Relaxation
Techniques
Stress is a serious business.
The subject is often in the news: we know that it causes the
loss of more working days than physical illness and can lead
to serious conditions of the heart and other organs. Stress
is taken so seriously these days that employers have a legal
duty of care towards their employees.
The media put far less emphasis
on the natural antidote to stress: relaxation. It might be
useful to remind ourselves what relaxation actually means.
Far from merely being the absence of tension, relaxing actually
requires a positive act of will. Just as a composer writes
rests - indicating silence - as carefully as the notes played
by musicians, so we need to decide when to relax and how to
do so. Just think of the expression 'To compose yourself'.
Relaxation Techniques
That Help
We know of many techniques
and disciplines, some of them very ancient, that help us to
relax. Meditation has been described as 'Increasing the distance
between thoughts', a way of emptying the mind of its usual
chatter, regret, worry and aspiration. Yoga can help us to
achieve a similar inner calm through focusing on the body
and how it breathes. In both cases, the emphasis is actively
on focusing our attention on the here and now, rather than
reflecting on the past or thinking ahead. (Meditation
Section)
As with any other conscious
decision, we need to focus on what we are doing if we want
to succeed - and here, for many of us, lies the difficulty.
If we want to benefit from these disciplines, not only do
we need to endure the slow process of learning new techniques
that feel strange and unfamiliar before enjoying the benefits,
we also have to overcome an instinctive objection from our
own bodies.
What Tension Does
The trouble is that when we
are experiencing stress we become tense: our muscles tighten
and adrenaline and cortisol flow through our systems, making
it even harder to relax. Even sitting in a quiet darkened
room doesn’t guarantee success – if your mind is buzzing you’ll
feel over stimulated. It's easy to understand why we seek
easier, more instant ways to calm down. That's why we sometimes
confuse relaxation with distraction - especially in a time
when so many distractions are available.
Relaxation Techniques
- What Does Or Doesn’t Relax Us
'I feel stressed out tonight.
Let's just relax in front of the TV.' Unfortunately, most
television programmes are designed to engage us by arousing
our interest in some way. The sound tracks are especially
effective in stimulating us emotionally, so that the net result
of our attempts to 'switch off' turn out to be merely 'changing
channels' with our attention. We swap one set of stimuli for
another - and we have even less control over the content than
when we are wrestling with all the details of our own over-busy
lives.
The Active Choice
Relaxation Techniques
So: relaxation is an active
choice, but it can seem too difficult and time-consuming to
learn how to use the techniques that work. How can we actively
choose to relax easily and effectively? William Congreve wrote
‘Music hath charms to soothe the savage breast, to soften
rocks, or bend a knotted oak.’ and throughout history gentle
music has been a favourite way to change the way we feel.
This is because the vibrations that reach our ears do more
than just please us as they cause our own internal rhythms,
like heartbeat and brain activity, to synchronise with the
music.
If you have ever tried turning
off the sound track of a scary movie you know how flat it
can seem with only pictures to keep the mood going. Anyone
who has seen what happens to baby boomers at a party when
someone plays a Rolling Stones record has experienced the
power of music to move people.
Music As A Relaxation
Technique
Naturally, the result depends
on the type of music being played. A growing number of composers
are choosing to focus mainly on the effect their music has
on the listener. In the 1960s a series of 'mood music' albums
appeared, followed in the 1970s by British artist Brian Eno's
invention of the term 'ambient music' to describe the subtle,
mood-invoking albums he created. The emphasis in this type
of music is on the listener, not the artist ~ a very different
approach from most productions. My own experience is relevant
here as I spent more than twenty five years doing my best
to capture the audience's attention as a session musician,
performer and bandleader before getting involved with hypnosis
and Neuro-Linguistic Programming as a way of helping people
to live the kind of lives they really want.
New Role
It was while exploring how
to combine music with these ways of helping people that I
realised the difference in emphasis: in my new musical role
I was no longer centre stage ~ in fact, if the listener was
aware of me then I wasn't doing my job. It surprised me how
much more difficult it can be to produce music so subtle that
the listener is largely unaware of it, yet so effective that
it relaxes him or her every time.
Self Treatment
As I researched what had already
been done I found a fascinating range of different techniques,
all contributing to the power of gentle music to soothe and
calm us. These approaches can be combined to create truly
effective musical solutions to the everyday problems caused
by stress. This kind of self-treatment is a welcome alternative
to pharmaceuticals, being very effective and extremely safe.
Some hospitals have found that when they play the right kind
of music their pain-killing medication bill goes down, in
some cases to half its former level.
In the 1960s, a popular idea
was that music could change the world. For us as individuals,
that now seems to be true – at least on a personal level.
Authors Details: Relaxation Techniques
- Graham Smith is a musician
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