Synchronizing mind and body

Too often we tend to put our body on automatic while our mind wanders. You may be driving, but you're thinking about something else; your mind is not in sync with your body. While our body is on automatic and mind is elsewhere, we may fail to notice the little pleasures of our activities, or make mistakes, or fail to adapt and/or improvise.

Below are three activities in which it is easy for your mind to wander, but also easy to keep your mind engaged. Practice focusing on one thing at a time:

Eating – only concentrate on the taste, chewing, and enjoying your food and drink.
Walking – only focus on your movement, muscles, and where you’re going.
Running – same as walking, but also focus on breathing and how much air you feel you need.

-Try to think of some other times when you can keep your body from going on automatic.
-Note the benefits of keeping your mind engaged on one activity at a time.
-Find some tasks where it is good to put your body on automatic while your mind wanders.

*You can shape your automatic processes. Keep your mind on whatever you're doing to make sure you're doing it properly. Practice doing your activity perfectly with your mind fully engaged. As it becomes easier to do your activity, requiring less mental effort, pay less and less attention; let your mind wander. After a while, your mind will trigger engagement in the activity only when there are descrepencies from your practice.