The Relaxation Response and Yoga

by Nina

A Garden Path by Joan Webster

Last week I wrote about the stress response, and how dangerous chronic stress is for your physical and emotional wellbeing (and possibly your longevity). So at this point you might be wondering: wouldn’t it be nice if there were an easy way for you to switch off your stress? I mean, something quicker and less expensive than a month in Tahiti or a week in a spa.

Well, it turns out there is. Remember, between stressful situations, your body needs to rest, recover, and acquire new energy. So your nervous system responds by:

• lowering your blood pressure 
• reducing your heart rate, diverting blood back to the skin and gastrointestinal tract 
• contracting your pupils and bronchioles 
• stimulating your salivary gland secretion, accelerating digestion, and promoting normal movement of food through the gut 

Dr. Herbert Benson coined the term “the relaxation response,” to describe this phenomenon, and he discusses it in detail in his book The Relaxation Response (which I highly recommend). I’ve also heard the term “rest and digest” to describe this state, when your body is recovering and restoring itself, and I find this is a helpful way to think about it, as the opposite of “fight or flight.”

Of course when you are stressed out, you can’t just tell yourself to relax. (I remember when I was suffering terribly from chronic stress, a therapist told me to “stop worrying.” I said, “Are you kidding?” and, duh, never went back.) But this is where yoga performs so brilliantly. Because, as Dr. Benson discovered, to trigger the relaxation response all that is required is:

1. A quiet environment
2. A focus for your mind, such as a sound, word, phrase, physical sensation (breath or body part), or fixed gaze at an object
3. Passive (non-judgmental) attitude 
4. A comfortable position
5. 10 to 20 minutes

If this makes you immediately think of meditation, you’re right about that. But yoga has bunch of different options that you can use to trigger the relaxation response:

• Meditation. See here for information on how to meditate. 
• Breath practices (pranayama). See here for information your nervous system and your breath. 
• Restorative poses with a focus for the mind (such as your breath or the relaxation of your muscles). See Restorative Yoga: An Introduction.
• Corpse pose (Savasana) with a focus for the mind (such as your breath, the relaxation of your muscles, or peaceful imagery). See here for information. 
• Yoga nidra (yogic sleep), a long, structured form of Savasana. See here for information about yoga nidra and here for a mini version of yoga nidra that you can stream or download. 

Eventually, after his initial studies, Dr. Benson removed two items from the list: a comfortable position and a quiet environment. He soon realized that a mind-body practice, such as the yoga asana practice, can be a “moving meditation,” as long as there is a focus for your mind (such as the physical sensations of your body in the pose) and a passive attitude (refraining from judging yourself in the pose, such as how you look or whether you’re doing it “right”). See What is Mindfulness?

Finally, studies by Dr. Roger Cole proved that inverted and semi-inverted poses, where your heart is higher than your head, trigger the relaxation response through the mechanisms that control your blood pressure. This is why supported inversions, such Legs Up the Wall pose and Easy Inverted Pose (legs on a chair), are so effective. See Just in Time for the Holidays: Inverted Poses and Why You Should Love Your Baroreceptors.

And in weeks to come, we’ll provide further information about all seven of these options for triggering the relaxation response: meditation, breath practice, restorative yoga, Savasana, Yoga Nidra, mindful yoga practices, and inverted poses. 

By now you may be saying to yourself that while these practices definitely seem like a bargain compared to vacations and spas (free to be exact), they seem like a bit of work. Can’t I just skip all this “practicing” stuff and get a bit of shuteye instead? Sorry, but it turns out the state of conscious relaxation you achieve by triggering the relaxation response is very different than sleep, and I’ll be discussing that difference in my next post (though, of course, a good night’s sleep is also important for your physical and emotional health). See here for a comparison between conscious relaxation and sleep.

What about turning on the TV or reading a good book? Activities, such as TV and reading, while good distractions, aren’t necessarily relaxing. Hey, suspense, though good for a plot, can be very stressful, and I not only cry at the movies, but sometimes during sad parts of a novel! I’m not saying you should never watch TV or read, just that these activities can’t take the place of the conscious relaxation that yoga provides. So as Baxter said last week, "Got 10 minutes?"

And now, dear readers, I’d like to ask you for your help. What are your favorite yoga stress management techniques? What do you find the most useful? And have I overlooked anything? Also, if you’d like to vote on which yoga stress management techniques you’d like to hear about first, let me know. Leave your answers in a comment to this post or email them to me (see the Contact Us page).

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