There are a lot of people in our surroundings, especially job employees and children who are suffering from anxiety, insomnia, depression or having other disruptive emotional symptoms, so, to alleviate them they begin gobbling certain kinds of drugs and pills. But this is not the cure indeed, instead they are poisoning themselves.
So, in this post, you will learn about one of the best or say an incredible relaxation technique that will for sure not just help you mitigate your suffering from anxiety, insomnia, stress, nervousness, depression and so on, also, will ameliorate your mental health inevitably.
This is about Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR). PMR as its name indicates is a muscle relaxation technique that an emotional patient must opt to alleviate his/her anxiety or insomnia. Unlike conventional exercises such as deep breathing, workout, etc., PMR isn’t just about relaxation rather it is beyond. It helps one to get through the feelings and emotions that cause his/her disruptive condition.
Though Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) has been evolving over time since it emerged in the early 20th century, the core concept of the PMR technique is the exact one.
How does PMR Work
Learn PMR Step by Step
So, the question is how Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) actually works and how it helps patients to overcome their emotional disruptions like high stress, anxiousness, panic, and so on. In fact, PMR comes from one of the most responsive ways that are commonly called flight-or-fight responses in psychology. Under the PMR technique, the mental patients are asked for reacting normally as much as they can just as they used to do in an ordinal situation. In other words, PMR proposes two options before a patient either he/she can opt for running from their problems or they come to confront and conquer them.
In its axis, PMR asks a patient to tighten the muscles by stressing him/herself, then try to relax them, as this process leads to getting to know their actual pain and tension. Although some psychologists don’t criticize it for its repetitive flight-or-fight response as it counteracts the patient physics or psyche, however, it is one of the useful techniques proved and advocated by many as PMR helps downgrade heart rate, calm mental stress and reduce physical strain.
PMR is considered the best one as it assists patients to get to know how their physical strain is instrumental in contributing to their mental stress. While relaxing the body could definitely help rid disturbing emotions and nervousness.
Let’s take a quick taste of PMR by an experiment of Dr. Edmund Jacobson, pioneer of PMR, let’s get your fist squeeze harder as much you can for ten-second and feel the pressure in your fingers and forearm. Now open loosen up your fingers and feel the relaxation. You will absolutely notice unbent your hand comparatively as it was prior to squeezing and the tightness will vanish ultimately.
Therefore, the whole Jacobson approach is called the linchpin of progressive muscle relaxation as it constricts then released the patients’ muscles groups in order to get calmness in the mind through relieving tightness in the body.
Among certain variants of PMR, the steps of one PMR version is as follows:
Step 1: Comfortability. First of all, get comfortable yourself as it is the first step during the whole PMR process. It doesn’t require any specific posture, just be cool and make yourself easy wherever you are.
Step 2: Deep Breathing. The next step is deep breathing as usual as the conventional one. Take the whole inhaling process through the nose up to five times then exhale through your mouth.
Step 3: Tightening then relaxing muscles consecutively. This is the most important, i.e. a gist of the whole process. It’s time to tighten your muscles as you did earlier. PMR experts recommend from the feet. So, squeeze your toes as hard as you can by forcing the heels to the surface for up to 10 seconds then loosen up. Now, give an opposite direction to your feet, which means point your toes up toward the sky and flex your feet in, and hold for 10 sec then relax it.
Now, the process of tightening then releasing should be continued until it gets to your face muscles throughout the whole muscle groups in your body including legs, glutes, abdomen, hips, back, chest, fists & wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, and face. Each muscle group should feel stress with a deep inhale until it gets 5-10 secs.
After all, let’s hoof for a few seconds and touch the calmness of your mind. You are certainly feeling relaxed and unwind.
In a nutshell, PMR is one of the most prominent approaches in psychology that teaches a patient how to overcome anxiety, stress, or insomnia, and also it is a DIY method that one can learn by certain practices instead of gobbling drugs or anxiety killing pills. But once you would be able to do PMR in an exact way, you would surely be get relaxed from tensions, strains, anxious thoughts, emotional disturbances, and so on.
