A Career Coach Who Understands

Posts Tagged ‘relaxation techniques’

Lets face it, life gets busy! We have times when every moment of the day is packed full of things you need to do and you run out of hours in the day before you run out of tasks. I think we can all relate to this at some point.

You end your day laying in bed thinking about the things you didn’t get completed that day and all of the things you need to tackle tomorrow. This leads to a restless night of sleep and waking in the morning feeling like you have worked all night long in your sleep. You feel just as exhausted waking up as you did when you fell into bed the night before.

Your brain and body need “down time” to function properly. Think of yourself as a rechargeable battery. When you are fully charged, you work harder and faster. When your chage becomes depleted, you become slow and sluggish. Sleep is the one thing that you need to recharge your batteries every night, but if you are continuing to drain the battery instead of charging it when you sleep, you are soon going to be totally unproductive.

Here is a technique that I learned that I would like to share with you. It takes a little practice but you will notice a big improvement right from the get-go. Continue to use this technique every night and you will soon be sleeping like a baby and waking each day feeling fully refreshed and ready to take on the world.

Relaxation Therapy:

1. Get into bed and lay on your back and position a pillow comfortably under your neck and another one under your knees so they are slightly elevated.
2. Allow your arms to fall loosely by your sides in the most comfortable position for you.
3. Take a few deep breaths, holding them for a few seconds before fully exhaling. Allow your mind to drift and imagine youself floating on water.
4. Starting at your feet, inhale fully and clench your feet muscles tightly. Hold for a few seconds. Now exhale saying the word “relax” in your mind as you fully relax your feet muscles. Repeat this step making sure you clench your feet muscles as tightly as you can and relaxe as fully as you can with each breath.
5. Now move on to your leg muscles. Repeat the process of inhaling, clench, exhale relax.
6. Continue this process all the way to your face and to the top of your head.
7. If you are not already asleep at this point, just continue to inhale deeply and say the word “relax” on the exhale and consiously relax your muscles even more.

This is what I like to call resistance relaxation. Each time you tightly clench each muscle group, you are able to relax those muscles more. By the end of this exercise, you will be so relaxed that you literally feel like your body has melted into the mattress.

Now do not spoil it by allowing conscious thought to invade. Continue to imagine yourself floating on the water until you drift off to sleep.

I first learned this technique as pain management after an injury. The more you practice this the faster full relaxation becomes. Eventually all you have to do is imagine floating on the water and your body and mind will respond by relaxing. You can then use this imagery during the course of your day to take a 2-5 minute breather at the office to recharge your batteries and become more productive again.

So here’s to a good night’s sleep! Relax and enjoy.

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