Relaxation is “a state of consciousness characterised by feelings of peace, and release from tension, anxiety and fear”.
The 3 aims of relaxation:
·
A
preventive measure, to protect body organs from necessary wear and tear
and in particular the organs involved in stress-related disease
·
A
treatment, to help relieve stress in conditions such as
essential hypertension, tension headache, insomnia, asthma, immune deficiency,
panic and many others. Relaxation strategies may help to make the body’s innate
healing mechanism more available.
·
A
coping skill, to calm the mind and allow thinking to become
clearer and more effective. Stress can impair people mentally, relaxation can
help to restore clarity of thought. It has been found that positive information
in memory becomes more accessible when a person is relaxed.
Deep relaxation:
1.
Procedures which induce an effect of large magnitude
2.
Carried out in a calm environment
3.
With the trainee lying down
4.
Examples- progressive relaxation and autogenic
training.
Brief relaxation:
1.
Produces immediate effects
2.
Can be used when individual is face with stressful
events
3.
The object here is the rapid release of excess tension
PROGRESSIVE RELAXATION
Edmund Jacobson, a pioneer in this field; his works
lays the foundation of both the tense-release and passive approaches. Arising
out of electromyography (EMG), he was able to demonstrate that thinking was
related to muscle state and that mental images, particularly those associated
with movement were accompanied by small but detectable levels of activity in
the muscles concerned. Just as a calm mind would be reflected in a tension-free
body, so Jacobson proposed a relaxation musculature would be accompanied by the
quieting of thoughts and the reduction of sympathetic activity, notions that would
have relevance in the treatment of anxiety and associated conditions. Muscle
activity is accompanied by sensations so faint that we do not normally notice
them. To promote awareness of tension, Jacobson emphasized the need to
concentrate on those sensations, cultivating what he called “learned awareness”.
Once tension had been recognized, it would be easier to release it.
Introducing the method- points to be included in
psycho-education/ rationale for relaxation
·
resting enables body energy to be used more
efficiently
·
it helps protect us from illness
·
by creating and releasing tension you will learn: to
tune into subtle feelings in the muscles and to recognize different levels of
tension and to release that tension
·
muscles that are unnecessarily tense reflect their
tension in the mind. If that muscle tension can be released, you will feel
mentally calmer.
·
Your internal organs will also benefit (pulse rate and
Blood pressure will be lowered while you are relaxing)
·
It is not possible to learn it in 1 lesson; the more
you practise, the more proficient you become.
APPLIED RELAXATION
The methods described previously are concerned with
the induction of deep relaxation. Their purpose is to equip the individual with
routines to be performed in the privacy. These methods are useful for unwinding
after a stressful day, but may not however, provide strategies for coping with
stress as it occurs. Goldfried (1971) recognized the extent of the gulf between
relaxation in the therapeutic environment and relaxation in the stressful
situation, focused expressly on the issues of the application of the skills. He
emphasized the need for a portable and shortened form of progressive
relaxation, a form that could use as a general coping skill in everyday life.
In doing so, he gave the individual a new role, defining him as an active agent
in his treatment rather than a passive client. The approach was called
“training in self-control” because it implied active mastery of anxiety by the
individual himself. The method consists of 6 components, in each of which a
particular aspect of relaxation is taught:
1.
Tense-release technique
2.
Release only technique
3.
Cue-controlled (conditioned) relaxation
4.
Differential relaxation
5.
Rapid relaxation
6.
Application training
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