Members,
There are a number of CBT techniques that are commonly used to help people challenge worry including: thought records, thought stopping, worry time, challenging the value of worry, problem solving, experiments to increase intolerance of uncertainty and cognitive exposure. Let’s take a look at them one at a time:
Progressive Muscle Relaxation: When people feel stressed they usually carry anxiety in their body. We often say that people who are anxious are tense people. People who are anxious or tense usually report a variety of aches and pains including headache, sore neck, back, and shoulders. When you carry anxiety in your body, you feel tense and sore. Feeling tense and sore creates more stress and anxiety…more fuel for the negative downward cycles of depression. Fortunately there are ways in which you can download tension. Box breathing is one way to reduce anxiety and tension. Progressive muscle relaxation is yet another.
We often don’t notice the tension we carry. What you do in practicing progressive muscle relaxation is simple. Try tensing all of your major muscle groups at once, and then relax. As a result you really notice the feelings of tension and relaxation. Progressive muscle relaxation allows you to relax one muscle group at a time. As you do this you’ll learn to notice which parts of your body are tense, and how to relax them.
To do progressive muscle relaxation you’ll need a half hour or so. You also need to sit or lie down.
What you’re going to do in progressive muscle relaxation is tense a muscle group for 10 seconds, and then relax it for 20 seconds. Basically, we’d like you to tense a muscle group and count to 10, relax and count to 20, then tense the next muscle group. The trick is to tense up for 10 seconds and then really let go. Don’t relax the muscle slowly; relax it all at once, so that you can really feel the muscle go from maximum tension to maximum relaxation.
If you have any kind of muscle or joint problem, take it easy. Don’t tense too hard. If it hurts, back off a bit. Use common sense and do not tense any muscle group that causes you pain.
Start with your feet and legs, then your back, chest and stomach, shoulders, hands and arms, move to your head and then finish with a body scan. To get the most out of this exercise you’ll need at least half an hour and a quiet room.
Sylvie, Bilingual Health Educator
