Many people find it difficult to relax after a hard day's work. All too often, we take the worries, tensions and stress of the day with us into the night – with the result that we sleep badly and start the day the next day unrefreshed.
This little exercise can help you consciously relax after a long day and leave the worries of the day behind.
How does it work?
Interestingly, there are some points on or in our body that seem to play a central role in relaxation. When we consciously relax these points, the whole body relaxes.
These points include:
- the eyes,
- the tongue
- the larynx,
- the scalp,
- the temporomandibular joints
- the shoulders,
- the stomach area
For this micro-exercise, you simply go through all or even just a part of these points one after the other, focus your attention on these points and consciously relax them for a few seconds.
The rest of the body also relaxes as a result.
Even if you only actively relax a single point in this way, the whole body can relax as a result.
An even more effective way – in my opinion – is to integrate images of nature into this exercise:
What in nature does a feeling of relaxation stand for you in particular? For me, for example, it is the image of a mountain lake lying still and calm.
Once you've found your "relaxation motive," try to visualize it in your mind's eye.
Then, during the exercise described above, simply move this image internally to the point you are focusing on and consciously relaxing.
Since your subconscious mind associates the feeling of relaxation with the image, you further strengthen the effect of the exercise in this way.
The exercise becomes even more relaxing if, after consciously relaxing the body points, you let the image become really large in your mind's eye and enter the picture internally, so to speak.
Just try the exercise. You will see that you can achieve a clearly noticeable relaxation with it.
By the way: It doesn't necessarily have to be pictures from nature that you use for this exercise (although they usually work very well due to our imprint on nature).
So if you find another image for the exercise that transports the feeling of relaxation better for you, you can of course use that too.