A 12-Minute Meditation to Replenish Cognitive Energy

Boost your cognitive energy resources by intentionally focusing on your senses and all that you notice in and around your body.

• By Shalini Bahl
• January 18, 2024
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我们的精神能量是我们的容量，用于有效集中注意力和处理信息。实际上，我们有有限的认知资源用于思考、计划、制定策略和意志力。如果我们不断从这个资源池中提取而不恢复它们，我们会感到枯竭。我们的大脑变得迟钝，无法做出很好的决策。

这个正念练习是四个系列中的第三个，我们将访问四个能量领域：身体、情感、思维和意图。我们将探索可以在日常生活中进行的正念冥想、反思和技巧动作，以补充这四个领域的能量。这四个房间的能量是相互关联的，因此如果你在一个房间里失去平衡，你会在其他房间里感受到它，并会在你的身体中有所察觉。

所以让我们今天从访问思维领域开始，学习如何通过回归感官来补充认知能量。当我们使用物理感官——触觉、视觉、嗅觉、听觉、味觉时，我们的思维大脑得以休息并可以重新积累其资源。

A Guided Meditation for Cognitive Energy

1. Come to a comfortable posture. You can do this practice while sitting, but you can also be walking if you like. If you have access to a quiet space outside, I encourage you to take this practice outdoors.

2. Whenever you feel ready, if you’re sitting, you can lower or close your eyes. If you’re outside walking, keep your eyes open and soften your gaze and allow your body to tune into other input as you move through your senses. We’ll be transitioning from one sense to another, but feel free to return to one if that feels natural to you.

3. We’ll start with the sense of touch. Notice any sensations of touch in your feet. The contact they are making with the floor or the ground. You’re placing your attention on your direct, immediate experience of the sensations of touch. So you’re not thinking about it, you’re just feeling what’s happening in your feet. For instance: any patterns of pressure, the feeling of blood flowing, tingling, the sensation of your footwear, or if you’re barefooted, then the touch of air touching your skin. Where else in your body can you feel the air touching your skin? Notice other sensations, like heat or cold, how your clothes feel, or the wind moving through your hair.

4. Next, let’s turn our attention to the sounds in your environment or within you. We’re purely listening to the sounds arising around you. So there’s no need to go searching for sounds, or wonder where they’re coming from. We’re just staying open to receiving all the sounds coming and going with a spacious mind and body.

5. Every now and then, you may discover that your mind has drifted to thinking. That’s totally natural. As soon as you notice it, simply return with kindness back to your senses.

6. Now, let’s shift our attention to smells. Maybe there’s a smell of coffee or tea. If you’re outdoors, of course, you may discover very different smells and what you find inside your house or office. So again, with that spaciousness in your mind and body, just notice any smells or even the absence of smells. In that patience and just being, we may start to uncover newer smells that we had not noticed earlier.

7. Now, if your eyes are closed, gently open them. If you’re walking, begin focusing on what you see around you. You don’t need to get lost in labels, or whether you like the object or not. Look as though you are looking for the first time, noting textures, colors, lightness, shadows.

8. When you feel ready, take a deep breath and allow your thinking mind to come back online. As we end the practice today, you might want to remind yourself to check in with your senses. You can even put up a sticky note as a reminder. Taking small sensory breaks can be really helpful for replenishing our cognitive energy stores. I’ll leave you with these words from the Irish poet William Butler Yeats. He says, “我们可以让心灵像静水一样平静，以至于生物聚集在我们周围，他们可以看到自己的倒影，或许能更清晰地，甚至更强烈地生活片刻，因为我们的宁静。” Thank you for your practice today.