Relaxation, it could extend your life

Relaxation is so easy...almost everyone knows how to do some form of it. But for some reason most of us don’t practice it on a regular basis. I know I used to have 17 deadlines a day as a broadcast journalist...the aspirin bottle was a good friend I visited a few times a week from the tension headaches...but I didn’t visit the couch or the easy chair often enough after work. After 8 years I was burned out.

The next job I had was out of town and I took the train to and from work. I soon learned how to sleep sitting up and found how very therapeutic it is to have short little naps. I’d have one on the way home and be revived for the rest of the night.

When I became a hypnotherapist I started practising deep relaxation on myself and stopped headaches almost entirely...I certainly don’t get the tension headaches any more. And when I can through the day, I can simply close my eyes, take a few deep breaths and put myself in that relaxed state of mind right away. Once you learn how to do this, it takes seconds to achieve the state...the subconscious takes over the process and you are there.

Considering how 80 to 90 percent of most illnesses are caused or exacerbated by stress, people could really benefit from learning some basic relaxation exercises like the Relaxation Response researched by Doctor Herbert Benson in the 1970’s. Using Progressive Relaxation through regular practice he showed the long-term health benefits of the practice and those benefits are profound. It’s something his Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine (BHI) continues to promote…

“If practiced regularly, it can have lasting effects. Elicitation of the relaxation response is at the heart of the BHI’s research and clinical mind/body programs.”

“Repeated activation of the relaxation response can reverse sustained problems in the body and mend the internal wear and tear brought on by stress.”
- http://www.mbmi.org/basics/whatis_rresponse_TRR.asp

This method is very similar to the methods I use to guide people into hypnosis which is really just deep relaxation. It’s the same state as Meditation, at least from a physiological point of view...moving through the Alpha (brainwave) state to Theta where the body heals and restores itself. It positively affects heart rate, blood pressure, muscle tension.

It continues to amaze me how so many people don’t take 5 or 10 minutes for themselves everyday...I do.