Light Page 
  • Home
  • Coaching
  • Kids' Books
  • Kids' Exercises
  • Parents' Exercises
  • Contact

Tense to Relax

7/21/2011

0 Comments

 
A conscious parenting tool to relax.
This is a great exercise that we used to do prior to meditation in Yoga classes.

This week, before you go to sleep every night, do the following:

Lie comfortably on your back in bed with your eyes closed. Starting at your toes, you are going to tense up and then relax all the muscles in your body. So, scrunch the toes and feet up as tight as you can, hold them like that for a minute and then just release them and let them relax completely. Then tense up your calf muscles, as tight as you can without tensing up the rest of your body, and then release. Then your knees, then your thighs, then your buttocks. Feel now how your entire legs are completely relaxed and your feet are flopping out to the sides. Then move on to your stomach muscles, your back, and chest. Feel your whole torso sinking into the bed, completely at ease. The tense and relax your upper arms, and then your forearms. Pull your hands into tight fists and then release them. Feel how your arms have totally relaxed. Now tense all the muscles in your neck – push your neck back into the bed below you. Then relax. Now tense up your face and head. Pull your face into a grimace, clench your teeth, scrunch your eyes up. Hold and then relax. Feel that the skin on your face is sliding off your skull and into the bed. Do a mental scan of your body now and see if there are any areas of tension that you are still hanging on to. Let them slip away. Feel your entire body now sinking into the bed. Sinking sinking. Relaxing into the darkness. Now sleep.

With each section of your body that you are tensing and relaxing, try to isolate just that part of the body and keep the rest still. And make sure that you really do tense it up, until its almost painful – it is the contrast between the tension and relaxation that will assist you in going deeper into the relaxation and allowing you to let go of the tension properly. If you so choose, and are not too tired, instead of going to sleep at the end, use this complete body relaxation as a good starting point for a short meditation.

Wishing you a relaxing, tension free week!

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    About

    Mia's ideas, exercises and meditations to assist and inspire you on your journey to presence and conscious parenting. Includes concepts from various sources such as Deepak Chopra, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle, Michael Brown and Osho, to name a few.

    Or find out how to deepen your meditation, increase your presence effortlessly and live your dreams - here!

    Mia also blogs for Kid-ease on fun, educational crafts and activities for preschool kids.

    Archives

    May 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011

    Categories

    All
    Aldous Huxley
    Attention
    Awareness
    Being
    Bible
    Body
    Breath
    Breathing
    Childlike
    Childlike Wonder
    Children
    Comfort Zones
    Conscious Consumer
    Consciousness
    Conscious Parent
    Conscious Parenting
    Conscious Parents
    Contemplating Nature
    Death
    Deepak Chopra
    Desires
    Dreams
    Dying
    Eckhart Tolle
    Ego
    Emotional Detox
    Energy
    Enlightened
    Enlightenment
    Fun
    Gratitude
    Health
    Heart Chakra
    I Am
    Inner Body
    Island
    Jon Kabat-Zinn
    Joy
    Living Meditation
    Mantra
    Mediation
    Meditation
    Michael Brown
    Mind
    Mindfulness
    Nisargadatta Maharaj
    Nothingness
    Om
    Osho
    Positivity
    Presence
    Priorities
    Relaxation
    Saying Yes To Life
    Self Discovery
    Shopping
    Silence
    Sleep
    Spiritual Exercise
    Spirituality
    Spiritual Journey
    Spiritual Traditions
    Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj
    Stillness
    Tension
    The Power Of Now
    Thymus Gland
    Thymus Thump
    Transcendence
    Trigger
    Truly Living
    Unconditional Love
    Walking Meditation
    Who Am I
    Wonder
    Yoga
    Zen Master

    RSS Feed