Progressive Muscle Relaxation To Decompress

Sometimes our body and mind need guidance in releasing chronic stress. Producing, showing up for everyone, and doing our best ends up living in our breath, our muscles, and the very way we hold the structureof our bodies without realizing it.

This session guides you through progressive muscle relaxation from the tips of your toes to the crown of your head. You will deepen your awareness of tension and relaxation by tensing, holding, and releasing each muscle group. Your nervous system will learn, in real time, what it feels like to let go over and over again.

No experience needed. Just a comfortable place to lie down and a willingness to arrive.

Transcript

Allow yourself to find a comfortable position. You could be sitting down or laying down. As you get comfortable, Tune in to the sound of my voice, Slowly deepening your breath, Allowing your eyes to become soft and even closing if that feels comfortable. On the next cycle of your breath, Allowing your in-breath to expand just a little bit more, Stretching the diaphragm and letting it go. And now as we begin, We will sink our breath together, Taking a deep breath in a little bit more, Feeling that tension in your body and letting go slowly. And now breathing in, In, In, In and letting go slowly out. Letting the weight of whatever has been on your mind and in your body, Let go and release. In this practice, Progressive muscle relaxation, We will move through the body using one simple pattern, Elongating your breath in, Tensing a certain part of your body, Holding the tension through the breath. And as you exhale slowly, Letting go of any tension in your body. We'll focus on each part of your body at least two times. The second time going a little deeper. The purpose of this activity is to help bring to our awareness the difference between tension and relaxation. Let's begin. Bringing your awareness down to your toes. First, Just noticing how they feel right now where they are at. And on your next breath in, Curl your toes, Tensing, Squeezing, Holding, Hold, Hold, And breathing out, Letting go completely. Noticing that difference between tension and relaxation. And one more time, Breathing in, Elongating your breath, Curling the toes, Squeezing, Holding, Maybe breathing in a little bit more breath if you can. And as you breathe out, Letting go of the toes, You can even wiggle the toes a little bit to help them release, Letting them soften completely, Allowing your breath to become natural and just noticing that difference. And now thinking about the soles of your feet and your ankles. As you begin to breathe in slowly, You can rotate your feet, Bringing your foot up towards your shin, Tensing those ankles, And letting go, Noticing where that tension lives. And on your next breath in, Bringing your foot up, Tensing the ankles, Rotating your foot, And letting go, Allowing your ankle, Maybe moving your ankle into one direction and another direction and letting them go. Your feet are completely relaxed and resting. And now bringing your awareness up to your calves, Breathing in as you pull your toes up towards your face again, This time feeling the tension in your calves, Breathing in and breathing out, Letting go, All the way from the knee down to the toes. And one more time, Breathing in, Flexing through the calves, Calves, Shins, Ankles, And toes have all released, Relaxed, And let go. Bringing your attention now to your knees and your quads. As you breathe in, Flexing your quads, Bringing your knees up, Maybe even digging your heels down, Flexing the whole thigh, Slowly. These are big muscle groups, They take a little bit more to relax. You're doing that one more time, Bringing your knee up, Flexing your quad, Pushing down on your legs, And we'll do a third time for this part of the body, We use our legs a lot and we don't often know what kind of tension we're holding in our legs. Breathing in, Knees up, Quads flexed, And pressing our legs down to the surface beneath us, Feeling the whole quad tensing and letting go, Allowing that relaxation to spread all the way down the legs, Allowing your breath to become natural as this relaxation spreads and softens. Our whole leg is now relaxed. You take a moment to scan between your hips, Your quads, Your hamstrings, Knees, Calves, Ankles, And toes, Completely relaxed. If there's any area of your body, Of your legs, Asking for one more cycle, You can breathe into that area now, Breathing in, Tensing, Holding, Holding, And letting go completely. And now bringing your attention to your glutes, Tensing your glutes as you breathe in, One more time, Breathing in, Clenching your glutes together, Breathing in a little bit more, Complete relaxation. Now breathing our attention just a little bit more up towards our belly, Our pelvic bowl, All of our organs in this area. Again, As you breathe in, Expanding your belly as far and wide as it will go. This will create just a gentle pressure in the pelvic bowl, Breathing in, Letting the diaphragm expand, And out, You can let a little sigh come out with that one, And notice what releases when the belly lets go, And doing this one more time, Breathing in, Expanding the lower belly, Expanding the entire belly. And now bringing your attention to the lower back, As you breathe in, You can gently arc your back, Whether you want to arc it back towards this chair, Or the bed, Or the sofa that you lay on, Or arch it forward, Whatever feels good or more natural to you, Maybe even a rock from one side to the other might feel good, And holding at one of the edges, And letting go. And one more time, Focusing on the lower back, Whether you're rocking your low back, Back or forward, Which is to one side, Tensing, Tensing, Tensing, And letting go, Allowing your breath to become natural, Noticing that difference, Belly and low back released. And now coming up to the ribs and the heart space, The chest area, Breathing in, Expanding through the chest, Allowing your shoulders to widen, Breathing in just a little bit more, And breathing out slowly, Letting the whole torso settle. And one more time, Breathing in, Widening through your ribs, Through your chest, A little bit more, Feeling the tension build, And letting go, All the way out. Chest has relaxed, Allowing your whole body to breathe here, Noticing that difference between tension and relaxation. And now bringing your attention to your shoulders, As you breathe in, Bring your shoulders up towards your ears, Sipping in just a little bit more breath, Breathing in, Bringing your shoulders up, Up, Up, And out, Letting go. On any of these tension and relaxation, If you feel your muscles trembling or moving in a jagged way, That's usually the nervous system and the muscles learning how to relax, To repatterning. We'll do this one more time with your shoulders, Bringing your shoulders up as you breathe in, And letting them drop slowly. You can gently roll your head side to side, Maybe even in a circle, Noticing the muscles between tension and relaxation, Even with this simple neck roll. Now from your shoulders and your torso, All the way down to your toes, All feeling relaxed, Relaxed. Bringing your attention now to your elbows, Your biceps, Your wrists, We're going to do a bicep curl now, Bringing your wrists up towards your shoulders, Flexing your biceps like a curl, Fists in a ball, Tensing, Breathing in a little more, Tensing, Tensing, Tensing, And breathing out, Letting your arms slowly fall down, Hands open, Resting. If you're doing this one more time, You can put your fists in a ball, Bring them up, Tensing as you're breathing in and letting go. Feel free to shake those hands out a little bit, Elbows, Letting any last bits of tension in your arm, Let go. Breathing in and out gently, Releasing and letting go. Now coming back to the hands, Stretching your fingers wide, Arms in front of you, Like you're reaching for something just outside of your reach, Shoulders separate, And allowing them to come down and relax, Breathing out, Allowing every last bit of tension dissolve. We'll do that one more time. Hands push out, Fingers are stretched, Shoulders are separating, And relaxing and letting go. You're now bringing your attention to your head and your neck. Notice how your head is naturally resting on your neck. On your next breath in, Bringing your head to one side of the shoulder, Allowing tension on the other side, Holding, And breathing out as you allow your head to come back to center. And to the other side, Breathing in and coming back to center, Allowing your head to float gently over your shoulders. And now moving your attention up a little bit to your jaw, Opening your mouth as you breathe in, Maybe even sticking your tongue out, And relaxing as you let go. And breathing in again, Opening your jaw, Maybe tightening your cheeks, Sticking your tongue out, Breathing in just a little bit more, Feeling that tension, And letting go. We'll do this one more time. This time, As you open your mouth, Your lips can try to come together like an O. Breathing in, Stretching your jaw, Bringing your lips together like an O, And letting go. On the next breath in, We'll move just a little bit higher to the nose and the upper cheeks as you breathe in, Wrinkling the nose, Wrinkling the cheeks, Holding, Holding, And letting go, And bringing your attention to your eyes, Your eyelids, Your eyes, Your eyebrows, Maybe even your forehead. Breathing in, Squinting your eyes, Squeezing those eyelids, Wrinkling those eyebrows, Tension, Tension, Tension, And letting go. Allowing that sensation of relaxation to spread, Your face becoming relaxed, And one last time, As you breathe in, Squeezing your eyelids together, Furrowing those eyebrows, Tensing, And letting go. Your whole face is relaxed now. Moving to the hair, Hair follicles. We're going to use our hands to support this part of us. Breathing in, You're going to run your fingers through your hair on your scalp, And if you have hair, You can just pull on it gently. If you don't, You could pull on the scalp, Just creating tension there, And letting go. Moving to a different part of your scalp, Breathing in, Tensing. Now maybe to the back of the scalp if you haven't reached there. Breathing in, Tensing, Pulling, And letting go. Allowing that sensation of relaxation spread all over your head, And now the whole body, From the head to the neck, And the shoulders down the arms, All relaxed. Relax, Relax. Your chest, Your low back, Your abdomen, Letting go. Relax, Relax. Glutes and hips, Thighs and knees relaxed. Relax, Relax. Calves and ankles, Soles of the feet, The toes relaxed. The whole body is relaxed. You could take the rest of this time to just continue to breathe and work through any other parts of your body that might need a little bit more support, And attention, And relaxing. Tensing gently, And letting go. And as you finish this exercise, Making sure you feel grounded, And thinking this present moment. You can slowly wiggle the different parts of your body. I like to start with my feet, Feeling the feet exactly where I place them, Moving them, Becoming aware of where I placed my body. Maybe stretching one more time as I become awake and present to this moment. Eyes are open. Hello, World.