Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello. Does anyone else find it nearly, no actually, absolutely impossible to relax? I've tried so many things. Baths, Meditation, TV, comedy, music... Anything to just allow a person to 'wind down' Meditation originally I thought was working. But now by far I know meditation to be the worst thing for me. It makes so extremely aware of every breath and heartbeat that I actually just become anxious and end up with something called 'air hunger' where I end up trying to take deep breaths when I clearly don't really need it. And then when I can't take as a deep a breath as I feel I needed I then think it's because I can't breathe and thus the anxiety continues in its cycle. I find this to be the case with almost any 'relaxing' thing. I become way too aware of my breath and heartbeat. It's just with meditation it's intensified. I don't even relax in my sleep! I often wake up from anxiety dreams where I've clearly been hyperventilating in my sleep from the dream. How can I ever relax?
A sheet on paired muscle relaxation was given to me by a professional in the past and it helped me immeasurably. I really recommend searching online for 'distress tolerance handout 6B - paired muscle relaxation, step by step.'
All the best
Holly :)
just to agree with Holly aka NAS69820 learning muslce relaxation techniques can remove all tension from your body. There are many in Youtube as well.
u lie on a bed and just listen with headphones to the instruction to tighten and then relax each set of muscles in your body.
Once u get the hang of it you can use it all the time to relax. It takes about 30 goes at least for it to really sink in and become automatic. I have a range of sounds and words which if I say to myself automtically relax me down a notch.
These techniques can also be used to help you go to sleep.