Relaxation Techniques

What is stress?

Stress is your body's response to any stimulus. Any type of stress triggers a physiological response: your adrenaline and cortisol output increases, your heart rate and blood pressure increase and your breathing rate quickens. These bodily responses are positive if you channel them over a short period of time, but if there is no release, then stress can have a negative impact on your health and wellbeing. The strain of negative stress manifests such symptoms as: chronic fatigue, headaches, a change in eating habits, insomnia, inability to concentrate, general irritability as well as other health risks such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar.

Benefits of Relaxation

· Improves focus and performance 

· Reduces heart rate and blood pressure

· Relieves tense muscles and headaches

· Provides a ‘time out’ from stressful stimuli

· Provides a coping mechanism

· Allows more restful sleep therefore reduces tiredness

· Improves sense of health and wellbeing

The following are a few techniques that work to reduce stress and help you relax:

Shrinking Stress

· Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Breathe slowly and deeply.

· Visualise a person, situation or even a belief (such as “I’m scared to do that presentation”) that makes you feel anxious and tense.

· As you do this, you might see a person’s face, a place you’re afraid to go or simply a dark cloud. Where do you see this stressful picture? Is it above you, beside you, behind you? How does it look? Is it big or little, dark or light? Does it have certain colours?

· Now slowly begin to shrink the stressful picture. Continue to see it shrinking until it is so small that it can literally be held in the palm of your hand. Hold out your hand in front of you and place the picture on it.

· If the stressor has a characteristic sound, such as a voice or traffic noise, hear that sound also diminishing. As the picture continues to shrink, the voice or sound becomes almost inaudible.

· Now the picture is so small it can fit on your second finger. Watch it shrink from there until it turns into a little dot and finally disappears.

Tension release through colour

· Sit or lie in a comfortable position, your arms resting at your sides. As you take a deep breath, visualise the colour blue. This colour extends 50 feet below you into the earth. Now imagine that you are opening up an energy centre on the bottom of your feet. When your feet are completely filled with the colour blue, bring the colour up through your ankles, legs, pelvis and lower back.

· Each time you exhale, see the blue colour leaving through your lungs, carrying any tension and stress with it. See the tension dissolve into the air.

· Continue to inhale blue into your abdomen, chest, shoulders, arms, neck, and head. Exhale the blue softly out of your lungs.

· Repeat this entire process five times and then relax for a few minutes.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

· Sit or lie in a comfortable position. Slightly tighten your right fist so that you feel only the smallest amount of tension. Hold it at this level. Be sure you continue to breathe...now let go and relax...observe the difference in tension between the right and left arm and fist.

· Now slightly tighten your left fist. Hold at this level so that you just feel the tightening...let go and relax. Let the relaxation spread through the arms and the rest of the body.

· Each time tighten only to the point at which you can observe tension, where you become conscious of or can ‘feel’ tension. Hold the tension at that level, and be sure you tighten only the intended muscle while the rest of your body remains quiet and relaxed. Be sure you continue to breathe.

· Each time you let go, let those parts relax further and further.

· Now tighten ever so slightly the following parts of your body: your scalp and face, let them become smooth and relaxed, allow your eyes to sink into their sockets  and tighten the throat and neck, hold, then relax.

· While continuing to breathe, minimally tighten the triceps. Be sure the neck, eyes and tongue are relaxed…let go.

· Raise your shoulders to your ears slightly. Be sure the neck stays loose. Observe how the shoulders feel different from the rest of the body...let go and relax. Feel the relaxation sinking through the body. Slightly tighten the stomach. Keep breathing...let go and relax. Slightly tighten the buttocks...let go and relax. Continue with the feet, calves, and thighs… Let yourself reach an even deeper level of relaxation, a calmness and serenity.

· Now tense every muscle in your body so that you just feel the tension; jaws, eyes, shoulders, arms, chest, back, legs, stomach. Be sure you keep breathing. Feel the tension in every part. Let your whole body relax. Feel a wave of calmness as you stop tensing.

· Now, with your eyes closed, take a deep breath and hold it. Note all the tensions. Exhale and feel the relaxation and calmness developing. Note the feelings of heaviness.

For more information

Wesley Corporate Health

Level 2 / 46 Edward Street

Brisbane  Qld  4000

Phone:  07 3234 2600

Email: wellness@weshealth.com.au

Disclaimer

This Fact Sheet is provided for your information only and does not replace qualified medical advice. The information provided may not apply to every person or all situations. A medical practitioner should be consulted for all treatment and medication.