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Relaxation exercises are very useful for those people who suffer from excessive psychophysiological activation. Nevertheless, you might struggle with them. In this article, we're going to share a list of these obstacles, as well as recommendations for dealing with them.
Experts believe that breathing and relaxation exercises can be great allies in the battle against anxiety, depression, and OCD. Although their benefits are numerous, you may struggle with the relaxation exercises you try out.
These challenges stop many people from reaching their goal of reducing psychophysiological activation. In this article, we’ll be talking about some of the problems that can arise when doing these exercises. Some of the specific techniques we’ll be talking about are Jacobson’s progressive muscle relaxation technique and Shultz’ autogenic training.
Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique developed by Jacobson. You can find its historical antecedents in certain practices such as meditation and yoga.
Its main objective is to reduce psychophysiological activation, which allows for general body relaxation. Jacobson believed that the body is an interrelated whole. Thus, he also believed that different muscles send signals to your brain to extend this relaxation throughout the whole body.
The nervous system has two branches: the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The sympathetic branch is involved in activation, whereas the parasympathetic branch is involved in relaxation. It’s not possible for both of the systems to activate synchronously. In other words, you can’t be tense and relaxed at the same time.
The goal of progressive muscle relaxation is to deactivate the sympathetic branch in order to activate the parasympathetic one. Relaxation produces two very important effects: a reduction in muscle tone and a slowing of breathing speed.
In order for progressive muscle relaxation to work, you need to train your body for it. You should aim to make it automatic for your body. Training involves exercises in which you tense and relax your muscles, one by one, for several seconds. You go through all of your muscle groups. First, you relax your arms, then your face, your neck, your stomach, and, finally, your legs.
Your ultimate goal is to eventually not have to go through the tensing-relaxing exercises at all. Your muscles should instead directly relax when you feel tension from nervousness or anxiety.
Nevertheless, problems might stem during your training that make the acquisition of this type of learning more difficult. Many people come to feel at some point that the exercises are worthless and give up on them entirely. On many occasions, during training sessions as well as in daily life, people want a way to relax so they can fulfill their obligations. In this article, we’ll tell you about the most common problems that can spring up on your path to meeting these goals.
It’s important to keep them in mind so you don’t give up. There are bodily reactions that may seem strange at first. Even so, once you take up these exercises, they’ll become normal to you.
Sometimes, these difficulties can hinder the day’s training. They can even scare people who may be starting to feel undesirable consequences from the relaxation exercises. But it’s all right not to be able to overcome a difficulty right away if you just don’t give up.
Finally, regarding strange sensations, you always have to remember that they’re normal. Little by little, as the body starts to get used to the relaxation exercises, they’ll disappear. These shouldn’t be a reason for you to lose hope. Neither should they become a source of negative thinking about how you’re doing something wrong.
Even though it might be hard, you should never give up on relaxation training. Experts recommend that you keep at it until you achieve control of your muscles and are able to relax at will.