Relaxation

By Brad Shamis, Ph.D
Licensed Psychologist

How to focus your mind and relax your body

“Within you there is a stillness to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.” – Herman Hesse

Your body has two powerful systems to help protect your health: a stress response and a relaxation response. Your stress response—also known as the “fight-or-fight response” – is triggered by a real or imagined threat and a feeling of nor being able to cope with it. Your body responds automatically, mobilizing for a physical struggle or quick retreat.



The Stress Response

  • Surging Hormones and nerve signals prepare you for flight or fight.
  • Your sympathetic nervous system leaps into action.
  • Your heart rate speeds up.
  • Breathing increases for more oxygen.
  • Blood pressure surges.
  • Blood rushes to your muscles preparing you for action.
  • Body metabolism shifts into high gear.
  • Blood clotting mechanism are readied.
  • Digestion is placed temporarily on hold.
All of this is great for surviving a physical threat, like a charging lion.

But to an alarming extent, the same stress response turns on when we face emotional threats: Mortgages, criticism, traffic jams, insecurities or thoughts of our own mortality.

When our response to stress is repeatedly and chronically provoked, especially by mental fears rather than physical threats, the result can be disastrous to our health. Prolonged, repeated stress can produce physiological changes that can contribute to digestive and sleeping problems, cardiovascular disease, reproductive disorders, diminished immunity and a host of other illnesses and symptoms.



The Relaxation Response

Fortunately we also have a powerful built-in healing mechanism for rest and recovery. The relaxation response is a natural set of physiological changes that offset the stress response:


  • Your heart rate and breathing slow down.
  • Blood pressure decreases.
  • Body metabolism lowers.
  • Muscles relax.
By focusing your mind and relaxing your body, you can learn to trigger your relaxation response and reduce senseless fight-or-flight response in the face of worry or imaginary lions.

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