S.O.S. Stress Rescue Plan: Relaxation Technique Basics

A physical and mental reset can take as little as 5 minutes. This is your relaxation buffet. Take small helpings, try a few bites, and maybe mix a couple together.

If the stress hurricane has planted itself right overhead and stalled out, you may be looking for a few psych hacks to get through the storm. I’ve got you. In the last blog, I described some ways to stop working against yourself and start teaming up with yourself and your beloveds. In this blog, I will focus on some basic relaxation techniques to try to calm your body and mind.

Here are some techniques to stop the “code red” so you can relax and think more clearly. (Want to skip straight to the easiest? My personal favorite is Guided Imagery).

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Deep Breathing (Good at pretending to be asleep? You’ve got this!)

Deep breathing is incorporated into a variety of relaxing and good-for-you activities like yoga and meditation. It can also be used on its own. There are many ways to do it. Try out a few and choose the method you find soothing. The general idea is that you want to take slow and deep breaths, almost as if you are faking sleep. You might count slowly to yourself on the inhale and exhale (just be careful not to count too quickly- I can sound like I am calling out double time for a marching band if I’m not in the right frame of mind). Some people hold their breath for a count between the inhale and exhale (sometimes called box breathing), but others find holding their breath stressful. Some traditions specify breathing in through the nose and out through the mouth or putting your hand on your stomach to monitor the movement of your diaphragm (hence, deep breathing is sometimes called diaphragmatic or belly breathing, as your belly expands on the intake). Whatever is comfortable and soothing for you is the way to go.

Guided Imagery (Your “Happy Place” is calling)

Guided imagery is the psych term for using visualization. You can use your imagination to take you to your Happy Place. It pairs as nicely with deep breathing as strawberries pair with chocolate sauce. If you have tried deep breathing and found that your overactive mind works against you, worrying about whether you can get through your “to do” list or questioning if you are even doing the deep breathing correctly, then guided imagery might be for you, either alone or paired with deep breathing.

There are a variety of guided imagery narratives available on YouTube, and I am slowly posting my favorites (check back for more over time), such as this seaside sunset. If one of these works for you, great! If not, let me know, and I can come up with more, or you can come up with your own. It can be anywhere that you have strong good associations: a beloved family vacation spot, your grandma’s kitchen when she is baking chocolate chip cookies, your favorite book store, flying a kite at the park, or a place of your own imagining (a quiet forest, the beach, a mountain stream, a city café, a magical crystal cave). It just needs to be a calm and pleasant location for you. Incorporate as many of your imagined senses as possible by imagining the place's sounds, smells, and feel. Ideally, over time, you practice creating the immersive experience yourself until it is easier to call to mind, and you can spend time exploring it.

Muscle Relaxation (Show off how buff you are, and then turn to Jell-O)

Muscle relaxation is a bit more difficult than it sounds for most people. Many of us spend our days in what I think of as “cave troll” position, hunched blearily in front of a glowing screen, pretending that the muscle spasms in our lower back, the crick in our neck, and our ever-tightening and shortening calf muscles aren’t there. To relax our muscles, we first have to remember we have muscles. We then have to monitor the state of our various muscle groups (a Body Scan Meditation can be quite useful for this). And then, finally, we have to try to relax those muscles: one at a time for beginners, or when you get to the intermediate and advanced levels, in groups or all at once.

If you are a bit out of touch with your body, you may want to gently tense different muscle groups and then slowly relax them. For example, you can make a gentle fist and notice how it feels to let the tension slowly drain out of your hand. You can flex at the ankles or wrists or shrug your shoulders to help yourself grow an awareness of what the muscle tension feels like before you slowly release it. You will want to do this very gently so you don’t make any pre-existing tension worse, and I don’t recommend doing it at all near areas of old injuries or “problem spots.” I had a client who tried shrugging her shoulders upward and instantly gave herself a headache and a horrible crick in her neck and ended up in pain. So, be kind to your body, be patient, and go slowly.

A careful progression starting at your feet or your head and working your way to the other end of your body usually works best and you will hear this referred to as Progressive Muscle Relaxation. If you are an athlete, dancer, yogii, or some other equally coordinated and body-conscious sort, it may be as simple as mentally scrolling through your muscle groups and relaxing them one by one, perhaps starting with feet, then lower legs, then upper legs and pelvis, then abdomen/chest/back, then arms, then shoulders, then neck/face/scalp. As you practice relaxing your muscles more frequently, you may be able to relax them in fewer larger groups (lower body, upper body).

Meditation (All together now, “Om”!)

Meditation spans many different kinds of mental and emotional practices and you hear it everywhere these days. For our purposes today, I will just briefly touch on a few of my favorites and will revisit more styles of meditation in a future post.

Loving-Kindness Meditation is one of my favorites, because it gives my busy mind a specific feel-good task. It typically involves positive messages (about happiness, safety, health, etc.) that you focus on sending to yourself, to loved ones, and beyond. It makes me happy just bringing to mind the people I love. Sometimes picturing various people I love is the sum total of my meditation.

Body Scan Meditation, as I mentioned above, involves systematically directing your attention to each part of your body and noticing sensations in a relaxed observer mode. It is a good way to tune in and be more fully present in your body. Much of adult life and work involves ignoring our bodies. For me, it is relaxing and helps me notice tension, discomfort, or pain in the early stages before it becomes a problem, so I can give my body what it needs, like a walk or some yoga.

Guided Mindfulness Meditations are highly varied and generally involve some attentional focus and a nonjudgmental observer stance. They might instruct you to focus on or count your breaths, or to focus on your senses (like the sights, sounds, or smells around you), and/or to notice your thoughts as they float through your mind without engaging with or getting too worked up by your thoughts.

The irony: You learn these best when you are relaxed

Under ideal conditions, you first start practicing these when life is relaxed and all is well. You devote 30-60 minutes per day to practicing these for at least 14 days straight until they start to become easier and semi-habitual. Then, you can deploy them when you are under stress and try to slip back into that relaxed groove you established earlier. Ah, I love it when a plan comes together!

That’s not your situation, you say? Ah, well, welcome to the human race. You can start with 5 minutes. Although learning relaxation practices is more difficult when you are under stress (perhaps you try deep breathing and find yourself doing panicked panting), if you come in with an attitude of curiosity and simply explore, you may happen upon a strategy that kind of works. I urge you to be amazed and grateful! If you can light this candle in a hurricane, think how much easier it will be to light it on a normal day! And the warm steady glow it will produce! Try it now briefly, pat yourself on the back, and come back and try again later.

This article originally appeared on Substack.