Disclaimer: I’m not a Doctor, this information should not be taken as medical advice.

Modern society makes us stressed and filled with anxiety, modern living causes this, there is much less stress in rural areas around the world where life is different.

It can be difficult to relax because modern living triggers our sympathetic nervous system into action, which activates our flight or fight response, this releases stress chemicals into our bodies which are useful from an evolutionary perspective in the short term for when we have to fight or flee a situation,

however what often happens in modern society is that our flight or fight response is constantly being activated and not only that,

when it’s activated because of the way we have been programmed to think by society, this flight or fight response and the stress and anxiety that goes with it gets stuck in our minds as a loop and we can’t get out of it even for years at a time sometimes.

Stress is a killer, we need to learn how to relax otherwise the constant release of stress chemicals in our bodies along with constant anxiety will make us sick.

When we are working and studying it also makes sense to be relaxed, because if we can remove the constant anxiety from our lives not only will we feel better and we will be more healthy but we will perform better as well because when you feel happy and relaxed you think better and learn better and perfom better in all areas of your life, you are more present and that can leave you free to focus on the present moment.

I suffered with anxiety for years, I’m going to explain some things that I found helped me to reduce my anxiety so that you can quickly and easily find a way to reduce yours.

The first thing I would like to share with you is the Relaxation Response, and then the second thing I will share with you is how to break out of the anxiety loop that all of our minds tend to get stuck in, and then one final thing.

What is the Relaxation Response?

The Relaxation Response is a simple process that you can start doing right away which will activate your Parasympathetic nervous system,

it was developed by Dr Herbert Benson from the Harvard Medical School.

When the Parasympathetic nervous system is activated it activates a different set of processes in your body, your body releases different chemcials and you feel completely relaxed, the opposite of the fight or flight response (when the Sympathetic nervous system is activated)

How to do the Relaxation Response?

The relaxation response is based on Buddhist ideas of meditation.

However Dr. Benson teaches us that we can use it externally of this context or we can use it as part of a Buddhist or other spiritual practice that we follow if we have one and wish to.

Sit down in a quiet environment, wearing loose clothes. (you can do it in a noisy environment too, I’ve done it on the bus and it helped me to relax) But if you can, find a quiet spot.

Think about a word or sentence that is meaningful to you.

Place your hands on your lap

Close your eyes and breathe normally

Repeat the word you have chosen, over and over.

Fairly quickly you will find that your body starts to feel very relaxed and your mind will open up. At this point you may wish to imagine a beach or a garden or some other place where you have been before and at the time you felt a very relaxing feeling.

You will notice a change in you mind and your body.

Dr Herbert Benson has a book called the Relaxation Response where you can read more about this technique and the research behind it that explains the health benefits.

Before you do the above process, you can also do some progressive muscle relaxation.

What is progressive muscle relaxation?

Progressive muscle relaxation is a simple process that you can do to relax your whole body.

How to do progressive muscle relaxation?

1 Sit or lie down in a comfortable place

2 Start at you toes, and tense your toes for about 5 seconds, then let them go and relax them.

Next stretch your feet and relax.

Then move up you whole body starting with your calves, your thighs, etc all the while tensing or stretching for about 5 seconds and relaxing.

Move all the way up through your body, doing it progressively, you can arch you back and then let yourself relax your back, do the same in your shoulders tense and release them by pushing them up for 5 seconds and then relaxing.

Go through the muscles in your face, tense and relax them, including relaxing the muscles around your eyes.

Once you have gone through you whole body you will feel noticeably more relaxed. You may fall asleep after doing this because you will feel so relaxed.

If you like, after you have done this you can go back to the first section of this post and elicit the relaxation response

or you can just continue feeling relaxed after doing the progressive muscle relaxation.

What you might find, is that after you’ve done all this you’ll start feeling stressed again after a while. This is because your mind is stuck in a loop.

How to break free from the Anxiety loop?

As we move through the world, certain things set off our anxiety. A person, an event, worry about a situation that may happen or that has happened etc.

The way to break out of the anxiety loop that we often find ourselves stuck in is, to, realize what’s actually going on.

What’s actually going on is that when something external makes us stressed, we get a sensation on our body, then what we do is, we react to that sensation on our body, and we feel stressed.

Then we think about the external thing that made us stressed in the first place, which then makes us feel a sensation on our body, we then react to the sensation on our body and feel stressed, and then we think about the thing that caused us the stress again, and that sets up a worry loop in our minds. I didn’t make this up, it comes directly from the teachings of Buddha.

In the teachings of Vipassana Meditation it is explained clearly that when we react to something external, it’s not that we are reacting to the situation or person, we get a sensation on our body and we react to that sensation on our body.

Through sitting down with these feelings and becoming aware of them, through realization and not just logical thinking, you realize that the problem is not just in our heads, the problem is in the space between us and the situation or person that we perceive to be causing our anxiety. Once you realize you are reacting to the sensation on your body and not the external thing any more you feel the anxiety loop stopping and your body and mind start to reset.

So the thing to do, is try to stay with the uncomfortable feeling, close your eyes and stay with it, until you realize that you are reacting to a sensation on your body and not the external thing. Then you will get free from anxiety, from the loop of anxiety.

Shinzen Young, the mindfulness meditation teacher, explains that if we experience a feeling fully then it paradoxically leaves us. So for example if we feel pain, and stay with the the feeling paradoxically the feeling will go away, or if we feel confusion and stay with the confusion you will paradoxically gain some clarity. So try to stay with any uncomfortable feelings that arise and you will break the anxiety loop.

The Buddha teaches us not to take his word for it, but to test it for ourselves through direct experience. So don’t take my word for it, try these things out for yourself as a scientist, try to disprove it.

You can learn more about this in a documentary called “Doing Time Doing Vipassana” which can watched on Youtube for free, and also by watching a TEDx talk called “Vipassana Meditation and Body Sensation: Eilona Ariel at TEDxJaffa 2013” on Youtube.

Hope this information helps you to relax.

Finally, helping others to relax can have the effect of making us feel relaxed.