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When some clients tell me, “I just can’t relax. No matter what I do, even under hypnosis.” I would recommend to them the book Relaxation Response, written by a very mainstream medical doctor, Herbert Benson from Harvard Medical School, in 1975. It became national bestseller and was updated and reprinted in 2001. For those who like “scientific measurements”, this book is full of diagrams and charts.

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This book is especially helpful for people with chronic stress and high blood pressure.

People can’t relax because our usual thinking is concerned with events outside ourselves. Through emotional attachment, social feelings, ideological beliefs and sensory contacts, we are constantly diverting our thinking toward external factors. Any attempt to redirect this outwardly directed consciousness requires a different mental process.

The book explains “Fight or Flight Response” in details. This term was fist described by Dr. Walter B. Cannon at the turn of the twentieth century, as an “emergency reaction”, in the same institute as Benson – Harvard Medical School.

Fight or flight response is the inborn mind mechanism. In the past, it had considerable evolutionary significance. Individuals with this response could survive more effectively, passing it on to their offspring. However, we are living in a very different world now than our ancestors.  Nowadays, this mechanism is activated when we face stressful events. We may differ in what is stressful to us individually, depending on our own value systems, but our society poses enough stressful circumstances to affect all of us. When this happens, blood pressure increases, including heart rate, increased rate of breathing, increased body metabolism, or rate of burning fuel, and marked increase in the flow of blood to the muscles of the arms and legs.

People then start to have associations, and develop fear, or phobia. And chronic elicitation of the fight-or-flight response leads from the transient elevations in blood pressure to a permanent state of hypertension. In the brain, it is hypothalamus that controls the evocation of he fight-or-flight response. When a single situation requiring behavioral adjustment occurs again and again, the fight-or-flight response is repeatedly activated.

When the fight-or-flight response is evoked, a part of the involuntary nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system becomes highly active. It deals with the everyday bodily functions that normally do not come into consciousness, such as the maintenance of heartbeat and blood pressure, regular breathing, the digestion of food. The sympathetic nervous system acts by secreting specific hormones: adrenalin or epinephrine and noradrenalin or norepinephrine. These hormones, epinephrine and its related substances, bring about the physiologic changes of increased blood pressure, heart rate, and body metabolism.

The fight-or-flight response happens in an integrated fashion, as it’s controlled by a part of an area in the brain called hypothalamus. And as it’s involuntary, we think we don’t have control over it.

We don’t need to give examples of monks who meditate years to show you it is absolutely possible to control and change your blood pressure, heart rate, breathing or metabolism. We as hypnotherapists, can show you, and guide you, to use the power of your mind to achieve this by hypnosis and self-hypnosis, because there is another response in us that we can activate and it can lead to a quieting of the sympathetic nervous system. This is Relaxation Response.

Your hypnotherapist can help you activate this involuntary response anytime you want. So that we don’t have to change your environment to avoid fear, phobia or stress, we can train ourselves to have a different response.

Think of those surgeries without anesthesia. Your mind has greater power than you want to give credit for. Needless to say all my clients may feel hot, warm, or cold, raise one of the arms… and last but not lest, feel relaxed by simply accepting the suggestions. By the way, hypnosis is mentioned in this little book and is described as “a widely known but still poorly understood technique”.

Just in case that you are curious. The way to bring forth the Relaxation Response is to have the following four components:

1. a quiet environment
2. a mental device – a mantra or sound, or a fixed gaze
3. a passive attitude
4. a comfortable position

1. Deep Breathing

Deep breathing is perhaps the most simple and effective way to relax. When we are calm and relaxed our breathing becomes deep and slow. This can be “back engineered”, for want of a better term, by focusing on breathing slowly and deeply.

By taking slow, deep breaths you increase the oxygen supply around your body which allows you to function much more optimally. This reduces any stress and anxiety you may be carrying.

2. Take a Break

If there is a specific task or chore you are performing that causes you stress then the best thing to do is take regular breaks. This allows you to stay fresh and alert, preventing stress for building up so that you can stay relaxed.

You can do any number of things on your break, including some of the tips on the list. You could also take a quick walk as being outdoors and getting exercise is a great way to relax naturally.

3. Make a Change

Sometimes there isn’t time to take a break. When that is true the next best thing is to make a change. As the saying goes “A change is as good as a rest”. Depending on the task a change can be as simple as performing it in a different room or listening to some gentle, relaxing music whilst you are doing it. This stops you getting into a rut which can drag you down.

4. Hypnotherapy

If you have a computer or MP3 player then hypnotherapy is an excellent way to relax. It typically takes between fifteen and thirty minutes and takes no more effort than getting comfortable and allowing a hypnotherapist to guide you into the deeply relaxing state that hypnotherapy provides.

There are many great hypnosis videos on YouTube floating around such as the one below.

Alternatively if you prefer a MP3 you may enjoy this relaxation hypnosis session.

5. Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique that involves tensing your muscles and then allowing them to completely relax. This is a great way to reduce any physical tension you are feeling. If you would like to learn more about PMR then visit our article Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

Start With Short Sessions

It’s easy to get thrown off by the idea that you need to meditate for an hour to gain any benefit, however this is simply not true. You can experience significant benefits just by meditating for five minutes a day and you’ll probably find it a lot easier to meditate for a short amount of time to begin with.

Be Comfortable

Wherever you choose to meditate make sure it is a place that is comfortable for you. For most people this means a warm temperature and soft flooring. The way you hold your body is also important. You don’t have to sit in the lotus position if you don’t want to but that is a great posture for a beginner to meditation. You can sit however you want though, although it is recommended that you keep your back as straight as possible.

The clothes you wear can also make a difference. The best type of clothes for meditating are loose, soft and comfortable.

Breathe Slowly and Deeply

Meditation is all about focusing the mind on one thing. The easiest thing to focus on is your breathing. Breathe slowly and deeply through your nose and focus on how their air feels as it enters and then leaves your body.

Don’t Worry

One of the aims of meditation is to reduce conscious thought. However it is common, especially for beginners, to find conscious thoughts entering the mind while they’re trying to meditate. If this happens, don’t worry, your session is far from ruined. Just allow the thought to flow in and out of the mind.

Create a Routine

Meditation is most effective when it is done regularly. It is better to meditate for five minutes everyday than for an hour once a month. Find a window of time that you can use everyday and use it to meditate. You could also create a routine around this time. For example you may want to have a nice warm bath before you meditate to loosen your muscles and then perhaps read a book or listen to relaxing music for awhile afterwards.

I hope these tips will help you to enjoy meditation and all the benefits it offers.

There are actually hundreds of different forms of tai chi but the most popular ones are Chen, Yang, Wu, Sun and Wu-Hao and Fa styles. While most tai chi is slow paced there are variants that are much faster paced although these are typically only taught and practiced by masters of the slower forms.

The best way to learn tai chi is to scout your local area for classes. Almost all martial arts dojos will run a tai chi class, as do many community buildings. Tai chi is one of the most affordable martial arts to learn as there’s no special equipment required, all you need is to pay for entry into the class and that’s it. It’s best to wear loose fitting clothing to allow for full range of motion and circulation. Also tai chi is typically practiced barefoot or wearing flat soled shoes to enhance balance.

There’s no official accreditation system for tai chi teachers, however as I mentioned above, teaching tai chi is hardly a get quick rich scheme and I can’t imagine there are many, if any, teachers out there who don’t have a good knowledge of tai chi and are just looking to make an easy buck. Also because of the respect people have for martial arts, a dojo won’t employ a teacher they don’t have full confidence in.

Much like meditation, tai chi is something that is best done at least once a day. When you enroll in a class it will probably be run only once or twice a week. This leaves the rest of the week for you to practice what you have learned so far. Preferences vary, but many people like to practice tai chi in the morning as it is a gentle exercise that gets the blood flowing, and gives them a reason to wake up early.

Do remember that tai chi is a martial art and was originally used as a form of combat. Please treat it with the respect its tradition deserves, failure to do so could offend the teacher.

You can follow the tai chi exercises in the video below to get a good idea of what tai chi is, and if it feels right to you.

The idea is to wake up early and get more things done in the morning, while the rest of the world is still asleep, leaving less for you to do in the evenings when you’re tired. Think about how many times you think “I’ll do that later” and then forgot about until the next day. These small tasks build and build until they become a cause for stress and anxiety.

While no-one expects you to wake up at 4am every morning even if you wake up just one hour earlier that is a full hour to get jobs done where you will have little to no other distractions.

Some people find it hard to change their sleep patterns and this is understandable, as they are the result of years of routine…or non-routine in some cases. So how do you change your internal clock so that you can wake up earlier?

Well there are a number of techniques that can be helpful but the most important and obvious one is that to wake up early you also need to go to bed earlier. This may sound counter-productive in some ways since the idea of waking up earlier is to get more things done, however the vast majority of people are at their most productive shortly after they’ve woken up and then decline gradually as the day goes by. Waking up early gives you an extra hour or so before you have to go to work to get things done around the house, or even get a head start on work you have to hand in to the boss. Imagine how impressed they’d be with you handing in your assignment at 9:00 am whenever they give you a project. That’s the type of impression that can lead to promotions and pay rises!

Besides going to be earlier there are many other ways to help yourself wake up earlier. Most people have an alarm set for a specific time and while this is a good idea it can work even better if taken a step further. Try placing your alarm at the other side of your bedroom so that when it goes off you have to get up to switch it off. This makes it much more likely that you won’t just go straight back to sleep. Also have a glass of water next to your bed so that you can have a drink as soon as you wake up, this will hydrate and energize your body immediately.

You should also relax as much as possible before you go to sleep at night. A long soak in the bath and a book will help you to unwind and this in turn will allow you to enjoy a deeper, most restful sleep so that when you wake up you are ready to get up and get on with your day.

The biggest battle in waking up early though is the one with your mind. The alarm goes off at 6:00am and there’s an argument going on with one side saying “Come on! Time to get up!” while the other side is saying “Urghhh…let’s go back to sleep”.  One of the best ways to win this battle is with self hypnosis. You can program your mind and convince both sides that it is much more beneficial to wake up early in the morning. Our friends at HypnoBusters have a great session called Wake Up Early that will relax you before you go to bed and strengthen your desire to wake up early.

Remember, the more you get done early on, the more time you have to relax later on.