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Pharmacy Links

RELAXATION TECHNIQUES

02nd April 2009

Some people find it easy to relax; they can fall asleep at will when they sit in a chair. Others find it difficult; their minds are racing around some problem or other, and their muscles are tense. If you can spend a few minutes every day in a completely relaxed state, this will complement your exercise schedule, and improve your chances of avoiding the next attack of angina.

The following relaxation technique takes about ten minutes, and can be done anywhere, even at work. It has helped many patients, and I recommend it:

1. Find a quiet place.

2. Sit in a chair that provides good back support with your feet on the floor.

3. Rest your fingers on your stomach and close your eyes.

4. Breathe in and out slowly and gently so that your stomach rises and falls.

5. Take one slow, deep breath.

6. Hold the breath for a slow count of four.

7. Breathe out slowly and steadily, while relaxing all your muscles, and saying to yourself “relax.”

8. Repeat the sequence for as many times as you wish, always slowly, without strain.

It can be difficult to know whether your muscles are fully relaxed or not. One way to learn how to relax them is, paradoxically, to tense them, so that you know how that feels. If you find relaxing difficult, try the following for around fifteen minutes a day:

1. Lie down on your back with your arms by your sides on a comfortable floor, and a book under your head so that it is not tilted backwards and your chin is not dipped down towards your chest.

2. Tense up one group of muscles for seven seconds—start with your neck muscles.

3. Notice what the tension in these muscles feels like.

4. Relax the muscles.

5. Notice the different feeling in the muscles now that they are relaxed.

6. Let these feelings and the relaxation increase.

7. Do the same with the rest of your muscle groups, throughout the whole body, one at a time. Plan your own way around your body—you might start with the right arm, then the left, the neck, scalp, face, shoulders, back, chest, stomach, right leg, and left leg.

If you would like to learn more formal ways to relax, try yoga or Tai Chi, the slow exercises favored by the Chinese. Several recent studies comparing the benefits of various forms of relaxation found Tai Chi the most effective in lowering blood pressure and heart rate (Jin 1992; Ng 1992).