calmspirit - Deep Relaxation

Guidelines for deep relaxation

The relaxation technique needs to be practiced for a continuous 20 minutes, if less, does not produce any significant effect. There is no further effect if more than 30 minutes.

It has to be practiced everyday for first 100 days or 3 months. If not, one does not get remedial benefits.

The technique must induce somatic as well as emotional relaxation. There has to be full body mind participation, not just mental calm. There should be muscular and visceral relaxation.

The center of consciousness is taken from the upper part of the body and brought down and kept in lower part of body. For stress reduction, the focus of the Mind is in the lower Tan Tian or Hara ( three finger widths below the navel ) or the bottom of the feet.

This is not sleeping. Sleep cannot be substituted for this practice. If you have a tendency to fall asleep before the 20 minutes are up you will have to find a position or way to stay awake. You may sleep afterwards.

One should not stop practicing after 100 days, but continue as much as possible (may miss a couple of days a week) and continue for 1000 days (3 years). Then, the personality will change and one will have a different way with coping with life.

Daily Practice

The practice of relaxation is just that, practicing. One has to be able to put the relaxation practice to some practical use. Our normal everyday life is where we see our practice flourish. Everyday life here is any time we are not practicing relaxation, it is our "post relaxation practice".

So, the change has to come to the behavior to go along with the relaxation. The goal is to quickly come back to that space of relaxation, to be "on the spot" and see what to do while in this space. This is also the basic Tibetan Buddhist instructions for sitting meditation.

Try it out in these ways

Relax muscle by muscle using techniques such as auto-guided self relaxation (autogenics), body part by body part, from the head down.

Relaxation Meditation - can be a type of emptiness meditation done by following the breath with the mind and visualize and/or physically bring the breath to the lower body, the lower Tan Tien.

Relaxation tape - I use and recommend different tapes in my private practice. During acupuncture or massage treatments I use them to help relax the patient and facilitate the treatment. But, for use by someone at home, I think that a verbally guided tape is the best for newbies.

I have found guided relaxation tapes with music, audible and subliminal voice and audible brain wave entrainment for both relaxation and treatment facilitation very interesting to use.

Also, I have found that some types of tapes, music or otherwise, will bring the person out of an introspective or relaxed mode during treatments. You have to take this into consideration when using an "outside" source for relaxation.

Tai Ji, yoga, walking meditation or Qi Gong - I prefer quiet types of relaxation. I believe that outside stimulus is just that. Once a person can actually physically and mentally feel what it is like to become relaxed, then they may be able to experience relaxation on their own. They will notice internally when they are not in that place. This type of relaxation can be done anywhere at about anytime.

You do not have to do a complete Tai Ji form or do all your yoga postures to attain this state. In between patients I sometimes do some parts of Tai Ji or Qi Gong to relax and refocus myself.

Some personal observations

Even though I find that most of my clients resist starting a program of deep relaxation, (or any other self health regulation program), it is usually because they feel they "don't have enough time". This is never true.

This type of thinking is part of the problem with the addiction to stress and "being busy". I do admit there are some people that have a very hard time just sitting still for periods of time. This can be a true form of adult ADD, attention deficit disorder.

I recommend that these people do more movement type meditation such as walking meditation, Tai Ji Quan or Qi Gong.

Most adults that I know do not have this problem, but only suffer from a pseudo ADD type of behavior. The more we work and do things that stress us out, the more time we must take to counter this behavior with health regulation techniques. We can become a human "being" instead of a human "doing".

In reducing our stress, we also have to take in consideration the amount of stimuli we are subjected to. I fully agree that every single stimuli is stressful, and exhausting to the body and that we must reduce totally the amount of stimulation in our environment to have any gain.