Relaxation Training

1. Do you feel tense, anxious, or have nervous indigestion?
2. Do people at home or at work make you feel tense?
3. Do you eat, drink, or smoke in response to tension?
4. Do you notice tension in your neck or shoulders, migraine headaches, or insomnia?
5. Do you have trouble “turning off” your obsessive thoughts on nights and weekends?
6. Do you find it difficult to concentrate on what you’re doing because you are worrying about other matters?
7. Do you have to take tranquillizers or drink alcohol to relax?

Now, everyone taking this survey will probably answer some of these questions in the affirmative. But if you always or almost always have trouble with these symptoms, it’s time to think about modifying your life style in a healthier direction.

Many people do not even realize how anxious they are. Some are referred to me from emergency rooms where they have presented themselves with symptoms they thought were a heart attack, e.g. tachycardia, sweating inappropriately, trembling, and dry mouth and throat.

Other common signs of stress that can be overlooked include easy fatigue ability, quick irritability to either physical or mental stimuli, a frequent urge to urinate or diarrhea, and even accident proneness.

Okay, so lets assume you have figured out that you are anxious. Now, what can a person do about it? The answer is a great deal.

Even so simple a behavior as yawning or sighing helps a person to relax. You have probably heard people say to a very angry or nervous person that they should take a deep breath and exhale. Physiologically, when you exhale, you experience a very slight decrease in muscular tension. Thus, yawns or sighs can be used to reduce tension.

One patient presented to me with complaints of being very tense around her co-workers. With her permission, I hypnotized her and left her with a suggestion that when the co-workers made catty remarks around her, she would feel an overwhelming impulse to yawn. The yawn also subtly expressed a disinterest or nonconcern with what the co-workers were communicating, which was a healthy attitude for my client.

I usually combine several different methods of relaxation training for maximum effectiveness.

For example, Autogenic Relaxation Training involves starting at the toes and gradually working one’s way up to the head. The client is asked to concentrate on the different body parts, passively imagining feelings of heaviness and warmth in each body part for 15 – 20 seconds. With many people this works better if they can simply repeat, over and over, sentences such as “My toes feel very heavy and warm. My toes feel heavy and relaxed.”

I will sometimes combine sensory imagery with the phrases, such as having the person imagine a great weight is attached to the body part. For warmth, I’ll have them envision lying in the sun on a beach of white sand, feeling the son beat down on that particular body part on which they are concentrating at the time.

Sometimes more formal hypnotic procedures are combined with Autogenic training. This usually involves having the person become “deeper and deeper” relaxed as they “concentrate” on a particular part of their body. As a person relaxes, their breathing will slow and deepen. I will make comments to enhance or to point out this fact as I go through the relaxation training exercise with them.

A final form of verbal relaxation training that I use occasionally is known as Progressive Relaxation Training. In Progressive Training, a person is asked to tighten up individual muscle groups, then relax them, noticing and learning the difference between when the muscles are tight and when they are relaxed. This is important since so many people are not consciously aware of when they are tense and when they are relaxed.

One final note. Like any form of exercise, relaxation training must be practiced on a regular basis to be effective. Also remember that certain situations can be anchored to various emotional states. For example, when I was working on my dissertation, the room where I did my writing and typing became anchored to feeling depressed. Yet, our pool area, no matter what the weather, was always associated in my mind with sunshine, relaxation, and happiness. If you are having trouble relaxing, start the training in a place you have already anchored to pleasant sensations. If no such place exists, pick the least unpleasant place. After you have been consistently able to achieve relaxed states, then work on generalizing that relaxation to other places and situations.