Relaxation Techniques Flashcards
Relaxation techniques are used for what? HIS CHAD
High blood pressure Immune system support Stress management Cardiac health Headaches Anger Management Depression
- what are the features that are common to all relaxation procedures? Bensons list.
Mental device Passive attitude decrease muscle tonus, comfortable posture Quiet environment, decrease environmental stimuli.
Discuss Progressive relaxation training.
Progressive relaxation training is a tool most commonly taught and used both in treatment and research.
They sit with weight and arms/legs supported.
Alternately tensing and relaxing the muscles in a certain sequence of muscle groups.
Pay attention to the feelings related to tension and relaxation.
Goes on for 2 hours.
The patient is instructed to tighten a specific muscle group, hold the tension for 5 to 7 seconds, and then release all the tension. 30-40 secs of relaxation, then repeat instruction.
Each muscle group is relaxed twice, 45-60 secs relaxation between each muscle group.
The sequence is taught and practiced in a given order.
Several hour-long training sessions each week for several months plus instructions to practice
Discuss meditation.
Defined as contemplation or reflection, associated with seeking inner peace and harmony.
Shown to improve concentration, enhance effectiveness in setting and achieving goals, and improve self-esteem.
Metabolic changes include dec oxygen consumption, carbon dioxide production, respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure and lactic acid production.
Alpha waves assoc with feeling of well-being and relaxation
Not indicated for patients with high levels of distress, pain or anxiety.
20 minutes twice a day for benefits.
What is mindfulness meditation?
Awareness expands to include all mental and physical events, that is all thoughts, sensations, feelings and fantasies, with an attitude of detached self-observation.
Requires attending to painful or unpleasant sensations.
Pain may be observed as a separate object in the field of awareness.
Purpose is to increase self-awareness, patience, relaxation and ability to live in the present moment
What is autogenic training?
Developed by psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz (1932). Autogenic training (AT) is a technique that teaches your body to respond to your verbal commands. These commands "tell" your body to relax and help control breathing, blood pressure, heartbeat, and body temperature. The goal of AT is to achieve deep relaxation and reduce stress.
6 standard exercises are taught beginning with the feeling of heaviness in the limbs to promote relaxation of striated muscle followed by feeling of warmth in the limbs to achieve peripheral vasodilation.
The last 4 commands are ‘my heartbeat is calm’, ‘my solar plexus is warm’ and ‘my forehead is cool’.
Practiced for 15 mins 3 times a day.
Used to treat asthma, gastrointestinal disorders, high blood pressure, Raynaud’s disease and headaches, stress-induced psychosomatic disorders.
What is meant by Biofeedback?
Provides information about such body processes as muscle tension, blood pressure, heart rate and skin conductivity.
Goal is to gain control over a body function and then to generalise to daily life.
Progressive relaxation or autogenic training used to facilitate the relaxation and biofeedback provides information about physiological muscle relaxation, heart beat, blood pressure or skin temperature.
Describe diaphragmatic breathing.
Deep breathing by contracting the diaphragm creating room for the lungs to expand down, rather than laterally through the expansion of the rib cage.
Referred to as deep due to the lung expansion being lower (inferior) on the body as opposed to higher up (superior), which is referred to as shallow.
Marked by expansion of the abdomen rather than the chest when breathing, considered a healthier way to ingest oxygen.
Used as therapy for hyperventilation, anxiety disorders and stuttering
Explain visualization.
Sensory and perceptual experiences exist in the absence of external stimuli.
Through a private, non-observable inner process involving neural activity in the brain associated with memory, perception, and thinking, images arise from both internal and external stimuli.
Mental images are created to induce relaxation.
Imagery occurs spontaneously in states of relaxation.
We recreate and modify reality through the imaginative process.
How to exercise meditation
Sit quietly in a comfortable position.
Close your eyes.
Deeply relax all your muscles beginning with your feet and progressing up to your face. Keep them relaxed.
Breathe through your nose, become aware of your breathing. Can repeat one with every out breath.
Maintain a passive attitude. When distracting thoughts occur, notice but do not become involved and return to repeating one.
Practice daily.
How to exercise diaphragmatic breathing
Exercise:
Sit or lie comfortably
Put one hand on your chest and one on your stomach
Slowly inhale through your nose (slow down the intake of breath)
Slowly exhale through pursed lips to regulate the release of air.
Rest and repeat.
