Relaxation Response Exercise

This relaxation response exercise can be practiced practically anywhere and anytime, as long as it is safe to close your eyes. It may take a bit of practice, but it will get easier with time.

You can do this exercise for as long or as short a time as you like. During the daytime, just stop when you feel relaxed, taking a few cleansing breaths and perhaps stretching a bit to bring you back to the present moment. At night, ideally continue this exercise until you fall asleep.

• Find a comfortable position with your body loose and your eyes closed. For the best results, sit in a comfortable chair or lie on your back on the bed. Start with a breathing exercise, even if it is just 5 deep breaths in through your nose and out through your mouth.



• Feel the weight of your body pressing down into the chair or onto the mattress. Notice the points at which the surface touches you. Feel the way that gravity presses your body down onto that surface. There could be more than one surface you are noticing, such as the chair and the floor if you are sitting.



• Now slowly notice where you feel tense. Scan your body with your mind, sensing tension. You can start with one area and move to the next, or you can find the tensest spots first and then work towards the less tense areas.



• Focus on one area and picture the tension as having a certain shape. Is it round? Sharp? Smooth? Hard? It does not matter what shape, size, or color you conjure up, but you should imagine this shape as being heavy.



• Once you have a mental picture of the tension, release it by relaxing that area. Imagine that the tension is being pressed by gravity down onto the surface that you are lying or sitting on.



• Now imagine that the tension is passing into the bed or chair. It is not hurting you or the object, just passing like invisible energy. Then it moves into the floor, then into the ground.



• Imagine that in the ground, the tension is neutralized. It is absorbed by the earth and rendered harmless.



• Continue to locate, picture and release the tension, breathing evenly and deeply.

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