Best Relaxation Exercises

We consider these to be the best relaxation exercises to reduce stress.

The best relaxation exercises always include deep breathing.

They further suggest developing body awareness, applying slow muscle relaxation, and then, when in a restful state, following the breath to a deeper state where healing can occur.

Diaphragmatic Breathing

Lie on the floor on your back (or sit up straight in a chair), close your eyes and turn your attention to the breathing process. Place your right hand just above your navel, with the little finger at the level of the navel. Place your left hand at the center of your upper chest.

Now take a deeper inhalation than usual, breathing into your belly so that it rises as you inhale and falling of your abdomen as you breathe deeply and slowly, and allow the feeling of relaxation to spread throughout your body. Remember, best relaxation exercises require a gentle touch.

Body Awareness

Make yourself as tall as possible- perhaps imagining a string drawing you up through the top center of your head. Feel yourself creating spaces between the vertebrae in your back and neck as your spine lengthens. Your arms hang loosely by your sides. Relax your throat, jaw and eyes, Feel the stability of your grounded stance and the dignity of your uplifted spine and opened chest as you hold this position, focusing on releasing tension through your diaphragmatic breathing.

Now inhale and raise your arms up over your head. Exhale and draw your arms slowly back and down to shoulder level. Hold and breathe, feeling the expansion in your chest. Your hands, feet and shoulders are pressing down. Imagine your arms as the wings of a bottle opener and your torso as the cork. Inhale, slowly, pressing your arms down to your sides while your spine gradually lengthens, like a cork popping up.

Close your eyes…and allow yourself to experience your body-mind.

Muscle Relaxation

Sit quietly in a comfortable position in a quiet place and close your eyes. You will be tensing and relaxing groups of muscles in sequence, beginning with your feet. Stretch your legs out in front of you. Pull your feet back, bringing the toes toward your knees. Hold that tension…hold it…and let it go. Take a deep breath.

Next, tense the muscles of your thighs as if you are trying to lift your legs against a weight. Hold that tension…hold it…and let it go. Take a deep breath.

Tighten your buttocks, making them hard. Hold that tension…hold it…and let it go, and take a deep breath. Now pull in your abdomen, making it hard. Hold it…hold it…let it go. Take a deep breath.

Now pull your hands back at the wrists, as if to bend the hand toward the elbow. Hold the tension…hold it…and let it go. Take a deep breath. Next, raise your shoulders up to your ears, and hold it…hold it…and let it go. Take a deep breath.

Now tighten your face, squeezing your eyes tight…hold it…hold it…and let it go. Feel the wave of relaxation that flows from your face throughout your whole body as you breathe deeply.

Relaxation Exercise: Minis

Standing, place your feet parallel to each other about 4 to 5 inches apart. Distribute your weight evenly on your feet. You might imagine standing with the solidity of a mountain, calling forth that image and your own personal stability to enhance your posture. Adjust your pelvis so it tips neither forward nor back.

Make yourself as tall as possible- perhaps imagining a string drawing you up through the top center of your head. Feel yourself creating spaces between the vertebrae in your back and neck as your spine lengthens. Your arms hang loosely by your sides. Relax your throat, jaw and eyes, Feel the stability of your grounded stance and the dignity of your uplifted spine and opened chest as you hold this position, focusing on releasing tension through your diaphragmatic breathing.

Now inhale and raise your arms up over your head. Exhale and draw your arms slowly back and down to shoulder level. Hold and breathe, feeling the expansion in your chest. Your hands, feet and shoulders are pressing down. Imagine your arms as the wings of a bottle opener and your torso as the cork. Inhale, slowly, pressing your arms down to your sides while your spine gradually lengthens, like a cork popping up.

Close your eyes…and allow yourself to experience your body/mind.

Relaxation Exercise
Guided Meditation
God in My Breath

Close your eyes and let yourself be aware of your body and whatever body sensations arise… Then come to awareness of your breathing…and stay with the awareness for a few minutes… Reflect now that this air that you are breathing in is charged with the power and the presence of God…Think of the air as an immense ocean that surrounds you…an ocean filled with God’s presence and God’s being…While you draw the air into your lungs you are drawing God in… Be aware that you are drawing in the power and presence of God with each breath you take. While you breathe in, be conscious of God’s Spirit coming into you…Fill your lungs with that divine energy…Breathe in God, breathe out God…

Imagine you see your whole body becoming radiant and alive through this process of breathing in God’s life-giving Spirit and letting it fill you, breathing out the outflow, that which is simply more than you can contain…Fill yourself with the Spirit of God…

Stay with this awareness as long as you can.

Adapted from Sadhana, A Way to God, by Anthony de Mello