"The Relaxation Guide"
How To Use Your Body Over Your Mind

In order to fully understand this relaxation guide and the exercises (and also the basics of meditation), it's important to realize how extremely interconnected and integrated your mind and body truly are...

Your mind/brain can act on all parts of your body.

Through feedback, the mind/brain interacts with the body parts and the external environment. The mind-brain also interacts with itself receiving signals from the body.

Stress and The Fight or Flight Response
Interaction through Feedback

Now we're dealing with the cause of stress and how to use your body's feedback in order to calm your mind.

Feedback is synonymous with stimulus-response.

A (perceived) threat initiates the nervous system's fight-or-flight response, stimulating release of stress hormones which in turn increases your heart beat, tenses your muscles, and makes your breathing rapid and shallow.

Even if there's no real threat such as a livid grizzly bear in the back seat of your car, your mind can still interpret/perceive any situation to be threatening and trigger the fight-or-flight response.

Fear and anger can destroy your ability to think straight. Sometimes you just can't seem to reason your way out of it. What can you do then?

That's the next step of your relaxation guide...

Mind Body Relaxation - BODY OVER Mind

The sympathetic division, responsible for the stressful fight-or-flight response, makes your breathing quick and shallow while, in turn, quick and shallow breathing increases sympathetic nervous activity.

A panic attack – a perceived death threat – may develop if a person breathes rapidly and shallowly over time, because Nitric Oxide builds up in the lungs, gradually inducing hyperventilation.

The worried mind notices the worsening breathing pattern and mindlessly increases its stimuli to the fight-or-flight response with its anxious interpretations.

But when a person already perceives his/her imminent death, it's difficult to suddenly just switch mindset and thought-patterns.

How do you stop this perceived death threat?

You take advantage of the body giving feedback to the mind-brain. You can switch breathing patterns.

You've probably seen how breathing slowly into a bag seems to calm down a person panicking. How?

Let's simplify complex processes by focusing on function and associations. The body responds to the mind's stimuli, and the mind responds to the body's stimuli. Through positive feedback, the mind and body may drive each other into an anxious or angry frenzy.

A rapid, shallow breathing rhythm is associated with threat and stress.

Conversely, if the panicking person were now to consciously alter his breathing pattern and make it slow, deep, and relaxed, it will act as negative feedback to the fight-or-flight response through a slow, deep, and relaxed breathing association.

This triggers the parasympathetic relaxation response. S-l-o-w movements rarely trigger a reason for fight-or-flight...

A panicky mind/brain thus receives calming signals and gets a chance to catch up and re-interpret the situation and the wrongful threat. This is a chance to become mindful. Mindfulness is a vital guide for relaxation in both exercises and everyday situations.

And when you exercise mindfulness and compassion, stress loses its ability to breathe. You win.

I hope this relaxation guide has shown you how to use your body in order to calm your mind. We're taking full advantage of mind body relaxation especially in our meditation exercises and techniques, and also in our relaxation exercises.

You are such a logical, beautiful, and interactive feedback system... Feel free to use that compliment on your spouse or date.

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