Running Mindfully
Integrate mindfulness practice with your running to boost enjoyment and connection
Turn off, tune in
In our busy lives, multitasking can seem inevitable. We pair our runs with an energizing music playlist or a favorite podcast. We might see running as a healthy but essentially unpleasant chore which will go by faster if we divert our attention from it. However, in my experience we can learn through practice to enjoy the simple experience of running while staying focused on our bodies and surroundings.
I invite you to use 3 of your next 6 runs to tune in rather than tune out. You may find that you enjoy the mindful runs more than the “earphone runs”. Perhaps you’ll even discover a deeper wellspring of motivation for your health and fitness activities.
Mindfulness
In recent years, interest in mindfulness has soared thanks to an array of well-documented wellness benefits. Vietnamese Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh introduced millions of spiritual seekers to mindfulness practices through his many books, videos, and retreats. Additionally, secular applications of mindfulness with a focus on health have gained popularity, largely influenced by the work of Jon Kabat-Zinn, creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program, and other advocates.
In essence, mindfulness practice strengthens our ability to stay in the present moment, diminishing the time we spend worrying about the past or future. While meditation is often associated with sitting on a cushion in a quiet room, practicing outdoor meditation-on-the-move can be equally beneficial. You might even find it easier to settle your thoughts while running compared to sitting.
Awareness of the Breath
For thousands of years meditators from cultures around the world have understood the breath to be the ideal bridge between mind and body. Most of the time our breathing is an unconscious process of the body. Yet we can easily bring it into conscious awareness and recover a sense of oneness with our body. As runners, being aware of our breathing rhythm can help us to learn and respect how our bodies respond to different conditions of pace, terrain and more. To gently maintain that awareness, try thinking “in, out” as you inhale and exhale. If you’re taking two strides per breath, you can note that with “in, in, out, out” to stay aware of your rhythm.
The breath is also our most obvious connection to our surroundings. Contemplating our continuous exchange of O₂ and CO₂ with the plant community can enhance our feeling of oneness with the ecosystem we’re moving through.
Awareness of the Body
If we think of running primarily as a means to achieve long-term goals (completing specific races, staying healthy as we age), a typical running workout might seem like something to be endured rather than enjoyed. But if we begin to see each run as a celebration of our amazing body and its capacity for movement, then we’ll start to enjoy the moment-by-moment experience of running more. For me, this aspect of running that might be called a spiritual practice (or gratitude practice) is reason enough to run with mindfulness. However, conventional running coaches offer many additional practical reasons to tune in to our body.
Becoming aware of the pattern of our breathing and steps can yield useful insights that help us to run more efficiently and sustainably. For example, noticing that we’re taking two steps per breath, or three steps on the in-breath and two steps on the out-breath, can familiarize us with what “gears” we have available and what they feel like when covering a particular distance. Modern watches that tell us our heart rate can enhance our self-awareness, but aren’t a substitute for actually paying attention to our whole body. Is my heart pounding especially hard today, or am I feeling a little light-headed? Maybe ease off and play it safe. Is a particular muscle or tendon complaining more than usual? Better to attend carefully to such signals and adjust rather than ignore them and end up injured.
Awareness of Nature
It’s possible to eat a tangerine while thinking about something else, and thereby miss out on most of the pleasures of tasting and smelling the fruit. In the same way, we might run 4 miles while thinking about work, and miss out on the beauty of trees, flowers, birds & clouds that surround us along the way. To run safely, we need to be constantly aware of the roots, rocks and potholes that are in front of us, but we can learn to be peripherally aware of the wider surroundings and to sneak in some quick appreciations of specific wonders. Maybe it is a tidy garden bed beside the road or a mink eating a small fish on a creekside boulder. Sometimes, as in my mink encounter, it is worth pausing your run for a few moments to take in the scene. As you build up your capacity to be contemplative on the move, you’ll be more likely not only to notice these special moments, but to feel a sense of awe and gratitude when they occur. Occasionally, nature will barge in more aggressively and you won’t need mindfulness skills, as when a wild turkey ran along a wooded path in front of me for a minute or so before turning off into the brush.
Gratitude in Motion
Looking back over 3 decades of mindfulness study and practice, I think my biggest breakthrough was in finding that gratitude had the power to crowd out worry and other repetitive negative thoughts. Such thoughts can run in loops that get “burned in” to our neural circuitry. They can be difficult to quiet down. I’ve found that improvising affirmations of gratitude (“I’m thankful for the sun and the blue sky”, “I’m thankful for these lovely maple trees making shade and oxygen”) is more effective in reducing my anxiety and opening the door to feelings of satisfaction and happiness. During a run, affirmations of gratitude can be a powerful tool to help us notice and appreciate the miracle of our body and the natural wonders around us. For inspiration, read the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address.
Practice, Practice
Your initial attempts to run mindfully might feel unsuccessful. Even the minds of highly experienced meditators wander, and we can feel frustrated. The key is to just notice the thoughts, and maybe naming them (“Hello worries, I see you are back, but we don’t need to hang out together right now…”). We can let them float on by, gently returning our awareness to our breathing and our surroundings. With repeated practice, as with strengthening our muscles, our capacity to stay in the present moment will increase and come more naturally. As we pay more attention to the activities of our minds, we’ll see that much of our inner life is driven by habits, and we’ll gradually become more confident about shifting those habits in a healthy direction.
Running as a Spiritual Path
Carl Sagan said “We’re star stuff contemplating the stars”. We don’t need to be stoned, fuzzy-minded or “woo woo” to feel that we’re one with the universe. It is an awe-inspiring fact that’s firmly grounded in science. As star stuff in the form of brainy bipedal primates with remarkable athletic endurance, we have some unique ways in which we can enjoy the experience of living on this beautiful planet. One of those ways is bounding through the woods, fields (and yes, streets) of this world with all of our senses awake and our minds calmly prepared to take it all in. Running can connect us to our long line of distance runner ancestors, to the local ecosystem supporting us, and maybe even to a deeper sense of meaning and purpose.
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do.”
— Henry David Thoreau
