Relaxation Response

This gentle practice combines breath with focused attention to ease the body into relaxation. Through somatic awareness and calming cues, you create space for the nervous system to settle.

Photo by Zoltan Tasi on Unsplash

Transcript

Get yourself into a comfortable position and close your eyes or soften your gaze.

Take some nice slow gentle breaths deep into your belly and all the way out.

Each time you breathe out repeat a word to yourself that you find comforting like peace or relax or release.

Find a word that resonates with you and how you are feeling and that you can accept as a true representation of the state that you would like to create in your body in this moment.

Even if you aren't there yet this is the direction in which you want to go.

So just breathing in and repeating your chosen word as you breathe out.

You may even want to imagine seeing the word in your mind's eye or imagining an image that represents this word to you.

With each breath creating an experience of increased safety,

Slowly moving in the right direction towards where you want to be.

Continue to do this for a few moments.