Awareness

Dimensions of Body Awareness: 1. Perceived body sensations or the ability to note changes in body processes, to identify inner sensations (e.g. a tight muscle, fatigue, warmth, pain) and to discern subtle bodily cues indicating varying functional states of the body or its organs and the emotional/physiological state. This dimension is the primary sensory, physiological aspect of body awareness with its early, mostly pre-conscious appraisal or affective “coloring” of that sensation. It is subdivided into four sub-domains: A) sensations of distress, worry, pain and tension (e.g. “I am aware of tension in my muscles”); B) sensations of wellbeing (e.g. “I feel my feet warming up when I relax”); C) neutral or ambiguous sensations (e.g. “I notice changes in how my body feels”), and D) the affect aspect of sensation or bothersomeness i.e. of pain (e.g. “How much does your back pain bother you?”). The affect component of a body sensation is here understood as determined by the early preconscious (i.e. with acute pain) or the secondary, evaluative appraisal. 2. Quality of attention with 3 sub-domains: A) The intensity of attention along a bi-polar continuum from paying attention to sensations (seen as an active response to the perception of sensations and including exaggerated attention) on one end to distracted avoidance, ignoring and suppression of perceptions on the other end (e.g. “I distract myself from uncomfortable body sensations.”). This reflects the importance of body sensations to the individual and does not reflect whether this active focus is involuntarily reactive or intentional (“mindful”). B) The self-efficacy of attentional control or the individual's confidence in the ability to focus on a sensation and sustain or control the mode of attention (e.g. “I can move my attention to different parts of my body.”). C) The mode of attention or how an individual pays attention to a sensation, whether her attention is more in a mode of (a) either thinking