A Direct Way To Reduce Your Stress and Anxiety

MUSCULAR TENSION makes your body capable of moving quickly. Many moons ago, that was pretty handy. Nowadays, for most people, it isn't worth much. And the constant slight contraction of unused muscles causes a lot of backaches and headaches and general discomfort, as well as aggravating your feelings of stress and anxiety.

Muscular tension is a body sensation that produces a negative feedback loop. Stress increases adrenaline. Adrenaline tightens muscles. The sensation of tense muscles makes you feel, well, tense. The feeling of tension increases psychological stress. To help defeat terrorism, the first thing we must do is reduce the terror itself. We need to become calm so we can intelligently work on solutions to the problem. The last thing we need is to panic or even to feel overly tense and anxious if there is a way to avoid it. And there is.

Of course, you can relax by getting a massage or soaking in a hot tub. Both are great and work well, but you can only do them once in awhile. Something you can do much more often is to relax your muscles directly.

Edmund Jacobson created a practice known as Progressive Relaxation back in the 1920s. Jacobson reasoned that since tension accompanies anxiety, one might be able to reduce anxiety by learning to relax the tension. You could, in other words, reduce your psychological tension by reducing your physical tension. It was a revolutionary idea at the time. Jacobson thought that muscular tension might even cause anxiety and that contracted, tight muscles were actually at the root of many emotional problems, not merely a by-product of them.

By careful training, he helped people learn to voluntarily relax certain muscles in their body, and sure enough, it greatly reduced their anxiety symptoms, even for people who had a serious anxiety disorder. He found the procedure effective with ulcers, insomnia, and hypertension too.

Progressive Relaxation is still greatly respected and widely practiced by therapists today. References to the practice are strewn throughout the literature on anxiety. Why? Because it's simple and it works. Jerilyn Ross, author of Triumph Over Fear, adds this important point:

"Creating and controlling your own tension allows you to become very aware of the differences in sensations produced by a state of tension versus a state of relaxation. With practice, you will become proficient at detecting tension even at mild levels."

In Progressive Relaxation, first you learn to relax your muscles lying down with your eyes closed, but the ultimate goal is to learn to relax throughout the day while you're working, walking, talking, eating, etc.

If you would like to use this method, you don't need any training to begin. Right now, locate one muscle in your body that is tensing for no good reason. Relax that muscle. It's as simple as that. Get in the habit of doing that relatively often, and a general calmness will slowly develop in your life. You'll feel better.

A small percentage of people are unable to relax a muscle, in which case training is called for. There are several good audiotapes that train you in Progressive Relaxation and they are easy to find at any online bookstore.

A good way to get in the habit of relaxing muscles regularly is to do it at certain routine times of the day. Every time you get behind the wheel of your car, for example. Every time you sit down at your desk. Every time you step into the shower. Choose one place for now and concentrate on it until it becomes habitual. Then add another place. This way you can make it a habit to check your body for unnecessary muscular tension and relax it.

You can also get in the habit of relaxing muscles whenever you have an anxious feeling. When you feel a wave of anxiety, get in the habit of immediately scanning your body and trying to locate a tense muscle. Then relax it. Locate another tense muscle. Relax that too. As your muscles relax, your heart rate and breathing slow down and you begin to feel calmer. Even though terrorism still exists, your body is in a calmer state. You are more capable of thinking clearly and taking intelligent, purposeful, constructive action. Relaxing your muscles prevents you from becoming paralyzed by fear.

This is not a trivial or merely self-indulgent accomplishment. The purpose of terrorism is to create terror. The battlefield of the war on terror is your own mind and body. When you calm yourself, you win one battle. You are not reacting out of terror anymore. You have your wits about you. You gain the advantage.

Check in on your body now and then. You may be surprised to find that every time you check, you have some muscles tensing for no good reason. You aren't using the muscles for anything, but they are flexing as if they were being used. Take a deep breath, relax a few muscles, and already you feel more peaceful.

You can do this anytime, anywhere. Pay particular attention to the muscles in your face, upper back and neck. Memorize that short list: Face, upper back, and neck. Observe those places first. Your face is the best first place. Relax your forehead. Try it right now. Relax your jaw and the muscles around your eyes. Already your body begins to calm down.

Of all the great methods I have learned over the years, the one I use most often is this simple, direct tool. It takes almost no time and very little effort. And it has a noticeable effect. When in doubt, relax tense muscles.

Once you have this method well in hand, it is time to improve the way you think so worry and tension arise less often.

"Our clinical experience has shown us that when people confront their fears, not only do they reclaim their lives but they experience a huge leap in self-esteem. Many anxious people who have overcome their fears are eager to help others who are still trapped in fear. It is our hope that modern terrorism will catalyze this recovery process on a community level. If that happens, then terrorism will prove not to be a crippling threat but a call to psychological arms that will generate enduring benefits. Perhaps Americans, as a people, can develop an immunity to the fear of terrorism. If our country did that, we will have struck a fatal blow against modern terrorism."

- Robert DuPont, Elizabeth DuPont Spencer, and Caroline DuPont
authors of The Anxiety Cure