Tuesday 7 February 2012

A Mindful Body Scan

When I went to the Mindfulness course last Thursday, we were given a CD of a body scan to do at home. It had a short body scan and a long one. I'd done the short one on Sunday and it didn't really do a lot for me to be honest, mostly, I think, because I didn't like the guys voice, and you could hear him really breathing and moving saliva in his mouth - it was all a bit creepy.
Today, I decided I'd better check out the long body scan as this one is with a woman's voice so I hoped she'd be less weird sounding. I think for something like that you need a very neutral voice. 
I'd been having a bit of a bad day MS wise before I started it. Pretty tired, a bit dizzy, the same patch of headache that has been present on and off for the last few weeks, nerve pain between my shoulders rather bothersome and it spreading in to a burning sensation across my torso. I'd not got dressed all day, not showered, just hadn't felt the inclination to do so. I'd promised the boyfriend a cooked dinner and I was wondering how I'd manage to get it done. I'd got to the point in the day where I'd usually just give in and have a nap, probably for a couple hours and wake up only feeling marginally better. 
Do the body scan instead I thought, if only for the rest. I expected to fall asleep and at best it'd be a break from how I was feeling. Well, it certainly worked a lot better than I was ever imagining it could. The woman's voice was much better, not intrusive at all. I didn't fall asleep but I did go in to a very deeply relaxed state. At the end, I couldn't believe I'd been there for 45minutes. I got up feeling much better within myself, the burning sensation was no longer there and the shoulder pain was unrecognisable from its previous form. I slowly got myself up, following the instructions not to rush it. I immediately felt inclined to have a shower, get dressed and cook dinner. After 20minutes or so I noticed the headache had also gone. 
As I only started on the Mindfulness course a few days ago, I still haven't got to grips with the whole idea of it. I was finding it difficult to focus on each area of the body during the body scan. I am usually trying to do whatever I can to distract myself from various pains and weird sensations, so to go through the entire body focussing on each part seemed like a bit of an alien concept to me. I was starting to wonder how it could work, surely not focussing on pain is the best way to deal with it? But in this longer body scan session, it was explained that you are not only focussing on the different sensations in each part of the body, but realising that how they change. Not thinking of the body as a solid state but more fluid and ever changing. This, to me, does make sense as a good way to deal with pain.
I don't know what it was that helped me, it could have been simply laying in a darkened room for that time would've had the same affect although I am doubtful of that as it never has in the past. Whatever it was, I'll take it and I'll certainly be doing more of it!

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