Aimless Relaxation

How to Relax without Trying-too-hard

Copyright © Donald Robertson, 2011.  All rights reserved.

One of the difficulties with relaxation techniques, as many people quickly realise, is that the effort to relax, or even just the desire to relax, can often backfire and create more tension.  Sometimes trying to hard to relax can create a vicious cycle of efforts to relax causing more tension, leading to more efforts to relax, etc.  This can be frustrating and difficult to understand for many people, who find themselves caught in a spiral of diminishing returns while using techniques that seem common sense and as if they “should work.”  For some people this is not a problem and relaxation training proceeds as normal.  For others the best solution may simply be to abandon the effort to relax, which may be the core of their problem rather than the solution it appears to be.  However, there are also many cases where individuals may benefit from learning to relax if only they can do so in a more accepting manner, without trying too hard or worrying about success or failure, etc.

I’m going to describe how to relax an individual group of muscles, while adopting a more accepting attitude toward the experience and outcome.  The same principle would apply to general relaxation, such as a standard Progressive Relaxation routine, which may form part of more systematic Applied Relaxation training.

Preliminary Socialisation Experiment

Close your eyes and imagine that you have an “effort to relax” dial, that goes from 0-10, and is currently set in the middle, at the number 5.  Gradually turn your dial up to 6 or 7, and imagine what it would be like to feel a stronger desire to control your body and relax the muscles.  Notice how your body reacts to this increased concern about relaxation.  If you like, turn the dial all the way up to 10, one number at a time, and notice what you experience in response to extremely intense desire to relax.  (You may notice that a very strong desire to relax actually makes you feel more tense, ironically.)  Now slowly turn your dial back down to 5, and notice what changes.  If you like, slowly turn your dial, one number at a time, all the way down to 1 or even 0, and imagine letting go completely of any effort, or even desire, to relax.  Notice how your body responds to this radical letting-go.  An alternative is to focus on a specific region of your body, such as your shoulders or forehead, when doing this.  It’s also possible to imagine increasing and decreasing the desire to relax your breathing.  Experimenting in this way should help you understand what it means to radically let go of any effort to relax.

Step One: Accept Bodily Sensations

With your eyes shut, scan your body, looking for any sensations of physical tension.  Focus simultaneously on your breathing and the region where you experience sensations of tension.  Don’t try to change your breathing; don’t try to stop it from changing.  Just accept your breathing as it is, and let go completely of any effort to control it.  Let your body do the breathing automatically, without conscious interference.  Imagine that as you breathe in and out, your breath is passing through the region where you experience tension, helping you to keep your attention gently centred upon that part of your body.  Allow yourself to willingly accept whatever sensations you’re experiencing there.  Don’t try to change them.  Let go completely of any effort, or even desire, to relax or eliminate tension.  Continue to focus on breathing “through” the tension, and radically accepting it, for about 1-3 minutes.  By simply doing this you may well notice some spontaneous reduction in excess tension, but that’s not your aim at this stage.  Just accept whatever does or does not happen.

Step Two: Tense & Release Muscles

Now moderately tense the muscles you want to relax and hold the tension for about one minute, which may seem quite a long time.  Be patient and study the feelings of tension closely.  Once again, focus simultaneously on your breathing and the region of your body that’s tense.  Imagine that as you breathe in and out, your breath is passing through the muscles you’re tensing.  Accept whatever feelings you experience as you hold the tension.  At first your breathing may feel awkward, while you tense muscles, but accept whatever it feels like and keep letting go of any effort to control it.  It will often become easier with practice anyway.

After a minute or so, just let go completely of the tension, and allow your muscles to relax completely.  Keep letting go progressively deeper for about one minute, perhaps imagining letting go completely on each exhalation of breath.  See if you can let them go more limp than before but be satisfied with whatever happens.

Now continue to focus simultaneously on your breathing and that region of your body completely let go of any activity or effort to either tense or relax the muscles.  Just do nothing and accept whatever you experience completely.  Return to step one above and repeat this process up to three times in total, if you wish.  Focus on the process and accept whatever outcome follows, i.e., don’t worry how much you actually relax, just be patient and follow the procedure carefully.