5 Quick Mindfulness Exercises to Activate Each of Your Senses
When most people think of meditation, they usually think of sitting quietly with their eyes closed, focusing on their breath. But mindfulness, the foundation of meditative practice, can be incorporated into absolutely everything we do. One powerful way to practice mindfulness in your everyday life is through exercise and movement.
Being mindful during exercise means using your physical movement as an opportunity to draw your full attention to your body and your senses: what you’re feeling, seeing, hearing, smelling, and tasting. By focusing your awareness on the physical sensations of your body, you’re able to get out of your head and get into the present moment.
To help you get started, here are 5 mindfulness exercises to try, each one focused on activating a different sense.
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1. Movement (Smell): Forest Walking
Forest bathing (known as shinrin-yoku in Japan) is a practice of mindful walking in nature. Unlike regular hiking, which is usually focused on a destination, forest bathing is an intentional but unstructured stroll through nature for the purposes of refreshing your mind and body.
Research has suggested that forest bathing can reduce heart rate, lower cortisol levels, decrease blood pressure, improve short-term memory, and more. Because humans evolved in natural environments, the sights, sounds, and smells of nature calm us and make us feel more at home.
For your forest bathing practice, find a quiet natural space, away from traffic and other disturbances. While walking, take full, deep breaths and become conscious of the unique smells of the forest. The earthy fragrance of the trees and soil. The dampness of the moss. The smell of rain, or pine needles, or cut grass. Allow these smells to anchor you firmly in the present moment.
2. Static Exercise (Sound): Yoga with Music
Yoga is a complete mindfulness practice that unites the mind, body, and spirit. To enhance your mind-body connection even further and really activate your sense of sound, try listening to binaural beats while doing yoga. Studies have shown that listening to binaural beats improves attention and memory, and can put us into a theta brainwave state that is comparable to deep meditation.
For this practice, download an app like binaural (available on iPhone) that gives you a selection of binaural beats to choose from, then do yoga while listening through headphones. Use your sense of hearing to notice the subtle effects that the sound has on your consciousness and your level of focus and presence.
3. Movement (Sight): Mindful Martial Arts
Martial arts training has long been celebrated for its ability to unify the mind and body. The combination of discipline, focus, and respect for the body that is fundamental to most martial arts traditions, makes it the perfect vehicle for cultivating mindfulness through movement.
Chinese martial arts, in particular, have historically been intertwined with mindfulness. Exercises like Tai Chi and Qi Gong, are specifically focused on cultivating a meditative, present-moment awareness while performing graceful, flowing movements. A study in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that Tai Chi reduced the impact of fibromyalgia, and another found that it improved balance and reduced falls in older adults.
For your mindful martial arts practice, try Tai Chi or Qi Gong, both of which can be taken as a class, or practiced on your own at home using videos online. During the practice, become fully conscious of every movement and sensation in your body. Try using your sense of sight to enhance your level of presence: let your gaze widen to take in the full width of your peripheral vision, and begin to notice the subtleties of color and movement that are around you.
4. Static Exercise (Touch): Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is a relaxation technique in which you intentionally and mindfully tense and release different muscle groups in the body, one at a time. It’s used by therapists to manage anxiety and pain.
For your PMR practice, lie on the floor or a yoga mat. Start from your feet and work your way up to your scalp. One body part at a time, first inhale and tense the muscles of that body part, hold for a few seconds, then release. Activate your sense of touch by directing your attention to the physical sensations of each muscle group, first in the tensed state and then in the relaxed state. Notice the subtle differences in sensation between these two states.
5. Movement (Taste): Mindful Running
For runners, the “runner’s high” is a well-known phenomenon that many who exercise regularly have experienced. Many people report feeling as though they have achieved a meditative state similar to one achieved through deep meditation during this experience.
You can take your running practice a step deeper by actively trying to use it as a mindfulness exercise. The repetitive nature of running gives you a constant physical rhythm to use as an anchor for your attention, like the breath in regular meditation.
For your mindfulness running practice, set a comfortable pace and begin to direct all of your attention to the physical sensation of your feet striking the ground. Breathe naturally, in through the nose and out through the mouth if possible. The repetitive motion of your feet and legs should provide enough rhythmic sensation to use as a mental anchor. To activate your sense of taste, try taking small sips of water or a natural sports drink as you run, using the subtle taste and sensation of the liquid to heighten your sense of presence.
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