Why Relax?
You May Wonder Why Relaxation Is Important
I used to wonder the same thing, i.e., ‘why is relaxation important to mental, emotional and physical health?’ I once was part of a team conducting a treatment-outcome study comparing relaxation training, antidepressant medication and cognitive behavioral therapy to treat clinical depression. The results puzzled me for years because the relaxation training which was supposed to be the control group was found to be just as effective as the other two groups to treat the condition. Why?
Prior to the study I just mentioned I had completed a Master’s Degree in Sport Psychology, 1983, during which I had learned time and time again that to improve performance under pressure athletes had to master the ability to relax on demand and most importantly at the time when they were under the most pressure, also. By the time the depression study was complete, 1988, I had once again discovered the wonder drug called relaxation. It was clear to me that relaxation could treat depression and it could enhance performance in athletes under pressure as well. I was impressed by it’s power.
Over the last 23 years I have been practicing as a psychologist providing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Relaxation Training (RT) to my patients to treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Clinical Depression, Panic Disorder, Postraumatic Stress Disorder, Migraine Headaches, Obesity, Insomnia, and many other issues, diagnoses and life problems. I began realizing about 10 years ago that if I started the therapy session with a six minute Relaxation Training Exercise (RTE) that I did not need spend as much time providing CBT. It was clear that each patient was more able to embrace the more rational beliefs and interpretations about their situations once their minds and bodies were just a little more relaxed. Not only was relaxation able to help with depression and improve performance under pressure, but it, also, readily straightened out disordered and irrational thinking as well. I realized relaxation was able to alter our state of mind in general to allow us to be more preferential and autonomous about what we believe, think, feel and how we behave. I began to see how Stress and Relaxation all might fit together in a mind-body framework to explain to me what was happening to improve so many things at once with RT.
I began working to create what I now refer to as the Whitworth Stressometer to use as a guide for myself and my patients to more clearly see what was likely to be happening in the Central Nervous System (CNS) controlling our minds and bodies as we go from a relaxed state of mind to a stressed state of mind, or conversely, when we are traveling the CNS from a stressed state of mind to a more relaxed state of mind instead. By using the Whitworth Stressometer with my patients and for my own use as well, I can see the power Stress Hormones (SH) have to influence thinking, feeling, breathing and and behaving. And, similarly, by using the Whitworth Stressometer as a tool, I have come to fully appreciate how equally powerful the Relaxation Hormones (RH) are to influence thinking, feeling, breathing and behaving, too. I believe any positive turn of thought, emotion, breathing pattern or behaving is due to the power of the RH. It is the RH that unlock the fight, flight and freeze mechanisms that essentially trap our minds and bodies into the stress responding activities disallowing/disabling preference, choice, free-will and free-speech.
It seems pretty easy really, it is your Relaxation Hormones that allow you to control your thinking, feeling, breathing and behaving based on personal preference, choice, free-will and free-speech even when you are stressed if you so choose. And it is your Stress Hormones that cause your thinking, feeling, breathing and behaving to be controlled reflexively instead by the fight, flight and freeze mind-body reflexes and networks. The Stress Hormones come flooding into our systems every single time we are a little or a lot uncomfortable, frustrated or distressed. I call this the internal taser system because it is such a sudden and pronounced feeling of instant dread and body tension. If our life is in danger we should allow the Stress Hormones to stay flooding into our CNS, but if not, we better get the Relaxation Hormones pumping, too or our performance, mood, thinking and behaving will get derailed into our fight, flight and/or freeze reflexive options only. This is not happening a little bit, it is happening often everyday. So, we need to somehow learn to relax as desired and in a few minutes for a lot of reasons and, also, be practicing for a few minutes often everyday. It turns out that our Relaxation mind and body networks are more like weak or strong muscles in our bodies based on how much or little we practice relaxation everyday or not. And Stressing out, on the other hand, is reflexive and a very strong reaction in our mind and body due to it’s reflexive wiring and regular daily use.
The Stress Hormones can be easily triggered reflexively by a noise, a pain, a bad dream or just about anything uncomfortable at all, while the Relaxation Hormones can only be delivered into the CNS mind and body networks by deliberate action based on preference and choice. The Relaxation Hormones can improve your performance, mood, weight management, healing, creativity, anxiety, panic, inflammation, relationships, insomnia, intelligence, aging, romance, pain management, headaches, asthma, obesity, addictions, heart palpitations, etc. Only learn to practice relaxation strategies daily if you want to improve the quality of your life. By practicing relaxation exercises for six minutes twice a day you can begin getting to know the person you prefer to be by becoming aware of the more relaxed choices you see yourself make. Your calmer choices are the ones based more on your free-will and less on your reflexes. Sadly, most of us know far more about the person we are under the influence of our stress hormones, but we can change that. By acquiring strength through daily practice to regularly maintain a more relaxed state of mind and body awareness, these calmer choices can begin to hold up even under our daily life pressures. I think you will be surprised at how much you like the calmer you.
In summary, learning to stay a little calmer in mind and body under the ordinary pressures of daily frustrations, distressors and discomforts is how you can change your life style to better match up with the person you would rather be most of the time. Carving out a little time everyday to practice relaxation exercises is the best way to get started with getting to know yourself and getting to be more yourself some of the time, too. It is easy to stay tuned in to your own unique choices, preferences, better feeling thoughts and beliefs, calmer breathing, relaxed muscle tension, preferred mood, favorite behavior and chosen activities when things are going your way. We can all easily do that part of our lives without much difficulty. It is difficult to learn how to stay tuned in to your own unique choices, preferences, better feeling thoughts and beliefs, calmer breathing, relaxed muscle tension, preferred mood, favorite behavior and chosen activities when life is hard, like when life sucks or we fail or mess up or are too exhausted to do well, or get depressed or are grieving or relapse or panic or gain more weight or let others or ourselves down, etc. Essentially, the challenge is to somehow find a way to teach ourselves to be more tolerant and relaxed during the harder, yet non-life threatening obstacles, that create daily internal turmoil, distress, discomfort and frustration for us.
It is very challenging and life changing to prove to yourself that you can think a better feeling thought anyway, refuse to judge yourself anyway, exhale fully anyway, relax a little muscle tension anyway, behave the way you want to anyway and enjoy something a little bit today anyway, even when your day is really hard for you and you are feeling internal turmoil, frustration, distress or discomfort. Learning to relax and reach for some mastery of relaxation responding within your own mind and body networks can help with this daily challenge, one obstacle at a time and one day at a time. Good luck.
©Pamela Whitworth, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. 2015
