COUNTING DOWNWARD INTO DEEP RELAXATION
THE "OTHER" METHOD OF RELAXING THE BODY
PROGRESSIVE RELAXATION
Tensing parts of the body and relaxing is one of the most useful and effective techniques of all - and very simple.
Eventually (often naturally) a person can just relax by thinking of letting go of tension and relaxing - but if that doesn't work, then the tensing and releasing would be needed. Sometimes when one needs to go to sleep, it is useful to begin to tense the legs somewhat and then to breathe out in a sigh while relaxing the muscles - it will often cause a sleepy sensation to overcome the person.
All of these relaxation techniques contribute to one's gaining a state of Peace Of Mind.
This is the piece:
We covered the very simple "progressive relaxation" method of tensing each part of one’s body and then releasing the part, as covered in the page Relaxation - "It All Ties Together, For Health And Happiness. Once a person has used that technique for awhile he/she will often gain the skill of doing it simply by using the mind.
To do this, simply pick a tense or sore part of the body and focus on relaxing it progressively by counting backwards from 10 to 1. (I actually use this as a substitute for sitting there meditating.) If your attention goes to another part of the body, simply continue doing the exercise. Keep on doing it until you feel completely relaxed and a body scan in your head shows no “holding”.
There are “subtle” places that we hold tension, so be sure to relax the smaller muscles or less obvious parts of the body, such as: (Use the list when you are voice recording instructions to yourself to listen to while relaxing.)
___ around the eyes,
___ the eyes themselves,
___ the jaw,
___ the teeth (in a sense),
___ the tongue,
___ the nose,
___ the cheeks (especially),
___ the forehead
___ the sides of the forehead,
___ behind the ears,
___ the top of the head
___ the lower stomach
___ the sphincter muscle
___ the kegel muscle
___ the arch of the foot, etc.
THE RETRAINING EFFECT!
This practice is not to be minimized as a bother or just a short term effect type of thing. It actually retrains the body and the mind – which is invaluable.
The studies have now proven that the mind has plasticity and that it creates new neuronal pathways (“re-wiring”) in the brain that begin to take over the more they are used. The result is greater peace of mind and a lot less stress (even when doing stressful activities!).
Note also that the body only “holds” to protect itself against something, either a threat or an out of balance tension elsewhere in the body. If the threats are of the imagined variety and one fails to handle them and discriminate properly, then the body will be full of holdings.
However, please note that relaxing the body also sends a message back to the brain so that it senses that all is well at the time – and it becomes less prone to creating false threats (which it does to for insurance for surviving, making sure that it is not missing a single thing; and by doing that it shoots out excess signals and goes into a pattern of hypervigilance). [Recall that the primitive mind is rather simple-minded and will receive very simple messages as being true.]
(Learn about Physiological Psychology, which is often much simpler and also more expedient than trying to correct something through psychologically reasoning out something.)
FOR SLEEPING BETTER
If I awaken at night and for some reason don't feel sleepy, I choose not to entertain the random and often senseless chatter of the mind, because if something is important I'll remember it later and then do something about it - but thinking about it in bed is not a good way to resolve anything - as we are in a largely low rationality state.
So, I just start at 100 and count down, breathing out slowly and deeply while relaxing my body. I can just focus on one area or an area of priority or just be generally relaxing.
I will often forget where I am in the count, when my mind wanders into some sleepy dialogue of random associations. That's ok, I just start again in the vicinity of where I left off.
Often I don't get past the 90's before I drift off into sleep. Sometimes it happens in the 80's or 70's. Once I got all the way to 0, but then I felt well-rested and simply got up, figuring that I didn't need sleep if I wasn't sleepy enough to relax into it naturally.
