How wonderful is it to simply feel comfortable in your own body? Sometimes, that is not as easy as it sounds. This article explores how you can learn to relax. Not only during holidays or weekends, but also when you want to perform better or when life feels challenging.When you practise relaxation exercises regularly, you experience more inner calm. This creates a foundation for balance and coherence in your body, allowing you to think more clearly, have more energy, and remain more easily in a positive state of being.<h3 id="7b5ce797-6f86-4cd7-bbd6-93e6fc08599c" data-toc-id="7b5ce797-6f86-4cd7-bbd6-93e6fc08599c" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">How do I experience this myself?</h3>As an entrepreneur, I know the feeling that my work is never truly finished. It can seem as if the harder I work, the more work appears. This does not stop me from working hard. It has, however, changed the way I work.I work hard, but always in a relaxed way.In this way, a space opens up between all the different activities. A space for attention, awareness and relaxation.<h3 id="f4efff8b-3d5f-496b-90af-4af813b0d84c" data-toc-id="f4efff8b-3d5f-496b-90af-4af813b0d84c" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">The effects of stress</h3>Stress activates the sympathetic nervous system, which leads to the release of stress hormones such as adrenaline and cortisol. Although this is a natural response designed to help you deal with acute threats, prolonged stress can have harmful effects.These may include increased blood pressure, muscle tension, sleep problems, a weakened immune system and digestive issues. Psychological effects may include anxiety, depression, irritability and cognitive difficulties. Long-term stress can even contribute to serious health problems, such as diabetes and heart disease.[1] <h3 id="0981e613-b5a2-4b4e-aba1-6c9f26e63ce5" data-toc-id="0981e613-b5a2-4b4e-aba1-6c9f26e63ce5" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">The power of relaxation</h3>There is a strong scientific foundation for stating that relaxation exercises work.To give one example: in a study involving 80 women being treated for large or locally advanced breast cancer, researchers examined the immune-modulating effects of relaxation training and guided imagery. The group that received relaxation training and guided visualisation had significantly more T cells in their blood compared to the control group.Relaxation exercises also appear to be effective in other areas. Elite athletes use relaxation techniques and visualisation to improve performance.[2] George Kohlrieser, former FBI hostage negotiator, author and leadership trainer, describes “staying calm” as an important quality for leaders who want to respond effectively to change and challenging situations.[3]Relaxation exercises can help you promote your health and improve your performance.<h3 id="b31ab21f-d9a8-4d6f-aae4-72cc4c0bb946" data-toc-id="b31ab21f-d9a8-4d6f-aae4-72cc4c0bb946" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">How do you design good relaxation training?</h3>We can make a careful classification based on the goal and intended result of different exercises. This allows you to create your own training programme for relaxation on a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual level.With a varied relaxation programme, you support neuroplasticity. Neurons that fire together wire together. In this way, you can train yourself to relax on all levels through almost any exercise.Below, I describe several exercises that I use myself. There are many other beautiful exercises as well, so explore what resonates with you. With this article, you will also find a free downloadable MP3 file for a widely used method: progressive muscle relaxation.In our workshops and training programmes, we work with various short mindfulness and body awareness exercises. <h3 id="16fac823-81f2-4a7b-b285-9552764368a3" data-toc-id="16fac823-81f2-4a7b-b285-9552764368a3" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Physical relaxation</h3>A widely used method for relaxation and stress reduction is progressive muscle relaxation. This technique was developed by the American physician and psychologist Edmund Jacobson.It is a method in which you systematically tense and relax different muscle groups in your body. As you do this, you pay attention to the difference between “tension” and “relaxation”, training yourself to perceive increasingly subtle changes in your body.We often hold stress and emotions in the body. Somewhere in your body, you may feel tension. Relaxing your muscles is an important step in releasing stress and emotions.Progressive muscle relaxation is a very simple exercise. But do not let its simplicity mislead you: it is truly effective.Below, you will find a downloadable MP3 file. I recorded the exercise to be practised while lying down, as this is usually the most effective way. You will notice that after a few times, you no longer really need the spoken guidance. You will also find that you can easily do this exercise while standing or sitting.What I find beautiful about this exercise is that once you have experienced it properly three times, it is almost impossible to do it wrong afterwards.Try it for yourself. I would love to hear about your experience.<h3 id="00ef09aa-941a-4972-8b0c-a80db7585dad" data-toc-id="00ef09aa-941a-4972-8b0c-a80db7585dad" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Emotional relaxation</h3>In essence, emotions are energy in motion. We can perceive them physically and measure them as frequency waves in the electromagnetic field of the body.This insight gives us a first way to work with emotional relaxation. Stress is often correlated with lower-frequency emotions such as fear, anger or shame. Relaxation and coherence are often correlated with higher-frequency emotions such as joy, gratitude and love.This is probably where the idea of “positive” and “negative” emotions comes from. Every emotion has a positive signalling function, or message. So this is not about “good” or “bad”, or about what you should or should not feel.Higher-frequency emotions simply have a greater organising capacity to create coherence in body and mind. In that limited sense, they are positive in relation to emotions with a lower frequency. Put simply, this points to an ordering principle behind polarity.Emotional relaxation is about your ability to experience all emotions without becoming overwhelmed or carried away by them. You do this by allowing them with attention and gentleness. You can, as it were, embrace them and listen to their message: what they have to tell you.When you take the message seriously and act on it, the energy often starts flowing again naturally.A widely used exercise is to make contact with your body, also known as body awareness. Find a quiet place, close your eyes and breathe deeply in and out to relax physically. Then direct your attention inward and observe your thoughts and emotions with gentleness and without judgement.You may simply allow everything to be there without trying to change anything. Your unconscious tells its own story. When you understand the message and take it seriously, you will notice that your thoughts and emotions begin to change. These are the insights you have something to do with.<h3 id="d2ddce52-f3d1-4155-9325-245943269907" data-toc-id="d2ddce52-f3d1-4155-9325-245943269907" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Additional exercises you can learn more about in our workshops and training programmes include:</h3><ul><li>Timeline-based techniquesThese help you explore the root causes of emotional patterns in your life.</li><li>Emotional Freedom Techniques, or EFTThis involves tapping on acupuncture points to help blocked energy flow again, while simultaneously programming your neurology with empowering beliefs.</li><li>Creative expressionActivities such as painting, drawing, writing and making music are beautiful ways to express your emotions and learn to understand them.</li></ul><h3 id="5b41af59-1c73-4451-8fab-aef241e594fb" data-toc-id="5b41af59-1c73-4451-8fab-aef241e594fb" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Mental relaxation</h3>Individual experiences, your personality and cognitive processes have a major influence on the emotions and stress you experience. That is why it is important to quiet your thoughts and calm your mind.Mindfulness is a widely used method for doing this. The beauty of mindfulness is that you can combine it with your activities and with the work you do. You train yourself to do things as much as possible with loving attention in the here and now.Mindfulness forms the foundation for meditation. Both can be correlated with changes in brainwaves. One of the benefits of mindfulness and meditation is that they can lower the frequency of your brainwaves into the Alpha range, 8–15 Hz, or even the Theta range, 4–7 Hz.These frequencies are involved in relaxation, creativity, inspiration and the storage of memories in long-term memory, among other things.There has also been much research into the effects of music on our brainwaves. This is another area you can experiment with beautifully to discover what suits you. For example, classical music, binaural beats and Solfeggio frequencies can influence both the coherence and the frequency of your brainwaves.<h3 id="efa4243a-18b8-43b2-9ed6-b2d1f684c9a3" data-toc-id="efa4243a-18b8-43b2-9ed6-b2d1f684c9a3" style="font-size: 20px; line-height: 1.2;">Spiritual relaxation</h3>I believe that spirituality, in the broadest sense of the word, is about giving meaning to your experiences.In his book Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl describes how his experiences led him to the conclusion that life has meaning under all circumstances. If I start from that perspective, spiritual relaxation is about the ability to trust life.I also believe this is a progressive process in which we gradually learn to deal with uncertainty.A beautiful exercise for training this is to focus your attention on “the space in between”. We often direct our attention toward the things we already know. By focusing on the space in between, you train yourself to perceive new possibilities — and perhaps even to create them.When I was a child and was allowed to ride the bumper cars, I sometimes enjoyed not bumping into anything, but instead looking for the open space.You can do the same in traffic. Instead of focusing your attention on one very specific spot or route you want to take, you can direct your attention toward the available space and the flow of traffic. Just like in the bumper cars, after a while you will notice that the open space seems to become larger, even when traffic becomes busier.You can also concentrate on the space between you and another person during conversations. Try to become aware of the energy and the flow within the conversation.Where is the metaphorical space in between?What has not yet been brought into the encounter that might serve?This can help deepen the conversation and allow you to feel more connected with the other person.Train yourself to accept the small, unexpected things in life. Just as in traffic, you adapt and look for the available space. Instead of fighting against what happens, you can try to move with it and see how you can adjust to the new situation.In that process, you often discover much more — and sometimes even new possibilities that previously did not seem to exist at all.I believe that practising with the space in between resembles what Taoism refers to as “doing nothing”. It does not mean that you literally do nothing. It means that you learn to trust the natural flow of life.You step out of your comfort zone and meet the unknown with trust.In this way, you grow as a human being and as a professional.________________________________________[1] Source: American Psychological Association (2021), Stress effects on the body.[2] Source: Daniel Gould and Robert Weinberg (2015), Foundations of Sport and Exercise Psychology.[3] Source: George Kohlrieser, Care to Dare.

Relaxation is more than rest. It is a skill that helps you create balance, coherence, clarity and resilience in your body, emotions, mind and spirit.

The art of relaxation | ISEMI Opleidingen

The art of relaxation

How do you design good relaxation training?

Additional exercises you can learn more about in our workshops and training programmes include:

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The art of relaxation

The art of relaxation

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