Black Sun

    Progressive Body Relaxation

    Essential Healing Skills

    Rating

    4.8

    Progressive Body Relaxation

    A technique where you systematically relax your body one part at a time, moving from head to toes or vice versa, to release physical tension and increase body awareness.

    Benefits

    • Create Body Awareness - Most people don't know that they are tense until they release the tension. Relaxing the body helps you compare physical states and easily recognize discrepancies.
    • Know Where Your Body Stores Tension - Most people store tension in one spot or a few spots, for example the shoulders. If you know where you store your tension you have a quick way to check in with your body.
    • Teach You How to Relax Your Body - Seems important.
    • Recognize Triggers - The more relaxed and aware you are, the more you can notice changes in your body. These changes inform you about subconscious fears and insecurities that you'd benefit from eliminating.

    1Conscious Awareness

    In this method, after you name the body part you want to relax, you simply notice any tension or stress in that area of the body for a second, then instruct yourself to release the tension or stress/ relax that body part.

    2Tensing Muscles

    The most popular method of doing progressive body relaxation. After you name a body part, tense it as hard as you can for a couple seconds and then release.

    3Visualization

    You can visualize your body in terms of light and dark with light representing calm and relaxation and dark representing tension or stress. Imagine yourself increasing the amount of light in that part of the body until it pushes out all darkness and only light remains.

    Things to Consider

    • Not everyone can completely relax every part of their body and that's okay. Just relax yourself as much as you can. Practice makes perfect!
    • This is highly effective as helping people go to sleep. Try it out for sleep issues.
    • If you aren't feeling confident doing this on your own, there are many guided meditations online. Just search for progressive body relaxation, they are easy to find.

    Proven Practice

    Step-by-Step Instructions

    Measured Efficacy

    4.8

    5 Ratings

    Speed
    1. 1Choose one of the three methods above that speaks to you.
    2. 2Start from either your head or toes, naming each body part as you move up or down the body.
    3. 3Be as specific as possible - instead of naming your head as one body part, take the time to name your scalp, forehead, eyebrows, eyes, nose, cheeks, jaw, and around your ears one at a time or a couple at a time.
    4. 4Apply your chosen method to each body part.
    5. 5After going through your entire body, do a body scan - go over your entire body to see what is still tense or stressed.
    6. 6Repeat the process with those specific parts. Repeat as needed.
    4.8

    5 ratings

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