2
Chapter
Mindful exercising
Theories of mindfulness Teaching mindfulness and mindful exercising
Theories of mindfulness Teaching mindfulness and mindful exercising
The meaning of mindfulness for
exercising
The following points are particularly relevant for
mindfulness, with special emphasis on mindful
exercising:
• awareness of our physical activities and
sensations as posture and correcting our posture,
joint positions, muscle tone, respiration, and
movements against gravity
• awareness of our emotions, which can be
positive, negative, or neutral
• awareness of our mental attitude, which can be
positive, negative, or neutral
• the freedom to stop or change body movements,
emotions, and thoughts.
In the yoga tradition the śarīras are described. These are
three layers or frames that envelop the soul: (1) the gross
frame, containing the anatomical structures; (2) the
subtle frame, consisting of the physiological functions;
and (3) the causal frame, which is described in Indian
philosophy as something like a divine force (Iyengar
2009 ). A more refined description is given by the
concept of the kośas, five layers or sheaths, interpen-
etrating the śarīras. These five layers include: (1) the
anatomical sheath; (2) the physiological sheath,
including the systems of the body, such as the respi-
ratory system; (3) the psychological sheath, which
is important for awareness, feeling, and motivation;
(4) the intellectual sheath, which is important for
judgment and reasoning; and (5) the spiritual sheath
(Feuerstein 2001, Iyengar 2009).
To be able to move our body efficiently and
without effort we need motor abilities, strength,
and mobility. We also need sensory awareness to
develop excellence in controlling the movement.
If our sensory awareness is not well developed, we
will only be able to carry out major deviations from
the ideal movement. The later the finetuning hap-
pens, according to sensory feedback, the less pre-
cise the corrections will be: the movements become
awkward and the risk of injury rises dramatically.
This can often be observed in beginners. Therefore
developing mindfulness and refining awareness
quickly lead to precision and finetuning. The danger
of injury is lessened, and pain can be avoided.
If we learn a new movement we refine it through
repetition. The flow of movement becomes more
economical, appearing more elegant. During the
learning period the movements are felt more. The
more we become used to the movements, the less
sensory feedback we get, to a point where sensory
feedback is hardly felt at all. Now the risk of injury
increases again. At this point mindfulness becomes
particularly important. For a better balance of move-
ment and sensory feedback and to reduce the risk of
injury, new exercises or variations can be added.
The process of refining the movements creates joy
and happiness and motivates us to repeat the move-
ments even better. Through mindful practice we
improve the quality of our movements faster. Practice
without mindfulness needs much longer training and
is more likely to lead to injury and pain.
If we are healthy and able to move well, we are
not usually aware of our movements. Pain, however,
is an indication to stop or change the movement.
Often pain is an emergency brake. It may indicate
that the body has been overstressed, perhaps for a
long time, or used in a faulty way. Greater awareness
could have avoided strain and faulty use, as repeated
mindful exercising refines sensory awareness.
In summary we have three modes for bodily and
mental movements:
- We move in a habitual way, without much
awareness of our movement, feeling, and thinking.
- We are aware of the kind of movement, our
emotions, and our thinking. In this case change and
learning will happen. This is the mindful mode.
- Distress, pain, or too strong emotions will stop
the movement.
The aim is to increase the mindful mode, our aware-
ness of movement, emotions, and thinking, to sup-
port learning and changes.
From the 1980s new mindfulness-based methods
have been developed, particularly within behavioral
psychology. Jon Kabat-Zinn has developed a method
called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR),
a training of practices based on a combination of
Buddhist Vipassana and Zen traditions and on mind-
ful yoga. Kabat-Zinn has conducted much research
and published a series of studies about the effects
of MBSR on chronic pain. Statistically significant
