Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Sleep

Breathing exercises are very effective against anxiety and sleep snoring and you can practice these techniques to get hold of better sleep but there is another technique which is called progressive muscle relaxation technique for sleep which can help you in controlling your anxiety and sleep peacefully in long run. There are certain steps that you need to follow for executing muscle relaxation techniques. 

Scan Your Muscles For Tension 

You need to think about your whole body for a moment and try to realize that, which are the parts where you feel most stress or tension after a tiring day? Make a chart of all body parts including shoulders, forehead, stomach, arms, legs and others. And select all those parts where you think that you feel tension. 

Muscle relaxation is more effective for people who feel stress in their muscles more than other parts of the body because this technique can tell you to respond differently towards that muscle stress and your muscles will become more responsive than other parts of the body. 

Progressive Muscle Relaxation 

Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique which is being used now for many years and people have found this technique very effective. I this technique, you basically train your muscles gradually to respond to prolonged anxiety. 

There are some crucial steps in learning and executing progressive muscle relaxation technique. 

1. Make sure that you know exactly about all the different muscle groups in your body and if you do not know then, try to learn and group muscles. 
2. You also need to know that how you can make some muscles tense and how to utilize that tension. 
3. Learn some relaxation techniques and let go of yourself. 
4. Practice is the key to success in this case and more you practice, more results you will get out of this technique. 

Preparation for Relaxation 

1. First and key step is the preparation to execute progressive muscle exercises as you need to make your body ready to relax. 
2. You should not have any physical injuries or any history of old muscle injuries and if you have then, before attempting muscle relaxation, you should consult your doctor. 
3. Select an environment where, you have minimum distractions to five senses. Turn off TV, radio, mobile phone and other similar things which can distract any of your senses. 
4. Find yourself a very relaxing position to sit in. this can be a chair, sofa or bed or anything where your whole body from head to toe is in relaxed position. 
5. Avoid practicing these techniques after a heavy meal or any drinks like alcohol. 
6. Practice is the key, as I mentioned earlier, and once you start then, you need to be very regular with your routine. 

Relaxation Techniques 

Here are some of the techniques for relaxations:- 

1. Make a fist of your hand. Feel the tension in your hand and forearm and hold that tension for 5 second then, release the tension and feel the difference between relax and tense position. 
2. Repeat this procedure for both arms and hands 
3. Raise your eyebrows as up as you can as if you were surprised by something and feel the tension above your eyes then, release the tension. 
4. Open your mouth as wide as you can and feel the tension around your mouth then, release this tension. 

Similarly, these kinds of exercises are there for almost every muscle of your body and once you start executing them, you will feel the difference. 

It is not necessary to execute all of these exercises daily instead, you can categories them in sets and execute them for different sets of muscles in different days of the week.