Running
What is Diamond Mindful running, and why do it?
There are different ways to approach running mindfully. Intensely performance-oriented approaches emphasise attending to the moment-by-moment act of running itself, breathing, posture, technique – treating all else as a distraction. Here we adopt an “open awareness” approach, as we do for mindful walking, where we also take in everything that we notice in the environment we are traversing with a sense of openness, curiosity, appreciation and connection. When we notice that our attention drifts into thinking, we bring our attention back to the rhythm of our feet as they make contact with the ground, or to another form of ‘support’ that we find helpful, such as our breathing. Then, we return once more to opening our awareness to the environment we are moving through.
In this way, as well as spending more time experiencing life as it unfolds, moment by moment, perhaps feeling greater calm as a result, you may also increase your sense of connection with the world around you. Particularly when you also traverse the natural environment, you may find that you experience a greater sense of ease and relaxation – benefitting your running performance in a different way than pure focus on your body.
How do I know if I’m running mindfully?
There are different ways to approach running mindfully. Intensely performance-oriented approaches emphasise attending to the moment-by-moment act of running itself, breathing, posture, technique – treating all else as a distraction. Here we adopt an “open awareness” approach, as we do for mindful walking, where we also take in everything that we notice in the environment we are traversing with a sense of openness, curiosity, appreciation and connection. When we notice that our attention drifts into thinking, we bring our attention back to the rhythm of our feet as they make contact with the ground, or to another form of ‘support’ that we find helpful, such as our breathing. Then, we return once more to opening our awareness to the environment we are moving through. In this way, as well as spending more time experiencing life as it unfolds, moment by moment, perhaps feeling greater calm as a result, you may also increase your sense of connection with the world around you. Particularly when you also traverse the natural environment, you may find that you experience a greater sense of ease and relaxation – benefitting your running performance in a different way than pure focus on your body.
Getting better at mindful running
Try experimenting with mindful exercises as you run. This might include regularly scanning with your senses – what can you see, hear, smell, feel…? Try scanning your body from head to toe at intervals too – sensations, temperature, any discomfort...
If you do notice any discomfort, as a way of leaning into it, you might try a routine called ‘soften, soothe and allow’. Start by relaxing the areas bordering the discomfort, then mentally direct a sense of warmth towards the area, then simply accept the discomfort without making any effort to block it out or push it away. It may help to say “soften-soften-soften, soothe, soothe, soothe, allow, allow, allow” in a kindly voice in your mind as you do this.
As a further experiment, you may like to try an occasional ‘gratitude practice’ – mentally thanking the components of your body that seem to be the most deserving of thanks during the next minute or so.
If you use a smartwatch for running, perhaps you might setup a Mindful 5K workout, and schedule it at regular intervals. Try, say: 5 minutes warm-up walk, 1K warm-up run, 1K mindful run, 3K to continue to run mindfully as far as you can, 5 minutes cool-down walk. If your watch monitors activity, then after 3 runs or so, you might like to take a look to see if there is any effect on metrics such as your heart rate. You might also note down what experiments you tried and see if you can identify ones that you found most helpful.
Select the diamond to download a factsheet about Mindful Running and read on to find out more.
