A progressive muscular relaxation exercise

  1  Focus your attention to your right foot, squeezing it as tightly as possible to the count of ten.

2  Relax your right foot. Notice the difference between tension and relaxation in the muscles of your right foot. Enjoy the feeling of your foot loosening up and the feeling of warmth as the blood returns to the muscles in the foot. Wiggle your toes around gently and notice the cooler air circulating around them.

3  Stay in this relaxed state for a moment, breathing deeply and slowly.

4  Shift your attention to the left foot and repeat the exercise.

5  Stay in this relaxed state for a moment, breathing deeply and slowly.

6  Move slowly up through your body contracting and relaxing the muscle groups as you go – right calf, left calf, right thigh, left thigh, hips and buttocks, stomach, chest, back, right arm and hand, left arm and hand, neck, shoulders, face, eyes and head.

7  Periodically return to your breathing to ensure that you are breathing slow, deep breaths.

8  Once you have gone through the full routine, spend a few minutes simply enjoying the relaxed state that you are in before returning to your everyday tasks.

9  Repeat this exercise daily until you feel that you have fully mastered the techniques involved.

10  If you notice that the tension is worse in particular muscle groups in the body, tailor the exercise routine to spend extra time on these muscle groups and less on those where it is not such a problem.

11  Once you have learned and are comfortable with the relaxation exercises, you can then begin to use them to combat stress in real life situations, for example when you are stuck in your car in a traffic jam or during your coffee break at work.

A brief relaxation exercise for the neck and shoulders

  For many people who are stressed, muscular tension is most severe in the neck and shoulder muscles. Below is a relaxation exercise which takes very little time to do and specifically focuses on the neck and shoulders. It consists of exercises aimed at adopting the correct posture, relaxing the shoulders and relaxing the neck muscles.

1  Find the correct sitting position: stand up straight with your arms at your sides about six inches in front of a chair. Move the left leg back so that the back of the knee touches the chair. In one swift movement stick your bottom out and sit back in the chair. Allow yourself to slide into position in the chair with both feet flat on the ground and your back straight.

2  Neck rotation: sitting in an upright position looking straight ahead of you, slowly rotate your head to the left until your chin is parallel to your left shoulder. Hold your head there to the count of ten before slowly returning your head to look straight ahead of you. Repeat the exercise, moving your head to the right. Go through the full routine a few times.

3  Neck elongation: imagine that you are a puppet with a string attached to the top of your head and someone is pulling the string upwards. You will experience an ‘elongation’ feeling in the vertebrae (bones) of the spine in your neck. Do not resist this but simply allow it to happen for a count of ten. Then relax and notice a ‘sinking’ feeling as you relax. Repeat the exercise again after a 30 second gap. When repeated, the action should feel like there is a ‘spring’ in your neck.

4  Shoulder exercises: slowly and gently hunch your shoulders up tightly and move them upwards as if you are trying to touch your ears with them. Hold the position for the count of ten and then relax your shoulders. Repeat the exercise a couple of times.

  Note: do not do the neck and shoulder exercises more than three times in one session but do them regularly, especially when you are feeling tension in your neck.