We know perfectly well how to tighten the body: hundreds of manuals on pumping up muscles tell about it. But how to start the reverse process – relaxation, on which coordination, flexibility, strength and health depend?
What is good tone? That’s right – this is the “tension-relaxation” amplitude: the muscles should tense up qualitatively and relax no less effectively. If these states are in balance, the body remains flexible, strong and agile. In fact, as a teacher of bodily practices, I often have to observe an inflection in the direction of excessive muscle tension.
And the point here is not only and not so much in love for fitness or other loads. Even not very active and not fond of sports people live in conditions of chronic muscle strain.
What is stressing us?
Tension can develop for various reasons. Here are the main ones:
1. Stress. Our body reacts to it with muscle tension in the neck and shoulders, the solar plexus zone, and the pelvic region. Imagine that you need to go to a responsible meeting right now – one thought about this can respond in the body with one or another tension.
2. Cold. Have you noticed that the cold wind makes you pull your head into your shoulders? Such tension affects the chest, and the abdomen, and other areas of the body, and those of us who live in a not too favorable climate are forced to “keep” heat in ourselves for a significant part of the year by such tension.
3. Sedentary lifestyle. To fix ourselves in the right position in front of the computer, we are forced to literally “freeze” the body into space, fixing the position with muscle tension.
Procedures and exercises aimed at relaxation are not only useful, but also pleasant.
Enough reasons to think about quality relaxation?
If not, then I can add positive motivation: it’s always nice! And of course, it is useful: thanks to relaxation, blood microcirculation improves. Due to this, both the muscles and the internal organs under them receive additional nutrition – namely, the background health of the whole body depends on the good nutrition of tissues and organs.
Relaxation practices
It would seem that it is difficult to relax: lay down on the sofa and you’re done! Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like that: habitual tensions that have been formed over the years are no longer felt by the body – for the brain they become a conditional norm and do not relax even in sleep. Therefore, the skill of relaxation is quite an active action. Methods can be divided into several groups:
- Osteopathic procedures – much deeper work with the body than just relaxation. Osteopaths help relieve the usual muscle tension, and do it as accurately as possible, diagnosing the nature and source of tension.
- Massage – less precise relaxation technique than osteopathy, but more pleasant. Choose a full body massage so that the specialist works all the muscles.
- Thermal treatments – if the cold fetters, then the active heat helps to open up and relax. A bath or sauna is an excellent winter solution (provided that there are no contraindications such as chronic inflammatory diseases).
Relaxation in an upright position
All the techniques described above provide the so-called “paradoxical” relaxation – such a depth of it that we ourselves cannot achieve by an effort of will. But how to transfer this deep, unusual for us relaxation into a vertical position – into life, into movement?
To build the correct, relaxed, easy movement of the body and improve the blood supply to all tissues and organs, special healing exercises are provided (for example, various healing areas of yoga or qigong, such as Xinseng).
Relaxation exercises should be:
- Painless. Active relaxation exercises should bring pleasure, not pain.
- Comfortable within the limits of natural mobility, without forced stretching or hard twisting.
- Effective. After class, you should experience significantly less of the usual pain. For example, if earlier in the evening you regularly had back pain, then thanks to relaxing activities, the body is weaned from the usual tensions that cause pain, and the discomfort gradually disappears.
In addition, such gymnastics gives additional strength – the body no longer needs to hold the usual tension, and this is felt as a surge of energy.
What if…
“What if I get so relaxed that I won’t be able to pull myself together later?” — this question is often asked at seminars. And this is quite understandable: unusual actions are often perceived as a threat.
If you are asking this question, remember that the ability to relax qualitatively significantly increases the efficiency of the body. Professional athletes are well aware of this: they always have massage therapists and gymnastics to deepen relaxation.
Going to bed, few of us are afraid not to wake up: we know that sleep is a temporary state, it allows us to start the next day fresh and rested. It’s the same with relaxation practices: you master them, practice them, enjoy them, and get down to business with renewed vigor.