scan where we focus on contracting our muscles before relaxing them which helps to identify what it actually feels like for certain areas of our body to be relaxed. For example when we are stressed we naturally tense our shoulders and neck so sometimes we might think we are relaxed when actually we are not.
As i previously said, not everyone will feel its benefits after doing it once or twice. For people who haven’t done anything like this before it can seem very odd lying on the floor next to your mate concentrating on parts of the body and your breathing. Hopefully though, if and when students are experiencing difficulty such as poor sleep or if they are feeling overwhelmed with anxiety they can look back to these session and have a go.
Why not have a try at this yourself? There are loads of body scan meditations on the internet. Here is a link to a headspace.com body scan free trial, why not give it a try yourself…….