Relaxation is easy when you know how

This is Part 3 in the Sleep series.
Read Part 1: sleeping more can save your life
Read Part 2: how to get more sleep

TLDR; if you have stress and anxiety and you haven’t tried intensive immersive progressive muscle relaxation, you’re missing out on an easy and effective method of preventing depression and improving your overall health through physiological relaxation.

• PMR can help
• Ordinary PMR
• Tension PMR
• Intensive PMR
• Immersive Intensive PMR
• How to create tension

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Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR)

What is pmr?

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) works by having you slowly tense and relax each muscle. At the end of PMR most people experience an immediate feeling of relaxation, and can reduce stress and anxiety physiological symptoms in your body. If you do it (almost) daily, the effects are even stronger. With experience, you become more aware of when you are experiencing stress and anxiety in your everyday life, and have a fast and effective way of reducing them. I’ve yet to meet anyone who doesn’t experience some benefit from a form of PMR.

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PMR can help

PMR can help with:

• reducing the feeling of stress or tension in the body
• reduces neck and lower back pain
• reduces frequency and/or intensity of migraines
• quieting the mind (similar to meditation)
• immediate reduction in physiological autonomic arousal (e.g. heart rate, panic breathing, blood pressure, electrodermal activity) associated with the stress response
• learning your ‘anxiety triggers’, by developing bodily awareness of when and how you experience stress and tension
• improving your ability to fall asleep (especially as part of a strong sleep routine)
• promoting the ability to fall asleep if you wake during the night
• preventing depression by doing all the above

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What pmr is not

PMR is not a magical cure. I did once have a client who described themselves as having ‘life long insomnia and anxiety disorder’, whom insisted I ‘cured’ them with my form of ‘intensive immersive PMR’. I insisted they ‘cured’ themselves, using intensive immersive PMR and other techniques we discussed. 🎉 PMR is awesome, it’s just not a panacea.

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PMR like you’ve not tried before

Most people think PMR is just ‘focus on this part of your body and relax it, while breathing slowly’. PMR can be so much more than that. When used as part of a strong sleep routine, the relaxation effect of PMR can be magnified through conditioning. (That is, your body is at it’s most relaxed right before and during sleep, so if your brain associates PMR before sleep, it associates PMR with being at your most relaxed.)

In almost every case of severe stress and anxiety I’ve ever seen (99%!), immersive intense PMR has been more effective than ordinary PMR, especially in reducing symptoms of stress and anxiety and promoting sleep. (Science: my observations are consistent with peer-reviewed research.) I have coined my approach as ‘immersive intense PMR’; in practice, I’m combining different methods of promoting physiological state of relaxation and awareness.

In my mind, there are different forms of PMR:

Ordinary PMR

Breathing slowly, focus your awareness on areas of your body. Focus on each area and consciously relax it before moving to next area.

Tension PMR

Start by breathing slowly, then hold each breath for a few seconds. While holding your breath, tense/clench an area of the body. Breathe slowly in and out a few times, before holding your breath again, tense/clench a new area of the body. Make sure you alternate breathing slowly and normally, with holding your breath and tensing muscle groups.

Intensive PMR

Start by breathing slowly, then hold each breath for a few seconds. As you hold each breath, use your imagination to picture the worrying thoughts in your mind as bubbles of air, and the tension or stress in your body as bubbles of air. As you breathe out, imagine those bubbles of stress, tension, and worries, being pushed out of your body 💭. Breathing in, imagine fresh clean air coming in, new air filled with peaceful bubbles or empty bubbles. (Use any imagery you like, if bubbles don’t work for you; continue breathing out stress and worry, and breathing in calm and peace.)

Do this imagery, while doing Tension PMR (as above). I recommend you alternate your slow breathing using this imagery, with every second breath holding your muscles in a tense position. i.e. breathe in, hold and tense, collapse/relax muscles and slowly breathe out, breathe in calm and peace, holding breath and move bubbles to your lungs, slowly breathe out stress and worry [repeat].

Immersive Intensive PMR

Start by picturing your favourite place to relax e.g. beach, in bed during a storm, a rainforest, under a shady tree. Focus on the feeling of being there. Sounds, sights smells, textures, and tastes. For example, on a beach you might be warm, feeling the sand between your toes, the sight of the waves, the sounds of the waves or birds, the taste of hot chips or a cold drink. Use a device to mimic the sounds and sights you associate most with that place, such as a video of forest sounds and trees, or the sound of rain on the roof. Light a candle, incense or spray perfume. Wrap yourself in a blanket. Use all 5 senses to immerse yourself into that relaxing place, like a holiday in your mind. Once you are mentally in that place, do intensive PMR. (Use that imagery to pull in that peaceful calming smell of that place, and breathing out push out all stress and worry. Alternate with holding tension in each muscle group as you breathe in and hold, and collapsing/relaxing your muscles as you breathe out).

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How to create tension

During PMR, your muscles should feel tense and uncomfortable, but not strained or in pain. When holding your breath, you should hold it long enough to feel uncomfortable but not go blue (it’s not a competition).

Combining the discomfort of holding your breath and tensing a muscle area is key. You need to experience a clear difference between holding tension, and relaxing (collapsing) those muscles and your lungs as you breathe out.

During PMR, focus specifically on the feeling of tension of each muscle, and how that feeling is different, when you release the tensed muscle. This is part of the psychological process of a ‘body scan’; learning what it feels like to be tense or relaxed. This is really important for those with severe stress, severe anxiety, severe depression, PTSD (PTSS) or C-PTSD, OCD and most personality disorders.

If you have any injuries, (obviously) do NOT tense that area. You can move either upwards in the body, or downwards (start at head and move down to feet). For those wanting a light workout, you can modify Pilates, yoga, calisthenics or warm up/warm down stretches and use those stretch poses to hold tension.

To create tension (upwards):

• Feet (arch your foot, curl your toes)
• Leg and foot (point your toe and tense the calf muscle, or pull toes up toward knees)
• Thighs (press your knees and thighs tightly together, clench glutes)
• Hand and arms (clench your fists, push fists against each other)
• Abdomen (pull your abdominal muscles in tightly, pull belly button towards your spine)
• Chest (take a deep breath and hold it in, then take in a tiny bit more)
• Shoulders and back (push chest forwards and pull back shoulder blades, or pull shoulders up towards your ears)
• Neck (push your head backwards against the surface you are resting on)
• Head – Lips (press them tightly together without clenching your teeth), Eyes (closing them tightly), Forehead (frown and pull your eyebrows together)

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For best effect, do intensive immersive PMR every evening, lying in bed, as part of a well balanced sleep routine (click here for my example). This creates a conditioning effect; your brain will associate doing intensive immersive PMR with feeling completely relaxed. Over time, you’ll be able to use PMR anytime, and experience immediate relaxation at any time you do PMR, even when it’s just 5 mins of tension PMR on your legs before a stressful meeting!

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If you are starting to experience difficulties at work or at home, waiting until things get worse can cost you more than money. Help is available, and you definitely aren’t alone (even if it feels that way). 💚💛 Please talk to someone, like a free crisis service. If you want to talk to Andi, book online now or contact us.

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