How to Do Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

Step 1. Find the right place

Start by finding a place that is quiet and relaxing—a place where you can sit in silence for at least five minutes. Be sure to sit or lie down in a position that is comfortable. If you are worried about falling asleep, you may want to try this sitting up at first.

Step 2. Begin with deep breathing

Begin by taking deep, long breaths; make it a point to breathe more from your abdomen and not your chest. Notice how your body feels first as it fills up with air, and then as the air leaves the body. Imagine all of the tension being released from your body as you breathe out, and the relaxation flowing in, as you inhale.

Step 3. Scan and relax your upper body

Turn your attention to your forehead. Tense the muscles in your forehead as hard as you can for five seconds, and as you breathe out let the muscles relax. Continue this with all of the muscles in your face: your eye lids, your jaw, and your ears.

As your head begins feeling relaxed, move your attention downwards, turning next to your neck, shoulders and arms. Shrug your shoulders and then relax. Squeeze the muscles in your chest, your arms, your hands… and then relax.

Now that your upper body is fully relaxed, take a few moments to breathe deeply, and scan through your upper body. Notice what it feels like when those muscles are relaxed, and what it feels like to be in this moment. Make a note of this so you can remember it later.

4. Scan and relax your lower body

Next, allow the relaxation to continue flowing through your body by tensing the muscles in your abdomen. Again, holding tight for five seconds, and then letting go. Follow this by tightening your butt muscles, and then your thighs. Let this relaxation continue to flow down into the feet as you pull your feet backwards tensing your calves, and curl your toes to tighten your feet.

At this point, scan one last time through your body to see if any parts have again become tense, paying special attention to common problem areas such as the shoulders, jaw, and stomach. If they have become tense, just tighten and release the muscles to relax them.

5. Continue to breathe deeply after finishing body scan

Lastly, take a few moments to notice what it is like when your entire body feels relaxed. Continue to deeply breathe in and out, and allow the feeling of relaxation to wash over you entirely.

“It’s a good idea always to do something relaxing prior to making an important decision in your life.”
—Paula Coelho

Tips for Practicing Progressive Muscle Relaxation at Home

Be sure to practice this exercise at least once a day. Remember, it may be difficult to relax at first, but like most things, the more you practice, the easier it gets. Avoid practising it directly before or after a meal. The hunger or feelings of fullness distract you from focusing on your muscles.

If you find that you have a hard time staying focused on PMR on your own, see if someone can read aloud a relaxation script to you, or even record yourself saying one slowly to play back later. Additionally, there are many free smart phone applications and guided PMR audios available online. Simply search “progressive muscle relaxation audio” or “progressive muscle relaxation script” online.

After you feel you have gained a good grip on the exercise, try using it just before or after situations you would normally find stressful. For example, the next time you have a presentation, exam, job interview, or uncomfortable social situation, try using this exercise beforehand.

It only takes five minutes a day to start working towards that level of ‘Zen’ you may be looking for.

Health Benefits of Doing Progressive Muscle Relaxation

While relaxation is a good reason to turn towards progressive muscle relaxation, it also has various other health benefits. Let’s look at some of them.

• PMR helps lowers the heart rate, blood pressure, and promotes healthy sleep. All of these things together lower momentary stress levels and long-term stress levels when practiced regularly.
• It is often used as a treatment for people who suffer from general and social anxiety, panic attacks, and obsessive-compulsive disorder. People who suffer from anxiety disorders are often unaware of how tense they are during the day because, for them, feeling stressed begins to feel normal. They clench their jaw, tighten their shoulders and back, tense their stomach muscles, and keep a tight fist for most of the day.
• When someone holds their muscles in tense positions for long periods of time, it results in back pain, headaches and/or migraines, bruxism [grinding of teeth], and stomach aches. This continued tenseness keeps the body’s anxiety levels high and makes it more difficult for the body to return to a state of relaxation. The good news is that you can use relaxation techniques such as PMR to put a stop to this vicious cycle of anxiety.
• After practising PMR daily for about a month, you should find that your muscles are more likely to turn to relaxation instead of tightness as their neutral position.
• Practicing Progressive Muscle Relaxation daily helps the muscles to learn to relax, and eventually lowers the body’s baseline stress level, so you should see a visible difference in your daily stress levels.

Music to accompany PMR

• Nada Himalaya by Deuter
• Shakuhachi Meditation Music by Stan Richardson
• Indigo Dreams by Lori Lite
• The Most Relaxing Classical Music Ever by Hal Leonard Corp

Here is a video of a guided PMR that will help you in the beginning.

The post Progressive Muscle Relaxation: Technique, Tips and Health Benefits appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Meditation is a powerful method of coping with life’s challenges and difficult people. Although some perceive it as a daunting or boring practice that only religious people do, because of its effects on mental and physical health, brain processing, and athletic performance it has garnered keen interest in the sports, medical, and personal development fields.

How meditation improves physical health

There are many health benefits of meditation. Studies have shown that meditation lowers our heart rates, reduces blood pressure, and lowers the metabolism. These results have been found to provide anxiety sufferers with a sense of peace without medication, to reduce the incidence of migraine headaches, and to soothe chronic pain. The meditative state can counteract the flight-fight response to bring calm and focus during stressful situations.

Another health benefit of meditation is that it also appears to boost our immunity. The findings of one study show that “women who meditate and use guided imagery have higher levels of the immune cells known to combat tumours in the breast.” And researcher and neuroscientist Richard Davidson tested meditation’s effect on the immune system by giving flu shots to a group of volunteers from a high-tech company. A control group received eight weeks of meditation training. By the study’s completion, the meditators showed a healthier immune response to the flu than those who received only the immunisation shot.

We can acquire the health benefits of meditation as soon as we begin to practise it. We continue to grow new neurons throughout our adult lives; our brains possess a kind of neuroplasticity. At the E. M. Keck Laboratory for Functional Brain Imaging and Behavior in Madison, Wisconsin, Davidson is working to prove that we can reprogramme our minds through meditation to overcome anger, anxiety, and depression and to alleviate the need for pharmacological solutions. Meditation appears to develop the left prefrontal lobe, which regulates positive emotion.

To meditate, all you need is to sit quietly somewhere for a set period of time, say 10 to 40 minutes daily, and let your mind rest. It sounds simple, but it can actually be a tough daily discipline. To help you start, I offer the following suggestions derived from both expert advice and my own efforts to integrate meditation into daily life.

Practical meditation tips for beginners

Create a meditation routine

1. Create a meditation space. It can be as simple as a cushion in the corner of your bedroom or a full meditation room with a pleasing, peaceful decor
2. Make a commitment to try the practice for a set period of time and tell someone you respect about this commitment. “I will practice 20 minutes of seated meditation daily for the next three months,” might be a declaration. My teachers have suggested 60 to one hundred days as a minimum commitment to make a habit stick
3. If you miss a day, go back to the cushion the next
4. Create a ritual that your body will become as accustomed to as your morning cup of coffee. An example would be to turn off the lights, light a candle, sit in the same spot, or wrap yourself in a blanket. The ritual settles us into the practice and into the desired mental state more quickly.

Make it comfortable

1. Buy yourself a meditation cushion or use a chair on which you can easily sit upright
2. Stretch or exercise a little before sitting
3. Find a quiet place free of distractions, and turn off the phone
4. Each day will be different. If you are tired or agitated before beginning, create bridges to the cushion, like taking a cool shower or reading a favourite poet.

Learn to sit

1. Keep your spine straight, with your chin tucked in slightly and your jaw relaxed
2. Rest your hands on your knees or in your lap
3. Close your eyes or leave your eyes half-closed gazing toward the floor
4. Listen to your breathing, clearing your mind of all thoughts
5. As thoughts and emotions arise, acknowledge them: “That is a thought” or “That is anger,” and let them move through
6. When thoughts and emotions do carry you away, return to your breath.

Helpful tools for the beginning meditator

1. When breathing, repeat a positive phrase, like “Thank you,” “I am well,” or “all is well”
2. Count your breaths
3. Set a timer so you don’t keep looking at the clock
4. Use beads to count your breaths and measure time. Move from bead to bead with each in-out breath. A rosary, found at most Christian supply stores, and Buddhist mala beads serve well. With 108 beads and a few “oops, I’m off in thoughtland” deviations, one trip around helps keep you on the cushion for a good 15 minutes.

Meditation not only strengthens but softens

Meditation not only strengthens but softens us as well. It has often helped me win the game I call my “internal hide-and-seek.” For example, I might wake up feeling lousy. When I started meditating seriously, I couldn’t name the feeling, it was just this edgy state that I hated. If I observed my actions, I found that it caused me to want to control my children’s every movement. Since I had committed to a teacher that I highly respect to do seated meditation for a year, when those edgy mornings came, I still went to my cushion, even though it was the last thing I wanted to do.

As I sat, first fighting the feeling, I would make lists of what I wanted to do that day or think about the dream I had the night before. Then my thoughts would clear, and I would settle in. Soon I would notice the emotion and say to myself, “I’m miserable.” If I could just let myself feel the sadness or even the depression that appeared, it would transform. Day after day, I became more comfortable with letting myself be miserable, afraid, or depressed, and I got better at letting everyone in the house be just as they were. I felt much better about my interactions with others when I was able to be gentler with myself.

There are still days when I want to run and hide and I am not interested in meditating. Yet when I do meditate, I am constantly amazed at how it helps me locate myself on both my inner and external battlefields. I gain not only some peace of mind but also new perspective on my challenges.

The post Health benefits of meditation + meditation tips for beginners appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.