

First, learn to recognize what a particular muscle feels like when it is flexed. His method for relaxation is thus a two-step process. Jacobson’s insight was that a moderately tense muscle is indistinct - that is, one often does not notice, in ordinary life, that certain muscles are in a state of tension.

One of the most widely used methods is known as progressive muscle relaxation, which was developed early last century by Edmund Jacobson, a medical doctor who pioneered research into the connection between physical tension and mental well-being. This might sound like New Age nonsense, but the benefits of muscle relaxation have been studied for decades, and research has found that versions of the practice may mitigate a wide range of physical and mental conditions - among them generalized anxiety disorder, hypertension, irritable bowel syndrome, insomnia, chronic pain, postpartum depression, some symptoms of schizophrenia, some side effects of cancer treatment, stress among students and anger and aggression in adolescents.īut enough about what relaxation does. And it gets more effective the more I do it. It creates a kind of allover refreshed feeling that can be attained nearly anywhere and at any time. For me, deliberate muscle relaxation immediately reduces fatigue, stress and anxiety.

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I mean it more literally: I learned how to relax my muscles, to purposefully, systematically isolate each part of my body and loosen the meat on my bones.Īnd I learned that doing so regularly, once or several times a day, can be more or less instantly life changing. I don’t mean that I discovered the benefits of taking it easy or of remaining calm in the face of adversity and letting life’s troubles slide off my back. What is this dark art? I learned the proper way to relax. This thing I learned sounds trivial, a practice so simple you’d think there’d be no need for special instruction - which is probably why a lot of us go through life not knowing that there is a particular technique to getting it right. Sometime in 2021, I learned how to do something that I suspect will greatly improve how I deal with what already looks to be a harrowing 2022.
