By Carol Verner, LMBT, RYT

Picture yourself resting in a quiet, safe place. Ask yourself: How often do I do this? How often do I need to do this? You could just put down this periodical, get an old blanket and a pillow, and head to a quiet, safe place where you can rest. Right now! (Well, do take this paper with you. You can use it to shade your face if you are lying in the sun!)

Ah, Relaxation!

Maybe you are still sitting here reading. In a moment, when you have read a bit more, try this:

• Close your eyes. Settle and sit back, supported and comfortable.
• Stroke your fingertips lightly across your eyelids and lightly down the sides of your face, about 10 to 20 times. That’s all for now. Enjoy.

Relaxation is an embodied experience. If you simply read this, but didn’t do the practice, just sit back with your eyes closed and rest a bit.

OK, good. I hope you did this self-soothing practice, but even if you did not, you can do it later, maybe even longer, and notice how you feel before, and how you feel after. This is what really counts.

The Power of Relaxation

I am a relaxation expert. I’ve been learning, teaching, and practicing for many years. I could tell you many science-based examples of how we navigate from the adrenaline-fueled fight-flight stress response to the happy serotonin-oxytocin mood of high Vagal tone—the relaxation response. But perhaps you know already: about how quickly the stress response arouses us to action, based on its survival value in epochs of evolutionary development; and about how much slower the relaxation response is; and how, in our stressed-out culture and world, relaxation is quickly lost with our next perceived threat.

The thing that matters now is, what are we doing? Are we actively managing our stress levels by taking time to do stress-reducing practices? Reading the book or article, listening to the podcast or program—that’s good. Learning is good; practice is essential!

I am motivated to practice relaxation for the sake of my own wellbeing, and for that of all around me. I am more effective in this troubled world when I can better manage the inevitable stress that mounts daily. Thankfully, this is important to you, too.

The Practice of Relaxation

Let’s practice! Same thing, read the following and then do this:

• Close your eyes, sit back into support, maybe with a pillow in that place you need it, feet on the ground or a stool, arms comfortable.
• Pay attention first to what you are aware of outside of you, such as sounds or smells, eyes still closed. If you tend to experience higher anxiety, open your eyes, look around you, and assess if this is a safe enough space right now to close your eyes. If so, good. If not, do the best you can: let your eyes be open, but soft and relaxed.
• Now pay attention to life inside of you. Listen to your inner environment with its gurgles, breath movements, heart movements, tensions, temperatures. Notice, be with, anything you sense inside of you. Notice places without sensations, too. Take a minute or more, be mindfully present with whatever is arising.

Welcome back! How are you? What do you need just now? A break? Take it!

Paying Attention

Paying attention is a practice of great value. It is a starting place for our awareness to come into focus in present time and present experience. Sensations, emotions, thoughts—all of these inform our mood and relative sense of ease or tension. What did you just notice in that last practice? Were you mostly aware of thinking? Did you feel different sensations?

Sensations are a gateway experience into now. Into this moment. Thinking tends to be absorbed in what was or what may be. Sensation lives in our now. 

Let’s practice with the breath. As before, read, then try this practice. You may have your own well-developed breath practices. Use any one of them now, if you like.

• Sit comfortably, eyes resting closed, ah! Sit easy and long from your sit-bones to the crown of your head. This frees the breath. Place hands on your lower side ribs for the first few breaths and breathe into your hands. Soft belly, too. Now rest your hands. Breathing in, breathing out, through your nose (if you can). Keep the breath low in the lungs. Have a slow and restful pace. Feel the sensations of breath rising and falling in your body.
• As thoughts arise, say within, “thinking” and bring awareness back to the quiet movements of breath. Continue for three minutes or so.

Ah, relaxation! What are your insights about this practice for yourself?

What did you notice? If you feel a little more relaxed, what does your insight say to you about dose? Is this good medicine for you? How much do you need? Would you like to begin today with this simple, benign, and effective practice to reduce stress? What time of day is best for you? How many times a day?

You can do this quiet and relaxing breath practice every day, several times a day, for three to ten or more minutes. This practice helps us manage stress. It calms the nervous system. For free. It comes with side effects such as elevated mood, slower heart and respiratory rhythms, increased digestive secretions, improved immune responses, and—of course—reduced adrenal secretions. With dedicated practice you will likely be calmer with more energy, focus, and enjoyment of life.

The Benefit of Ease

Ah, relaxation! Ease is nature’s home base for our homeostatic self-regulating capacity. It is the Parasympathetic tone of the Autonomic Nervous System, our energy-conserving rest, digest, and repair functioning. We are not meant to live in constant high stress states. We pay a high price for sustained energy-consuming Sympathetic tone in the Autonomic Nervous System, our fight, flight, freeze, dissociative functioning. We could not live without our Sympathetic responses, but we cannot live well or in good health when Sympathetic responses dominate.

It is all too easy to trigger a Sympathetic response. To get back to Parasympathetic, we need literal safety. And once we have done our best to establish this, practices that restore Parasympathetic tone are most effective when done regularly. Thank goodness you can do the above relaxation practices almost anywhere, anytime.

What else do you do to increase your sense of ease and relaxation?

Make a list of anything that comes to mind. Then circle two or three that you want to do now or soon, and put them on your calendar. For many, motivation comes from what we most care about. What lives in your heart, deep in you, that you care about, that you value and want to support? What is a word or phrase that sums this up? Say your value word often, and step into your practices for rest, relaxation, and ease. Wishing you much happiness!