Today’s blog was written by Freya Love, Assistant Psychologist at Headspace Guildford.
Before reading this blog, let’s take a moment to check in with how our bodies are feeling. Sometimes when we are feeling stressed or anxious, we hold that tension in our body, and carry it around with us throughout our day.
Notice your shoulders, do they feel tense? Try rolling them forward and backwards a few times. Now raise them to your ears, hold, and slowly lower until you feel any tightness loosen.
Now, let’s focus on our breathing. Breathe in deeply for 3 seconds, and then out for 6 seconds. Repeat. Do you feel more settled?
Relaxations are fantastic for our bodies and minds. They have been shown to reduce stress, fatigue, lower blood pressure and improve our wellbeing. They also help lots of people of all ages manage a wide range of feelings. In our experience, parents often ask us for relaxation activities, so we thought at Headspace Guildford we would start working through relaxations regularly here on our blog.
The absolute most important lesson to learn about relaxation techniques, is that they are a skill for us to learn, just like learning to play the piano! It takes a lot of practice, and the more we do and try, the better we become. So, it’s worth trying a few times even if you don’t feel relaxed the first time you try it. If you give up before you’ve learnt the skill, you’ll never know if it could have been really helpful!
A really helpful time to practice your relaxations is when you are already in a calmer place, like before bed, or when you have just woken up. That way, if we ever become more stressed or anxious, we have developed the skill already when we were calm, and we can return to that place.
There are lots of different kinds of relaxations, and it’s a good idea to try several different kinds, until you find the one that suits you best. There are those that focus on breathing, or on your muscles, or those that use your imagination to take your mind to somewhere restful.
In today’s blog, we are going to work through a relaxation technique called Progressive Muscle Relaxation, which I like to call ‘Tense and Relax’. This is a deep relaxation technique that is particularly useful for calming your mind and body before sleep and has been shown to particularly help with insomnia! It focuses on tensing one muscle group at a time, before relaxing and allowing the tension held there to disappear.
Let’s work through it together.
Get yourself in a comfortable position. You can lie on your bed, sit on your sofa, even standing up, whatever feels best to you. You can also get someone to help walk through a relaxation with you (parents, you can help walk it through with your kiddos!) or by yourself.
Now, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths in, and then out again very slowly. Make sure you’re taking the breath right down into your tummy, and then letting it all slowly leave you as you breathe out. Let’s take a few more breaths.
Now that we are breathing softly and slowly, let’s start off with concentrating on our toes.
Imagine you are on a beach, and you want to bury your toes in the sand. Tense your toes by curling them. Hold it for 5-10 seconds.
Relax your toes. Take a deep breath in, and then breathe out slowly.
Let’s move to our legs. Tense your legs by pulling your toes up…like a puppet with its strings being pulled. Hold for 5-10 seconds, however long you are comfortable.
Relax and take a deep breath in and out.
Now I want you to tense your tummies. Make your stomach very hard, like it has turned into a rock. Hold it for 5-10 seconds. Now you can relax. Let your stomach go soft. Let it be as relaxed as you can.
Now imagine that you really want to stretch your arms and shoulders. Stretch your arms out in front of you. Raise them up high over your head. Way back. Feel the pull in your shoulders. Stretch higher. Try to touch the ceiling. Notice the tension and pull in your arms and shoulders. Hold tight. Great. Now just let your arms drop back to your side. Good. Notice how your shoulders feel more relaxed.
We have relaxed our toes, our legs, our tummies, and now our arms and shoulders. Now lets try and concentrate on our hands. Pretend that you have a whole lemon in your left hand. Now squeeze it hard. Try to squeeze all the juice out. Keep squeezing. Feel the tightness in your hand and arm as you squeeze. Now drop the lemon. Notice how your muscles feel when they are relaxed. Take another lemon in your right hand and squeeze. Try to squeeze this one even harder. That’s right. Really squeeze it tight. Now drop the lemon and relax. See how much better your hand and arm feel when they are relaxed.
Our last place to tense and relax is our faces. Try and make your face look like the scrunched face emoji. Wrinkle up your nose. Make as many wrinkles in your nose as you can. Scrunch it up really hard. Use the rest of your face muscles to help you. Hold it just as tight as you can. Good. Okay, now you can relax. Let your face go smooth, relax all of the wrinkles. Your whole face feels smooth and relaxed.
Let’s feel how relaxed your whole body is. Let yourself go as loose as you can. Let your whole body go limp and feel all your muscles relax. Picture your body as a piece of cooked spaghetti, totally relaxed and floppy. Notice your breathing again, breathing slowly in, and slowly out. As you breathe, your hands are relaxed, your arms are heavy, and your shoulders are loose. Your face is relaxed, and your jaw is soft. Your tummy is soft. Your legs and feet are nice and heavy.
You can practise these exercises any time, to help yourself feel relaxed. You’ve done a great job. Slowly wriggle your toes, and your fingers. Open your eyes and take in your surroundings.
You can record yourself or a loved one going through these relaxations, and then play it to yourself, or just go through them in your mind. Remember there is no wrong way to do this, whatever feels best for you. We will be working through many different relaxations monthly in these blog posts, so if you feel that Progressive Muscle Relaxation isn’t your favourite, try some of the other techniques.
Let’s finish off by a few more deep breaths in, and slowly out. Don’t forget that you can practice your relaxations whenever and wherever you are throughout your day. You can always return to this place of calm and relaxation.