Use the original script below for a brief, optional attention practice. Read it slowly and leave comfortable pauses. Participants may keep their eyes open, skip any area or stop. This is not a treatment script or a medical assessment, and its specific wording has not been clinically tested.
Before you read
Offer a position the person already tolerates; do not require lying down. Ask whether they want the exercise at all. The reader should not touch, reposition or interpret a participant's body. In a clinical setting, use the responsible clinician's guidance rather than this draft as a care protocol.
Meditation can bring unwanted experiences, and NCCIH advises against substituting it for medical care. H01 Explain the stop option before beginning, not after distress appears.
Original read-aloud text
Take a moment to notice the room around you. You can keep your eyes open. Find one ordinary object and notice its shape or color.
If you would like to continue, notice where the chair, bed or other support meets your body. There is no posture you need to perform for this exercise. Let the support be whatever it is today.
You may notice your feet, or you may choose a different place that feels neutral. Notice contact, temperature, movement or no clear sensation. There is no correct answer.
Move attention toward your lower legs if that feels comfortable. You do not need to change them, relax them or compare one side with the other. You can skip this area.
Notice your hands where they rest. Perhaps there is warmth, pressure or a faint movement. Perhaps nothing stands out. Either way, you are allowed to move on.
If you choose, notice the contact around your back and shoulders. You do not have to search for tension. Let the observation stay simple.
You can notice ordinary breathing without making it deeper or slower. If attention to breathing feels unwelcome, return to the object in the room. You do not need to finish a breath exercise.
You may briefly notice the face or jaw. Do not force a release or clench anything to create a sensation. An unclear observation is enough.
Now decide whether you would like to notice the body as a whole or return to the room. Neither choice is better.
Look at the space around you. Notice a sound or the surface in front of you. End the practice whenever you are ready. There is no state you were supposed to achieve.
Reader notes and pause plan
The text is not tied to an exact duration. Read one paragraph, leave a short comfortable pause and check that continuing is welcome. Omit a paragraph rather than accelerate to fit a promised time. Do not pressure someone to revisit an area they skipped.
The script avoids a breath hold, a forced deep breath, muscle tensing and a claim that a sensation reveals a specific cause. Those choices are editorial boundaries, not proof of safety for every participant.
An optional closing record
Use Chose to continue or stop: ____; observation I want to record: ____; question or support needed: ____. Do not ask for a relaxation score or insist on a positive result. A fictional participant might record “noticed hand contact; skipped breathing attention; returned to the room.”
Relationship to HUMAN and evidence
Kerub's awareness chapter distinguishes brief contact from anxious self-scanning. This new script uses that author orientation without copying the book's prose or claiming to validate its physiology. [A_HUMAN:18]
A small pilot of body-scan and external attention practices reported preliminary findings and feasibility limits; it did not test this script. H12 No effectiveness claim is made for its wording, length or sequence.