How to relax

Relaxing is important. 


Many of us have been told to relax over and over - and we generally know being too tense isn’t good for most things we want to do (For more on that, see my guest post on the topic with the Academy of Fencing Masters blog)

The problem is, relaxing is a little bit like not thinking about pink elephants - when someone tells you to do it, that usually only makes it harder.

Maybe a better example of something like this is what happens when you try to breathe normally. Do it now, see what happens. Not slow, not fast, not deep, not shallow - just breathe totally normally.

Hard right? If you’re anything like me, trying to breathe normally made you think about your breathing, and that made you change it, and then you weren’t breathing normally, when before trying, you were.

What I’m trying to say is, sometimes trying to relax can be counter-productive. BUT - that’s only because you’ve never been taught how to relax. See, relaxing is a skill, and while most people have never practiced it, you can get better with training. 

In this post I’m going to outline the two methods I recommend for training yourself to relax. Both of these are simple to use, take no equipment, and with practice, can help you relax a lot in just a few seconds.

For both of these, when you are learning or practicing them, sit or lie down comfortably and try to put yourself in an environment that will help you relax. For many people that would be dim lighting, quiet, and without distractions, though for you it may be different.


Method 1 - Attention and Intention

This technique is super simple. It is the practice of focus all your attention on a muscle or body part, while consciously willing that area to relax. Adding imagery can also help.

What to do

  1. Make sure you are sitting or lying comfortably.

  2. Focus your attention on an area of the body you’d like to relax, like your shoulders, hands, or face, or a specific muscle group, like your quadriceps. 

  3. As you put all your attention to that part of your body, have the intention to relax. Don’t try to push it or force anything - this is about allowing the muscles to un-knit and be loose, not about forcing them.

  4. As you rest your attention on that part of your body, imagine it is becoming heavier, or turning into a liquid, flowing down toward the ground, letting go of all resistance to gravity.

You may notice some discomfort as you do this - sometimes our muscles are tight to protect us from pain or some other uncomfortable sensation. That is okay. If that happens, it’s up to you whether you want to continue to relax and accept the discomfort, or to let that tension stay in that part of your body to protect you.


Method 2 - Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR)

If you’ve taken a live training with me, you may have heard me talk about this technique in the past. This is the practice of bringing tension into our muscles to then allow them to relax more fully. To do this, we link our tension and relaxation with our breath. Unlike the Attention and Intention method, this method is active.

The ‘progressive’ in ‘progressive muscle relaxation’ refers to moving progressively through the body. You can use smaller sections, but for now I suggest starting with the following four areas;

  1. Face, head, and neck

  2. Arms and shoulders

  3. Torso - chest, back, and abs

  4. Hips, but, and legs

You don’t need to do it perfectly to get a benefit from it - just go through the cycle of tension and release.

What to do

  1. Make sure you are sitting or lying comfortably.

  2. Take a deep breath in, and as you breath in, tighten up the muscles in your face, head, and neck as much as you can.

  3. Hold for 3-5 seconds

  4. When you release your breath to exhale, release all the tension you were holding - all at once.

  5. Take another deep breath, this time without tightening up, and let yourself relax your face, head, and neck for a full inhale and a full exhale.

  6. Repeat steps 2-5 for your arms and shoulders. I find it helps to make fists when I want my arms to be tight, and to lift my shoulders up towards my ears. Remember to take an extra breath to relax after you let the tension go!

  7. Repeat steps 2-5 for your chest, abs, and back.

  8. Repeat the same steps for your hips and legs.

  9. Once you’ve tightened and relaxed all four areas of your body, you can go back and do it all again, or go on to step 10.

  10. After you’ve completed all the cycles of tension/release you are going to do, take 3-5 slow, deep breaths, and let yourself relax as much as possible the whole time.

Once you’ve practiced this technique and are comfortable with it, you will find you can get a lot from a cycle of tension/release on just one part of the body, especially in moments of stress.

So - use these techniques after a long day, when you’re stressed and can’t sleep, or on the strip if you feel yourself tightening up and losing fluidity and ease of movement - and more importantly, practice them outside of those moments, so when you really need to relax, you can.