Understanding Mindful Movement for Better Wellbeing

What is mindful movement?

Mindfulness in general can be defined as paining non-judgmental, kind attention to whatever is happening in the moment. In mindful movement, we are specifically focusing that attention on the movement of the body. The movement itself can be very small, for example just the movement of the eyes. It can also extend to the whole-body movement such as in walking meditation or yoga.

Why practice it?

There are several reasons for extending meditation practice to include mindful movement and other moments of mindfulness.

Becoming more mindful in daily situations, such as having a walk, provides similar benefits as meditation:

• Reduced stress
• Better emotional health
• Better self-awareness
• Better focus

Mindful movement can be easier to practice when one experiences difficulties in noticing body sensations in a regular meditation (e.g. due to numbing, sleepiness or restlessness, pain or discomfort if it is experienced while sitting and so on)

Mindful movement is also one of the multiple modalities used for healing trauma as it is a great way of re-establishing the connection to the body sensations.

How to practice it?

Regardless of what movement you decide to focus on, there are several things to keep in mind:

• As in any mindfulness meditation practice, it is best to start by establishing an anchor by paying attention to the breath, body sensation or sound for a short moment before starting any movement.
• Before the first movement is made, focusing on any touch points the body has with the surface can help with grounding and allows for safer movement.
• The body movement should preferably be as slow as possible, so that full attention can be paid to each small part of the movement. However, the speed should still make it possible to keep the right balance (especially in walking).
• Mindful movement is not meant as a workout – so trusting the body, taking breaks and not going over 75% of the capacity is recommended.

As mentioned before, the practice of mindful movement is very accessible. We don’t need full-body mobility to benefit from it. Even if you can only move your eyes, you can use that movement to practice mindfulness. In the practice we will do together, we will be using small movements of the eyes, head, shoulders and hands. As an alternative, you can also decide to follow the guided walking meditation recording available on my YouTube channel.

For my own mindful movement practice, I especially enjoy mindful walks and walking meditations. These differ from each other. In a walking meditation we only pay attention to the movement of our legs while we walk very slowly. In a mindful walk we may be walking at a bit faster pace and paying attention to various sensations – sounds, sights, smells, body sensations, our breath and so on. Mindful walks in nature bring me a lot of joy 😊

I hope you will enjoy trying some mindful movement practice with me as well 💚