Relaxation Response
An empowering tool to maintain good health
The ‘relaxation response' is the opposite of the ‘fight-or-flight response'. Each describes a complementary aspect of the body's capacity to regulate its own workings. Whilst ‘fight-or-flight' describes the physiological response to a perceived challenge or threat that mobilises the body's resources into action, the ‘relaxation response' describes the complementary restorative processes that promote recovery, and the maintenance of a stable, resilient physiological state.
In a world where the physiology perceives constant challenge - through the mind's interpretation of events - the physiology tends to be in mobilisation mode more frequently than in maintenance, with consequent detriment to health and resilience.
The solution lies in learning to induce the relaxation response for ourselves, and over-riding the fight-or-flight response that is so detrimental when inappropriately activated. This is the conclusion of 40 years of validated medical research at the Harvard Institute for Mind-Body Medicine (www.mbmi.org)
When eliciting the relaxation response:
- Your metabolism decreases
- Your heart beats slower and your muscles relax
- Your breathing becomes slower
- Your blood pressure decreases
- Your levels of nitric oxide are increased
If practiced regularly, it can have lasting effects. Elicitation of the relaxation response is at the heart of the spa experience and of the mind/body programs at Temple.
Time honoured practices such as Tai Chi and Yoga elicit the relaxation response, as do any routine activities in which we are wholly engaged and present. The essence of the relaxation response is focussed absorption in the process of the moment, sustained over a period of time without distraction. The single-minded focus of attention mobilises the resources of the body to a clear and unambiguous goal, namely restoration of a stable and naturally aligned inner environment, which is the basis of healthy physiological function.
Elicitation of the Relaxation Response
The conscious elicitation of the Relaxation Response requires the spending of a period of time in single-minded attention to a word, sensation or process, whilst passively disregarding everyday thoughts that inevitably come to mind. The practice may be as simple as resting for a period of time in awareness of the natural motion of our own breathing; this is the basis of the Guided Relaxation taught each day at Temple. Twenty minutes, if it can be spared, is an effective period of time for the physiological transition to take place from an aroused to a relaxed state.
Alternatively, the practice may focus on the production & repetition of a word or string of words, on a sense impression, eg, a visual image, a sound, a smell, a temperature or pressure perception, or an internally perceived physiological sensation, eg, muscle tone, rib movement, abdominal or diaphragmatic movement, passage of air or heart related sensation.
At the Harvard Institute for Mind Body Medicine, as at Temple, elicitation of the relaxation response is combined with physical activity, nutrition and reflection / education / discussion as an integrated programme of self care in the in the pursuit of optimal health.
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