Relaxation Instructions
These
instructions will teach you how to use Conditioned
Relaxation to instantly relax yourself on command.
When scientists want to study the physiological effects of stress, the animal model that they choose is the chimpanzee, mostly because of all the primates, its stress system is very close to ours in terms of hormones and neural pathways. In a sense, both chimps and humans are designed pretty much the same, but the chimp has a very different lifestyle than most of us have.
What do chimps do most of the day? They hang out. They sit with each other, look at each other, pick fleas off each other, swing on some branches, get something to eat, but mostly, they just hang out and relax. When a predator comes into the colony, they screech and either run away, or band together to attack the predator and drive it away. In about 10 seconds, it’s all over and done with and they go back to hanging out.
On the other hand, most of us have a day calendar where we write down our schedule for the day. Does yours read: 8:30 Hang out, 9:00 Hang out, 9:30 Hang out, 10:00 Pick fleas, 10:30 Hang Out? Probably not. Although we’re physically designed to handle about 10 seconds of stress two or three times per week, is that your life? Again, probably not.
In scientific terms, we’re designed to spend most of our time relaxing, digesting our food, circulating blood, and bringing oxygen, glucose, and energy to replenish all the cells of the various organs in our body. When danger occurs, our sympathetic or emergency nervous system is quickly mobilized to respond by “fight or flight,” just like the chimp.
However, unlike the chimp, many of the dangers we face don’t go away, like chronic health problems, financial or job-related concerns, relationship issues, terrorism, smog, inflation, and so on. As a result, our emergency nervous systems stays constantly activated, leading to mental, emotional, and physical burnout over time. That’s why is so important to take just a few minutes every day to relax and re-balance yourself.
“Conditioned Relaxation” is very powerful and effective, yet simple, fast, and very easy to learn. After practicing for only a few weeks, most people report that they’ve learned to relax themselves on command within just a few seconds. Even better, once you master this technique and use it regularly, it takes very little time or effort to maintain its full effectiveness.
“Conditioned Relaxation” was created by a team Dr. Bresler headed back in the 1970’s when he served as Executive Director of the UCLA Pain Control Unit. He called it “Conditioned Relaxation” because it’s based on the work of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian scientist who showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate automatically at the sound of a bell, if that bell had been previously associated with meat.
It’s now known that this type of conditioning is one of the most basic and powerful forms of learning on our planet, and most living organisms base their very survival upon it. While your dog or cat or other pet may be well conditioned to the sounds of feeding time, even primitive single-celled organisms like paramecia and amoeba have been shown to learn through conditioning.
Instead of Pavlov's bell, you will use a special Signal Breath to initiate feelings of deep relaxation, and with repetition and practice, this simple Signal Breath alone will be all you need to relax yourself on command. Anyone can learn Conditioned Relaxation and no fancy equipment or prior training is involved. All you need to do is to listen to the program at least once every day until you really learn the technique. That‘s it. Now, honestly, how hard is that? How hard is it to just sit down for a few minutes, to push the play button on your CD player, and follow my simple instructions?
Before beginning, however, spend a few moments paying attention to your breathing, for it’s important for you to breathe properly while learning Conditioned Relaxation. Most likely, your breathing is centered in your upper chest, and only your chest is involved as you take short, shallow breaths. Put your hand on your chest and watch it for a few moments as you breathe…
By comparison, infants instinctively know how to breathe properly. They gently push their diaphragm down with each inhalation, allowing their abdomen to expand. Then they just relax and their abdomen contracts on its own. Try breathing this way for a few moments…Slow it down, and begin breathing slowly and deeply from your abdomen…Let your breathing become very smooth and even as each inhalation equals each exhalation in length.
You may find it helpful to count as you breathe, so, you inhale, count… one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. ..Exhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand…Inhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand… Exhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand… and so on.
Let your body find its own natural rhythm, and allow each breath to be natural and easy, flowing deeply into your abdomen, and flowing out on its own. Adjust your rate of breathing until your breathing becomes smooth, regular, easy and natural. Learning how to breathe slowly and deeply in this way is the first step in mastering Conditioned Relaxation, so if you feel you need to practice your breathing for a few moments more, pause your CD player right now until you feel you can breathe slowly, deeply, naturally, and easily from the abdomen. Once you have mastered this type of deep abdominal breathing, we’ll continue.
When you practice Conditioned Relaxation, be sure to find a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed. Take the phone off the hook, if necessary, and don't let anyone or anything (except emergencies) interrupt you before you are finished. Before beginning, get as comfortable as you can, and loosen any tight clothing, or shoes, and remove any distracting jewelry.
At first, it may be best to listen while you’re seated upright in a chair, for if you lie down, you may become so relaxed that you’ll fall asleep before the exercise is completed and you’ll miss some of the important suggestions given near the end. Of course, if you are using Conditioned Relaxation in order to help you fall asleep, listening while lying down is just fine.
If anything does distract you, don't become alarmed or frustrated. Just re-focus on my suggestions as you return your attention to the simple and natural act of inhaling and exhaling. Imagine any distracting thoughts as passing butterflies, flittering off into the distance. Don't try to chase them, resist them, or fight them, for any response you make will take you out of the relaxation experience. Just go back to your breathing, slowly and deeply.
And of course, NEVER practice or listen to this Conditioned Relaxation CD while driving a car or while engaged in any other activity that requires your full and complete attention. Listen to it ONLY when you can concentrate fully on the relaxation process in a way that is safe and protected.
After you finish Conditioned Relaxation, you’ll probably feel so good that you think that nothing will ever keep you from practicing it every day. Lot’s of luck, for despite our best intentions, the times when relaxation is most needed are the times when it will be most difficult to practice. When this happens, just listen to as much of the CD as you can, even if it's only for the first few minutes.
James Fadiman was once asked if he meditated, and he said, “Yes, for three minutes every day.” Everyone laughed, for they thought how much benefit can you really get from only three minutes of meditation. Jim simply smiled and said, “You know, I find it much better to meditate for three minutes, than to not meditate for an hour.”
Practicing Conditioned Relaxation is not just another chore or task to add to your To Do List. It’s better to think of it as a pleasurable and enjoyable experience, and a precious opportunity to improve your health and well-being.
Really now, think about it…what’s more important than that? Your work and the other demands will always be there - count on it - so why not give yourself this extraordinary gift of health for just a few minutes at least once or twice a day? Make it as much a part of your daily routine as brushing your teeth, or connect it to something else you do every day until it becomes a daily ritual.
Keep practicing and allow enough time for Conditioned Relaxation to work. Don’t try to force it, for while you can voluntarily tighten or tense muscles, you can’t voluntarily relax them, no matter how hard you try. You can only allow them to relax by not contracting them. In fact, the harder you try to relax them, the more difficult it becomes.
It's a lot like trying to force yourself to remember a name, or fall asleep, or give a urine specimen at a doctor’s office. So don’t try. Don’t force it. Just let it happen. All you need to do is to focus on your breathing and listen to my suggestions. Just let go, and allow it to happen, and you might be surprised to notice the nice peaceful state of deep relaxation that awaits you.and how relaxed you’ll become.
When scientists want to study the physiological effects of stress, the animal model that they choose is the chimpanzee, mostly because of all the primates, its stress system is very close to ours in terms of hormones and neural pathways. In a sense, both chimps and humans are designed pretty much the same, but the chimp has a very different lifestyle than most of us have.
What do chimps do most of the day? They hang out. They sit with each other, look at each other, pick fleas off each other, swing on some branches, get something to eat, but mostly, they just hang out and relax. When a predator comes into the colony, they screech and either run away, or band together to attack the predator and drive it away. In about 10 seconds, it’s all over and done with and they go back to hanging out.
On the other hand, most of us have a day calendar where we write down our schedule for the day. Does yours read: 8:30 Hang out, 9:00 Hang out, 9:30 Hang out, 10:00 Pick fleas, 10:30 Hang Out? Probably not. Although we’re physically designed to handle about 10 seconds of stress two or three times per week, is that your life? Again, probably not.
In scientific terms, we’re designed to spend most of our time relaxing, digesting our food, circulating blood, and bringing oxygen, glucose, and energy to replenish all the cells of the various organs in our body. When danger occurs, our sympathetic or emergency nervous system is quickly mobilized to respond by “fight or flight,” just like the chimp.
However, unlike the chimp, many of the dangers we face don’t go away, like chronic health problems, financial or job-related concerns, relationship issues, terrorism, smog, inflation, and so on. As a result, our emergency nervous systems stays constantly activated, leading to mental, emotional, and physical burnout over time. That’s why is so important to take just a few minutes every day to relax and re-balance yourself.
“Conditioned Relaxation” is very powerful and effective, yet simple, fast, and very easy to learn. After practicing for only a few weeks, most people report that they’ve learned to relax themselves on command within just a few seconds. Even better, once you master this technique and use it regularly, it takes very little time or effort to maintain its full effectiveness.
“Conditioned Relaxation” was created by a team Dr. Bresler headed back in the 1970’s when he served as Executive Director of the UCLA Pain Control Unit. He called it “Conditioned Relaxation” because it’s based on the work of Ivan Pavlov, the Russian scientist who showed that dogs could be conditioned to salivate automatically at the sound of a bell, if that bell had been previously associated with meat.
It’s now known that this type of conditioning is one of the most basic and powerful forms of learning on our planet, and most living organisms base their very survival upon it. While your dog or cat or other pet may be well conditioned to the sounds of feeding time, even primitive single-celled organisms like paramecia and amoeba have been shown to learn through conditioning.
Instead of Pavlov's bell, you will use a special Signal Breath to initiate feelings of deep relaxation, and with repetition and practice, this simple Signal Breath alone will be all you need to relax yourself on command. Anyone can learn Conditioned Relaxation and no fancy equipment or prior training is involved. All you need to do is to listen to the program at least once every day until you really learn the technique. That‘s it. Now, honestly, how hard is that? How hard is it to just sit down for a few minutes, to push the play button on your CD player, and follow my simple instructions?
Before beginning, however, spend a few moments paying attention to your breathing, for it’s important for you to breathe properly while learning Conditioned Relaxation. Most likely, your breathing is centered in your upper chest, and only your chest is involved as you take short, shallow breaths. Put your hand on your chest and watch it for a few moments as you breathe…
By comparison, infants instinctively know how to breathe properly. They gently push their diaphragm down with each inhalation, allowing their abdomen to expand. Then they just relax and their abdomen contracts on its own. Try breathing this way for a few moments…Slow it down, and begin breathing slowly and deeply from your abdomen…Let your breathing become very smooth and even as each inhalation equals each exhalation in length.
You may find it helpful to count as you breathe, so, you inhale, count… one thousand, two thousand, three thousand. ..Exhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand…Inhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand… Exhale, one thousand, two thousand, three thousand… and so on.
Let your body find its own natural rhythm, and allow each breath to be natural and easy, flowing deeply into your abdomen, and flowing out on its own. Adjust your rate of breathing until your breathing becomes smooth, regular, easy and natural. Learning how to breathe slowly and deeply in this way is the first step in mastering Conditioned Relaxation, so if you feel you need to practice your breathing for a few moments more, pause your CD player right now until you feel you can breathe slowly, deeply, naturally, and easily from the abdomen. Once you have mastered this type of deep abdominal breathing, we’ll continue.
When you practice Conditioned Relaxation, be sure to find a quiet spot where you won’t be disturbed. Take the phone off the hook, if necessary, and don't let anyone or anything (except emergencies) interrupt you before you are finished. Before beginning, get as comfortable as you can, and loosen any tight clothing, or shoes, and remove any distracting jewelry.
At first, it may be best to listen while you’re seated upright in a chair, for if you lie down, you may become so relaxed that you’ll fall asleep before the exercise is completed and you’ll miss some of the important suggestions given near the end. Of course, if you are using Conditioned Relaxation in order to help you fall asleep, listening while lying down is just fine.
If anything does distract you, don't become alarmed or frustrated. Just re-focus on my suggestions as you return your attention to the simple and natural act of inhaling and exhaling. Imagine any distracting thoughts as passing butterflies, flittering off into the distance. Don't try to chase them, resist them, or fight them, for any response you make will take you out of the relaxation experience. Just go back to your breathing, slowly and deeply.
And of course, NEVER practice or listen to this Conditioned Relaxation CD while driving a car or while engaged in any other activity that requires your full and complete attention. Listen to it ONLY when you can concentrate fully on the relaxation process in a way that is safe and protected.
After you finish Conditioned Relaxation, you’ll probably feel so good that you think that nothing will ever keep you from practicing it every day. Lot’s of luck, for despite our best intentions, the times when relaxation is most needed are the times when it will be most difficult to practice. When this happens, just listen to as much of the CD as you can, even if it's only for the first few minutes.
James Fadiman was once asked if he meditated, and he said, “Yes, for three minutes every day.” Everyone laughed, for they thought how much benefit can you really get from only three minutes of meditation. Jim simply smiled and said, “You know, I find it much better to meditate for three minutes, than to not meditate for an hour.”
Practicing Conditioned Relaxation is not just another chore or task to add to your To Do List. It’s better to think of it as a pleasurable and enjoyable experience, and a precious opportunity to improve your health and well-being.
Really now, think about it…what’s more important than that? Your work and the other demands will always be there - count on it - so why not give yourself this extraordinary gift of health for just a few minutes at least once or twice a day? Make it as much a part of your daily routine as brushing your teeth, or connect it to something else you do every day until it becomes a daily ritual.
Keep practicing and allow enough time for Conditioned Relaxation to work. Don’t try to force it, for while you can voluntarily tighten or tense muscles, you can’t voluntarily relax them, no matter how hard you try. You can only allow them to relax by not contracting them. In fact, the harder you try to relax them, the more difficult it becomes.
It's a lot like trying to force yourself to remember a name, or fall asleep, or give a urine specimen at a doctor’s office. So don’t try. Don’t force it. Just let it happen. All you need to do is to focus on your breathing and listen to my suggestions. Just let go, and allow it to happen, and you might be surprised to notice the nice peaceful state of deep relaxation that awaits you.and how relaxed you’ll become.