Reduce stress and anxiety with deep relaxation

Often, when feeling stressed, there can be a tendency to push harder.  Got a lot of work to do?  Work longer, faster, harder.  Feeling guilty because you’ve been busy with work and not spending as much time with your kids?  Schedule more activities with the kids.  We think that if we just try a bit harder, we’ll get on top of things and then we won’t feel as stressed.

This may work, but very often, you end up feeling even more overwhelmed, frazzled, and exhausted.Taking a little time on a regular basis to allow yourself to truly relax can be hugely beneficial and in this blog, I outline several highly effective techniques for developing the ability to deeply relax and the benefits they can give in preventing overwhelm and exhaustion.

How stress impacts the body

One function of our normal stress response, the ‘fight or flight’ response, is to increase muscle tension.  When we are continually facing new stressors, the stress response stays switched on, and muscle tension continues to build.  (See the blog ‘Reducing Stress with the Power of Your Breath’ for more about the stress response). 

The build-up of muscle tension may result in you experiencing muscle aches and pains, migraines, and difficulty sleeping.  Additionally, because of the connections between the skeletal muscles and the brain, muscle tension can result in increased mental stimulation.  It can also lead to us subjectively feeling more anxious (your brain detects the muscle tension and interprets that as you being anxious).

You’re not really relaxing

You may think that relaxing at the end of a busy day involves having a glass of wine, watching some television, or catching up on social media.  While these activities may provide a distraction, you will probably still be holding onto a lot of muscle tension. 

Learning how to let go of muscle tension can allow you to develop the ability to relax deeply, allowing you to feel calmer, more at ease, and with a quieter mind.

Notice your tension – body scanning

One technique that can be very effective in learning to let go of muscle tension is a body scan meditation.

In 1979, Jon Kabat-Zinn founded the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.  The first major exercise of this 8-week program is a body scan practice, involving lying down with the eyes closed and, starting at the toes, working the way up to the top of the head, slowly scanning each part of the body to observe any sensations. 

You can try this very easily yourself, just taking the time to focus your awareness internally and noticing how each part of the body feels.  As you focus on each part of the body, you may wish to direct the breath into and out of that part.  As you then move onto the next part of the body, mentally let go of any sensations, thoughts or images related to that part of the body.  As you do this, the muscles are also let go, allowing the tension to flow out of them.

In this exercise, you are not trying to change anything, just simply to observe how your body feels.  However, many people find that they feel deeply relaxed at the end of the meditation, and with regular practice, that they are less anxious and are able to sleep better.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

In 1929, a Chicago physician, Edmund Jacobson developed a process for deep muscle relaxation called progressive muscle relaxation (PMR).  In PMR, you slowly work through different muscle groups tensing them and then releasing the tension completely, creating a feeling of deep relaxation.  Jacobsen believed that deep muscle relaxation is incompatible with anxiety and that if you could learn to respond to stressors with relaxation, it would effectively ‘block’ any anxious response.

Through the practice of PMR, you learn to distinguish between the feeling of tension and the feeling of deep relaxation.  This can help you to become more aware of when you are holding tension in your body and actively release it.  Since its development by Jacobson, PMR has been used widely and effectively to treat issues such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, pain, phobias, and stuttering.

Applied Relaxation Training

Applied relaxation training was developed in the late 1980s by a Swedish physician called Lars Öst. Applied relaxation combines several proven relaxation techniques and is designed to give you a tool that can reverse the effects of stress very quickly.  The training begins with progressive muscle relaxation.  Once that has been mastered, you move onto release-only relaxation (i.e. skipping the tensing part of PMR). 

A cue is then developed so that you learn to relax very deeply just by using the cue (e.g. a word such as ‘Relax’). 

The fourth stage of applied relaxation training is to develop the ability to relax rapidly (in approximately 20-30 seconds), and then the final stage is to practice using the technique in stressful situations.

Applied relaxation has been used successfully to treat phobias, panic disorder, anxiety, headaches, back and joint pain, tinnitus, and insomnia.

But I don’t have time to relax?

There is no hard-and-fast rule about how much time these practices need to take.  Traditionally, in the MBSR programme, participants were initially required to practice the body scan for 45 minutes a day. However, even much shorter versions of 15 or 20 can be very beneficial, especially when practiced consistently.  PMR sessions of 15 or 20 minutes are also common.

With practice, you will be able gain benefits from shorter practices (though you may find you enjoy allowing yourself the longer practices).  Applied relaxation is specifically designed to develop the ability to deeply relax very quickly, although developing that ability can take 6-12 weeks of consistent practice and progression through the training. 

If you’re thinking that you would love to have the time to do some of these techniques, but you’re just too busy, take a moment to reflect on what time you lose because of feeling stressed, how your productivity and focus is reduced because you’re exhausted, how frequent tension headaches regularly stop you doing things.  How might committing 15 minutes a day to learning how to relax deeply make you more productive, allow you to do more of what matters to you?

Also, look for any opportunities in your day where you could swap a less beneficial activity for some relaxation.  How much time do you spend on social media each day, or watching television? 

Taking some time each day to allow yourself to relax deeply is an act of true self care that makes you feel better physically, emotionally, and mentally and builds your resilience to cope with life’s demands.  You deserve to give yourself that time.

If you’d like to know more about how I use these techniques to help clients cope with stress and anxiety, click here to arrange a call.