How To Relax

There are many great and encouraging books about relaxation. You will find them in most big city book stores, of course that’s where they are needed most. In the big city where stress is a daily part of life along with the hustling and bustling modern world.

What a stressful mess we humans have created. We, the most intelligent life on this planet, at least that’s what we like to state, we yearly send millions of lost souls out to the work force to struggle to find themselves in a steel and concrete jungle of cobwebs made of steel girders.

Living all ones life in the city, cooped up in small apartment houses, working in plastic offices and dealing with plastic people are not going to do anyone any good. I have read about people living their entire lives in the big city and never even left the same city that they were born in during their entire life. How can these people ever now real life or nature if all they know is “plastic perfection”.

What do we expect of them, only perfection. Maybe we should be looking to nature to help us.

Are we not smarter than monkeys? Do you ever see them going to a shrink? Ah, but you might say “But they don’t have our responsibilities or challenges.”

They may not have our responsibilities but even monkeys face challenges, like attacks from other animals who want to eat them. But have you ever noticed about how animals seem more at home on this planet than us?

Back to the city, imagine for a moment that most of them start the day with a positive attitude, and then by the end of the day they are all tired, the struggle of the days work has caught up with them, and now all the negative energy is spread around, what these people need is relaxation.

There are many ways to relax, here are some of the things that I have learnt.

Hypnotist use this technique to relax patients or themselves and some meditators use it as well.

Sit in a comfortable chair and make sure that you are fully comfortable, this means sitting with your back straight, but on a slight lean backwards. You can’t relax if you are trying to hold yourself up, because your back muscles will be tense.
What we want to do here is relax most or all of your bodies muscles.

First take six long slow easy breathes of air, suck the air right in. Try breathing in your nose and out your slightly open mouth. Try breathing in from your stomach, then your chest.

Now close your eyes.
Tense your feet then relax them, tense your calf muscles then relax them, tense your thighs then relax then relax your thigh muscles. Do this all the way up your body slowly, take your time. There is no rush. When you get to your face, tense your face muscles then relax them.

You can use this as a simple form of meditation, after all your muscles are relaxed take easy long breathes that feel comfortable to you.

Many books discuss relaxing the body, but I have not read much about relaxing the rest of you. Your mind and soul need relaxing as well. Your body may not be tense but you will never be relaxed if your mind is having some internal struggles of its own. So you need to relax from the inside out as well.

In fact to be truly relaxed you must be at ease in your mind, body and soul.

Some people burn candles because they feel that this helps them relax, in fact you can buy many items in shops that are designed to give you that feeling of relaxation. But let me assure you, all the tools that you require to relax are with you when you were born. You don’t need to buy anything to help you relax, because the tools are within you.

These things will stop you being internally relaxed:

Fears.
Worry.
Hate.
Anger.
Fussiness.
Hunger.
Think all the time.
Watching television for hours on end.
Watching negative television programs, like soaps. These are designed to be an addiction so that someone can make money, not to bring any “real” enjoyment into your life.

Watching television does not relax a person, in fact it makes your eyes sore because we were never designed (as humans) to sit for hours on end staring at electronically made images.
Some people say that they sit down to watch television to relax after a hard day. I suggest you work out just how much time you spend looking at a television set and cut that time in half or even less. Also television is a distraction away from real life, in order for you to find your real self you need to be relaxed and more with nature.

To be relaxed internally you will need to deal with those things that may be upsetting your life. This is where meditation could help you.

Write down all the things that you think may be personal fears or worries that bother you.
Fear and worry are very self distructive and they can burn a persons life away slowly and painfully. Relaxing is a way of being calm and “with yourself”.

Are you frightened of being attacked?
Do you worry about your husband or wifes habits?
Do you worry about the world?
Do you have the weight of the world on your shoulders?
Do you worry about the car breaking down?
Do your debts worry you?
Are you worried about your children?
Are your teenagers getting you down?
Are your parents getting you down?

Some people struggle with physical relaxation or trying to meditate because they have internal mental fears or worries and they just can’t seem to relax their body. They struggle because the “real world” is sending niggling annoying thoughts into their minds constantly, we need to deal with these things or learn to shut them out of our minds when we relax.

[Not finished…]

All the best from James Martin Sandbrook.
‎Sunday, ‎3 ‎August ‎2003, ‏‎5:49:28 PM.