How to elicit the relaxation response: our current guide
What this page said
The institute presented the relaxation response as something anyone could learn, built on two essential steps. The first was repeating something: a word, a sound, a short phrase, a prayer or a simple muscular activity. The second was a passive attitude toward the everyday thoughts that inevitably intrude, noticing them and returning to the repetition rather than fighting them.
From those two steps it built a generic technique taught in its programs. Readers chose a focus word or prayer rooted in their own beliefs, sat comfortably with eyes closed, relaxed the muscles from the feet upward, and repeated the focus silently on each out-breath for ten to twenty minutes. The page advised sitting quietly for a minute or two before standing, and practising once or twice a day, suggesting the time before breakfast and before dinner.
The page also listed other routes to the same state, including imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, repetitive prayer, mindfulness meditation, repetitive exercise and breath focus, and encouraged readers to try more than one. It closed by stating the institute's position that, to the extent an illness is caused or worsened by stress, the relaxation response can help.
Key points from the original
- Two essential steps: a repeated focus, and a passive return to it when other thoughts arise.
- A nine-step routine of 10 to 20 minutes, practised once or twice daily.
- Alternatives included imagery, progressive muscle relaxation, prayer, mindfulness, repetitive exercise and breath focus.
“The ideal is to develop a routine, a time to bring forth the relaxation response that becomes as much a part of the day as brushing your teeth.”