This is an abbreviated progressive muscle relaxation.
This version focuses on four broad areas of the body.
You can do it either lying down or sitting comfortably in a chair with your feet touching the ground.
Take a moment to get comfortable.
If you have arthritis,
Joint pain,
Migraine headaches,
Or any other type of injury or condition that can be exacerbated by tensing muscles,
Please be kind and gentle with this practice.
The goal of tensing the muscles is not to cause pain and if you feel any pain you should stop immediately.
You may want to avoid certain areas of the body altogether and that's okay.
You can still gain benefit from the practice by envisioning those aspects of the body as relaxing,
Envisioning them feeling heavy and warm and loose.
Let's begin.
Take a breath in and out and bring your attention to the knees,
The shins,
The calves,
And your feet.
We're keeping our focus on the lower half of our legs and our feet.
Now to tense this part of the body,
Begin by lifting the heels off the floor while keeping the toes on the ground.
Bring the legs together so that the calves are touching.
Bring the knees together.
This will also cause tension in the thighs and that's okay.
Tense the whole bottom half of the body by holding the knees,
The thighs,
The calves,
The ankles together as tightly as you can all the while with your heels off the ground.
If you're lying down this would mean pointing your toes away from you.
Hold this tension for a few more seconds.
Scan the legs and the feet making sure you're holding them tightly.
Squeeze a little bit more and release.
Allow the lower half of the body to relax into the seat,
Onto the floor,
On your bed.
Notice the sensation of relaxing from the toes to the heels to the calves to the thighs.
Now bring your attention to the muscles of the glutes.
This will also squeeze your thighs a little bit and that's okay.
Begin to tighten the glute muscles.
If you're sitting you may notice that this raises you up a little bit from the seat.
Keep tensing the muscles of the glutes.
Hold it for a few more seconds.
It's important to try and keep the rest of the body loose and relaxed.
Just focus all the tightness on the glutes.
For a few more seconds if you can tighten it just a little bit more and release.
Just allow the lower half of the body to sink into the floor or your seat.
Bring your attention to the shoulders and the arms and the hands.
We're going to tighten this area of our body by clenching our hands into fists as tight as we can.
Imagining we're holding weights.
Curling the arms up almost like we're lifting in a bicep curl.
We're tightening the bicep muscles and then also raising the shoulders to the ears.
We're tensing the shoulders up to the ears holding our biceps tightly and also clenching our fists at the same time.
If this gets too complicated it's okay to break it up.
Perhaps you want to do the shoulders separately.
That's okay.
Hold the contractions for a few more seconds.
If you can tighten it a little bit more you can do so and release.
Observe the tingling or the warmth flowing through the body and then bring your attention to the face,
The muscles in the face.
Again if you have migraines or jaw difficulties please be gentle with this.
I'm going to scrunch up our face.
We're going to pull our jaw back into a really tight smile and squeeze the eyes shut.
If you'd like you can also lift the brows up.
This will automatically stretch the eyes.
You are not going to be able to scrunch the eyes and also lift your brows so either one is fine.
Pulling back on the jaw,
Lifting the brows or squeezing the eyes.
You can even jut your chin out and release.
Observe all the muscles in the face releasing.
Now just take a moment to scan from the top of your head,
The forehead,
The neck,
The shoulders,
Arms,
Pelvic area and the lower half of the body,
The thighs to the feet.
Just observe how the body feels now compared to what it was before.
Take a moment,
Just observe the body being fully relaxed and whenever you're ready you can begin to make small movements.
Flutter the eyes open and come back to the room.
