Breathe slowly and steadily. Take it easy. Breathe in through your nose and slowly out through your mouth. Make sure that you are breathing fairly deeply - you should be able to see your tummy move as you breathe. At rest, if you are breathing properly, you should be taking no more than seven breaths a minute. Any more than this and you are either over-breathing or not breathing deeply enough.
Simply doing this step alone can aid relaxation, but for a deeper level of relaxation, do the following:-
Straighten your legs, lifting them off the floor if you are sitting and point your toes away from you as hard as you can. Feel the tension, concentrate on the hardness of your muscles for a few seconds, then slowly let them return to the floor. Allow your self to notice the warm, tingling feeling of relaxation.
Again straighten your legs, now pull your toes towards you, push your heels away as hard as possible. Concentrate on the tension, hold for a few seconds and let them flop. Feel the relaxation.
Keeping the feeling of relaxation in your legs, move on to your bottom. Clench the muscles of your buttocks as hard as you can, concentrate on the tension, then slowly let them relax. Again, notice the relaxation.
Keeping the feelings of relaxation in your legs and bottom, now move on to your stomach muscles. Pull your stomach in as tightly as you can. Feel the tension in your stomach, now slowly let it out. Feel the relaxation.
Now push your stomach out as hard as you can. Concentrate on the tension. Now let your stomach flop and feel the relaxation as your muscles rest.
Keep the feeling of relaxation in your legs, bottom and stomach and move onto your arms and hands. Stretch your arms out in front of you and spread your fingers, stretch out as far as you can. Feel the tension in your hands and arms, now let them flop down, your hands lying loosely in your lap, feel the relaxation spread up through your hands and arms.
Now clench your hands into fists, bend your elbows, pull your shoulders up. Try to touch your ears with your shoulders. Feel the tension, now let them flop, your hands falling easily into your lap. Feel the relaxation spread through your arms and shoulders.
Keeping the feeling of relaxation in your legs, bottom, stomach, hands, arms and shoulders, move on to your face and neck. Clench your teeth as hard as you can and push your eyebrows up. Concentrate on the tension. Now relax, allow your jaw to fall slightly open. Concentration on the feelings of relaxation.
Slowly roll your head three times to the right and three times to the left. Allow your head to rest lightly on your neck. Check the rest of your body for any feelings of tension and use the necessary exercise to ease it away. Hold the feelings of relaxation in your body.
Finally, imagine yourself in your favourite most relaxing situation, lying on the beach, after a picnic in the hills or in a hot bath. Try to imagine it through your physical senses, for example, the smell of the sea, the feel of grass under your hands, the sound of the birds, etc. Stay in the situation for three to four to minutes.
When you are ready to get up, stretch, yawn and slowly stand up.
