Debby Franke Ogg

Stress Healthy in 28 Days

Pulling excerpts from this book

Five Steps to a Healing State of Relaxation

Here is a simple five step process for helping people practice the healing state of relaxation, sometime referred to as an altered state of consciousness.

This is an exercise that helps you get move from alpha to theta brain waves, where the mind quiets, "ah ha's" come in, and you can access information without your working on it.    Pay attention to the degree of relaxation, both in mind and body as time goes by. The five steps are:

1. Sit quietly in a room providing no distraction.
2. Close your eyes.
3. Sit with your back straight, feet on the floor, hands relaxed on both knees.
4. Breathe as if you have a balloon in your belly, the big part of the balloon behind your belly button, the neck of the balloon in your neck. Breathe long, slow, deep breaths, filling your lungs, filling the big part of the balloon first, belly extending, until you get to your neck. Breathe out in the same long, deep slow way until your lungs empty, and your belly moves toward your backbone.
5. As you do this, allow the mind to focus on the breath, either the sensation of breath, either lungs filling and emptying, or as the breath feels coming in and out of your nostrils. FOCUS is the key word and the hard work. If you find yourself distracted, if thought comes in, acknowledge it, and let it go by refocusing on the breath. (Do not get discouraged! We all can be distracted by our "monkey minds." Remember, rather than "practice makes perfect," let's try for "practice makes better."
6. Start with 5 minutes, and increase as your desire and capacity allows. Oh, and get a sense of how your body, mind, emotion feels before you begin, and check in at the end again.