Whether it be due to your workouts or taunting long hours at work, you often wish to get relaxed a bit and free your muscles as you don’t feel like doing anything.
In that case, you can get great relief from Jacobson’s relaxation technique because it will give you instant soothing effects on your muscles.
Contents
- 1 An Overview On Jacobson’s Relaxation Technique
- 2 What Is Jacobson Relaxation Technique?
- 3 How To Perform PMR Therapy
- 4 Benefits Of Practicing PMR
An Overview On Jacobson’s Relaxation Technique
This simple technique doesn’t need any equipment and stunned thousands of fitness lovers around the world. If you want to know about this technique more and the possible rewards you will get after trying this, let’s dig in.
What Is Jacobson Relaxation Technique?
If you have heard about this technique quite recently, let me give you a brief introduction about it. It was named after Dr. Edmund Jacobsen when he invented it in 1920. Where he was trying to help one of his patients to step out of stress and anxiety.
He reached this amazing therapy as he believed, relaxing bodily muscles could be the key to relaxing the mind too.
Basically, it is a therapy that is primarily concerned with contracting and relaxing specific muscle groups in your body in a sequential manner.
It is also well known in the name of progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) therapy. Here, you will use zero equipment and all you have to do is tighten, and relax certain areas of your body, one after another by giving your focus on them. As a result, you will be more familiar with your body and physical sensations as well.
If you seek an expert’s assistance to do the therapy, you will do it as a combination of breathing exercises along with mental imagery, with correct guidance from a professional. Besides, it will involve your body from head to toe.
As you feel any stress or nervousness, this technique could be ideal for you to give instant relief. Moreover, in some cases, it even helped people to save themselves from panic attacks.
How To Perform PMR Therapy
This impressive method is involved in increasing and releasing tension from various parts of your body step by step.
The constricting and releasing technique is quite systematic to help you relax your body as a whole and at the same time, improving the condition of your mind by making it quiet, calm, and fill in your mind with inner peace.
Here are the steps you need to follow to do the technique in the correct way:
Step#1: Get Your Comfort:
If you want to perform the method, choose the calmest place in your home to avoid distractions. Sit on a chair and relax your body. If you feel it right you can close your eyes for better concentration.
Step#2: Watch Your Breath
Take a deep breath through your nose. Feel the air fill in your abdomen while it raises. Now slowly release your breath through your mouth as you draw your navel towards your spine. You can repeat it 3-5 times.
Step#3: Contract And Release
Now it’s time to tighten and relax your muscles one by one.
- Begin with your feet: Clasp your toes altogether and press your heels on the ground. You can squeeze your feet tightly for a few seconds after finishing a few breaths. Pointing your toes upwards, flex your feet inwards. Remain in this pose again for another few seconds then release.
- Way up to your body: after you are done with your feet and toes, do the same on various muscle groups way up to your body. Like your legs, butts, abdomen, back, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, mouth, forehead, etc. All you have to do is to tighten each muscle group until you finish a few breaths, and slowly relax it. If you feel any stiffness in any part of your body you can repeat the technique up to five times to relax that particular area.
Step#4: Breath Deeply
Once you finish contacting each of your muscles and releasing them, you can take a few more deep breaths. This will let you be more relaxed and calm your mind well. This way the results you get from this technique would be much more effective.
Benefits Of Practicing PMR
- Release stress and anxiety
- Makes blood pressure at optimum levels.
- Better sleep
- Reduces spasm
- Reduces work stress
According to experts, there is a direct link between physical and mental health. If you could relax, it will reflect in both your mind and body.
Jacobson’s relaxation technique is also used to manage several conditions like insomnia, epilepsy, and the like. Adding breathing patterns to the therapy can make the technique even beneficial, letting you enjoy its fruits more.
You can make the technique more advanced where you will have to include breathing exercises as you move from your feet towards the upper body.
Normally, you will not have to seek the help of a professional to do the technique, but if you doubt that you will not be able to do it in the right way, an expert can help you with it.
