It would be great if we could easily undo the accidental Jedi mind tricks that got our anxiety levels to this point. But the reality is that we will have to actively work on relaxing as part of our quest to manage our anxiety. To help us along I started a series of post related to alternative anxiety therapies. At first I wanted to talk about just a few over the past week. But I quickly realized that there were in fact many different types of therapies available to help an anxious person chill out and so I’ll be introducing a few more this week. This is because I firmly believe that you can never have too many “weapons” in your relaxation go to bag.
Recently I’ve talked about how smiling uncontrollably and dancing can really help you lower your anxiety. These are a bit more fun and unorthodox which is why I brought them to your attention. But today I wanted to talk about a therapy that uses more traditional means for relaxing and it’s called Autogenic Training.
Autogenic Training is the brain child of German psychiatrist Dr. Johannes Schultz. According to the British Autogenic Society Autogenic Training “brings closer harmony between the analytical left hemisphere of the brain and the more emotional, inspirational and creative right hemisphere”. Striking a balance between freaking out and total calm is our ultimate goal and Autogenic practioners claim that this is the ticket.
The most basic way of understanding Autogenics is to think of it as a relaxation technique, but on steroids. It is strong because it is multifaceted and builds on itself. Dictionary.com defines it as “training patients in self-induced relaxation”. The ultimate aim of all this meditation is to turn off or at least reduce the effects of the fight or flight response in your body. So that is what it is, but how do you do it?
Well because it’s called Autogenics training I’ll take a wild guess and assume that you have to do some research and find detailed instructions on how to use this technique but essentially there are six main points of focus for Autogenics.
1. Heaviness in the limbs
2. Warmth in the limbs
3. Cardiac regulation
4. Breathing regulation
5. Warmth in the abdomen
6. Coolness in the forehead
Autogenics also relies on visualization and self suggestion to reach a deep state of relaxation. According to wikipedia a typical Autogenics session would go something like this: sit in a comfortable position and “scan” the body, imagine that your arms are heavy and warm (repeat 3 times), legs are heavy and warm (repeat 3 times), tell yourself that your heartbeat is calm and regular (repeat 3 times), etc. This would move on to different parts of the body and then be reversed at the end. Usually using a count of 10 to get in and out of the “trance”. According various sources it can take as long as 7 to 8 weeks and three times a day to learn Autogenics, but once mastered you can use it to calm yourself at will – or so say supporters of this relaxation technique. If you want a narrated step by step guide try Progressive Relaxation & Autogenic Training
What’s nice about Autogenics is that it is great for Westerners. It has no religious or cosmic view points attached to it. For those of us that aren’t so flexible, there is also no hard to do positions or stances. You pick the position you find comfortable and go from there. The other interesting thing is that Autogenics seems to incorporate meditation, hypnosis, and deep relaxation. It claims to lower your fight or flight response – that is a big claim – and I’d like to find this to be true. Just remember that if you feel like your back is against a wall and you have no way of escaping your anxiety there are in fact many different things you can do to cope. Don’t lose hope, just be persistent and you’ll see a difference once you find that “thing” that helps you to relax.
Also forgot to mention that just taking a short walk can also help decrease stress.