RELAXATION LEADS TO BETTER HEALTH AND MORE ENERGY

Do you want to be healthy, both physically and emotionally? If you do, relaxation is one of the most effective ways for you to take care of yourself.

How Relaxation Benefits You: Relaxation techniques help you release muscle tension, calm down your mind, and decrease the wear and tear of life’s everyday stresses. It slows down your body and quiets your mind. It helps you have feelings of being calm and in control. There are many benefits to being in a deep state of relaxation. Here are just a few. Relaxation…

o Slows your heart rate
o Lowers your blood pressure
o Improves your concentration
o Reduces tension in your muscles
o Increases the blood flow to major muscles in your body
o Gives you a stronger ability to handle your problems
o Gives you more energy
o Improves your quality of life

Stress is Harmful to You: Many things cause stress. Your personality may be the impatient type, or you may be handling several things at once. A relationship may be difficult, or your children are crying. It may be difficult for you to manage time well, and you don’t get things done as quickly as you’d like. Your job deadlines may be stressful, or you may have disrespectful co-workers or bosses.

Animals who are stressed experience the same physical reactions we do. The stress response is a primitive response, part of the “flight or fight” response of our bodies. Their heart rate increases, hormones are released that speed up their reactions, and their rating of breathing and blood pressure rise. These reactions help protect both animals and humans in that we know we should get away from what is pressuring us. The difference is that the responses of animals’ bodies decrease rapidly and are gone within minutes of what made them afraid. With people, we have so many stresses that our bodies don’t get the chance to recover between stressful situations. We don’t have control over most of the things that stress us. So when we are prepared to attack or flee and cannot change those things that we cannot control, our bodies become distressed but it does us no good and we internalize the stress. In the long term, everyday annoyances and stresses add wear and tear to our bodies and disturb our minds.

There is another way. Relaxation will help you dissolve the stress from your body and give your mind a rest from the worries of the day. It makes you calm and relaxes your muscles’ tension.

Relaxation Techniques: There are three techniques to help you relax. All of these are included in the Meditations of Light series “Relaxing and Letting Go.”

Relaxation by Going Within. In this type of relaxation, you use both visual imagery and awareness of the inside of your body to release the tension in your body. You repeat words such as “I am fully relaxed” or “My entire body feels light and healthy” to help bring peace and calm to your body and mind. You can imagine a peaceful place and then focus on slowing your breath or lowering your heartbeat. “Relaxing Into the Warm Water” and “Feeling the Energy of the Rainbow Colors” are Meditations of Light that especially use this form of relaxation.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation. In “Releasing Tension and Relaxing,” you slowly relax tense then relax each muscle from your toes to your head. This helps you really feel the difference between how your muscle feels tensed up and how it feels relaxed. At the end of the meditation, you will feel much more tranquil and calm.

Visualization. All of the Meditations of Light use visualization. I may have you visualize being outside, in a special room, or going to a temple you see in the distance. As you listen to my voice, you are asked to see and hear something taking place, understand something meaningful, or see a color going down your body to bring you peace, such as in the “Being Bathed by the Golden Light” meditation.

Relaxation will help make you stress-free, peaceful, calm and tranquil. Try to relax just 15-20 minutes a day. Your life will be happier and healthier. Why not start now?