Techniques to help you relax

Whether you call it rest, relaxation, meditation or self-hypnosis, spending just 15 minutes once or twice a day can have profound benefits on your physical and mental well being and make a positive difference to how you respond to things happening in your life.

Regular relaxation is key to overcoming stress, anxiety and depression.

Relaxation is best practiced somewhere where you can sit quietly without being disturbed, but there is nothing to stop you practicing wherever you are by simply shutting your eyes for a while. Most people find that they can relax more with their eyes shut, but it’s not essential.

Relaxation is like any other exercise. The more you practice, the better you get and the more relaxed you will become when you do it. Here are some well known ways to relax.

• Ultradian Rhythms
• 7/11 Breathing
• A simple body scan
• Listening to a guided meditation or hypnosis track
• Other ways to relax

The article is an interview with Ernest Rossi author of “The Twenty Minute Break“.

In the interview Ernest Rossi talks about ultradian rhythms, a natural 90-120 minute rhythm of activity and rest that occurs in all of us and runs throughout the day. That’s all ultradian means - A rhythm taking place many times a day. Ernest Rossi describes how we can use our Ultradian rhythm to improve our productivity:

"The basic idea is that every hour and a half or so you need to take a rest break - if you don’t you may be well on your way to the Ultradian Stress Syndrome: you get tired and lose your mental focus, you tend to make mistakes, get irritable and have accidents - If you continue to ignore your need to take a break you can experience more and more stress until you actually get sick……… When you learn how to recognize your need to take a 20 minute break you can convert your stress into what I call The Ultradian Healing Response - Its that wonderful feeling of comfort and well being that you naturally have when you are tired but let yourself have the freedom to take well deserved rest…….. There is an entirely new way of understanding what stress actually is! Stress is nature’s signal that we are getting too high on our stress hormones (eg. cortisol, adrenaline) and be need to take a healing break……. Taking a 20 minute healing break allows your mind and body to recover - it more than just a luxury to feel good! Your mind and body needs a chance to build up its internal supplies of available energy - to clear up the backlog of unfinished business and gear up for another hour and a half of good work, play and health…… Many really creative people throughout history - Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Edison - have noted how their best inspirations seem to come after they have made a great conscious effort to solve a problem and then taken a break when they were initially frustrated with failure. Then after taking a break for a while - lo and behold - the new creative idea seems to pop into their conscious mind all by itself. Taking a 20 Minute Ultradian Break allowed their inner creative mind to work out the answer without outside interference……… In the typical 8 hour workday most people can expect to experience 4 or 5 peak periods when they are at their best in making decisions, planning and doing whatever they have to do. It therefore makes no sense for employers to try to get people to be busy every minute of the work day. The idea is to work smarter, not harder. Taking a 20 minute break every couple of hours or so allowing the mindbody to catch up with itself and create the ideas and energy that is needed to optimize the next work period."

Nick Meredith