W1.5 Teaching Relaxation

a) How would you create a relaxed atmosphere in class?

b) Discuss suitable postures for relaxation.

c) Briefly describe a variety of relaxation techniques you might use in

class.

d) Briefly discus any problems with teaching deep relaxation, and how

you might deal with them.

‘…one experiences the non existing state of the body, the mind,

the intellect, and the ego, and the Self is realised.’

(Yoga a Gem For Women, 1990: 294)

How I would create a relaxed atmosphere in class

A key means of creating a relaxed atmosphere is to feel relaxed myself so I would offer to my

students that which I find relaxes me. Firstly, I want to mark a change in atmosphere

between that of activity and inactivity. I would start by allowing my breath to become light and

my voice soft and allow silent periods to increase.

I would ask students to prepare themselves for this section of the class by putting on warm

clothing and getting blankets and supports. I myself would turn up the heating to help ensure

they cool down slowly.

I would also dim the lights and close the curtains/blinds where possible or turn on a lamp if

the choice is between brightly lit and dark, to create a dimly lit room, which will dull external

sensory input and help them focus inwardly. Personally, I would rather refrain from using eye

bags as this may feel restricting and cause claustrophobia in some students.

In some of my relaxation classes I would use music as a tool to focus the mind. This music

will be smooth, flowing and positive in style. In this circumstance I would ensure the volume

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is sufficiently loud to enable their minds to engage with the piece. In other classes, I would

use some background yoga relaxation music, which will act as white noise, helping their

minds to still and move into the moment whilst at the same time being able to clearly hear my

instructions.

With regards incense, I wouldn’t use lavender because I don’t like the smell. But in settings

that seem uninviting for relaxation, I would burn sandalwood, checking no one objected in

advance.

Discussion of suitable postures for relaxation

At this stage I would offer my students the following suitable postures for relaxation, which as

they become familiar with my classes would require less explanation, enabling us to enter

sooner into this important pre-meditative state.

Savasana or Supported Savasana (‘Shav’ meaning corpse, Copse Pose)

Savasana is often said to be the most difficult of all asanas. However, this is not due to the

physical strain of the posture, but because most people find it almost impossible to completely

relax the body. In fact, this pose is the best one for relaxation because it requires the least

muscular effort to perform it.

An uninviting setting especially

requires the use of incense to

improve the atmosphere, as well

as ensuring it is warm and that

students are comfortable

‘Shavasana is beneficial no matter what the condition is, even in perfect health, because it brings up the latent impressions buried within the subconscious mind, and the mind which operates during waking consciousness relaxes and subsides.’ (Hatha Yoga Pradipika, 1998: 99).

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In Savasana (corpse pose), hands should be sufficiently abducted 12-18 inches (Yoga

Anatomy, 2001: 547) to achieve the least amount of muscular effort required to hold the

position and hands should be supinated. Pronated hands create a closed feeling

counterproductive to the desired feeling of release.

Savasana is said to have a revitalising effect on the body and would be the default pose that I

would offer for relaxation unless students have a specific requirement that makes one of the

below options preferential.

Supported Savasana

Students with lordotic cervical spines will most likely require support under the head to bring

the forehead level with or above the chin. Students with kyphotic thoracic spines may also

require head support in the same way (often the two curvatures come together) and I would

encourage a gentle chest opening by placing a support under their chest area. However, it is

important not to make this support too high so as to create tension by over-stretching the

muscles of the chest. For students with lower back pain, I would offer support under the

knees to create contact between the entire lumbar spine and the floor or the below options:

Semi Supine or Crocodile

Both these options are suitable for students with lower back pain. Semi supine is more suited

to beginner and intermediate students who lack the flexibility in their rectus abdominis,

serratus anterior and triceps and to relax into crocodile. Furthermore, the disadvantage with

relaxing in crocodile even for the more advanced students is that whereas in supine the

abdomen can push outwards as the diaphragm pushes downwards on inhalation, lying prone,

the abdomen has no room to expand. This forces the muscles of the back to engage and lift

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upwards and outwards thereby inhibiting relaxation through the greater effort required to

breathe. It should be noted that students who perhaps for psychological reasons find the

openness of supine difficult to relax in, may find crocodile a good alternative as it offers more

personal, inward, private space.

Lying Sideways

I would offer this to women at any stage in pregnancy but particularly beyond 30 weeks.

Lying on the back can become particularly uncomfortable during pregnancy due to the weight

of the baby pressing down on descending arteries and restricting the blood flow. It is

preferential that these students lie on their left sides as this will help aid venous return to the

heart although I would encourage them to lie whichever way is most comfortable.

Description and discussion of relaxation techniques I might use

I would not incorporate all the below practices into one class but rather, adopt one option from

the list below and then lead into a period of silence (possibly with calming background

sounds) and some positive affirmations.

Preparation for Relaxation Practices

In relaxation, abdominal breathing is crucial whilst the chest should not move. I will ensure

that my students extend out their bodies more than they need so that as the muscles relax

and lengthen, they don’t become bunched up but rather fit into place. Belling (The Yoga

Handbook, 2008:147) suggests getting the mind to scan the body for any tension and then

focusing on letting go of this area, which I would apply in class.

I would ask my students to: ensure the jaw is soft, part the lips lightly, separate the tongue

from the roof of the mouth and allow the eye balls to sink into the head and the skin to

smoothen out, relax the eye muscles, breathe through the nostrils and with each round of

breath, allow the body to sink further into the floor.

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Sweeping the Breath Up And Down the Body

In this practice I would ask students to inhale breath from their toes up to the crown of their

heads and exhale from the crown of their head to their toes. Naturally the breath length

should extend as the practitioner deepens into relaxation. I will ask students to observe how

their inhalation merges smoothly into exhalation, but that exhalation does not merge so

smoothly into inhalation. It is at the end of an exhalation that the diaphragm is soft and the

least muscular effort is required enabling the student to deepen into relaxation. After a minute

of this process many students will find themselves drifting so to keep them focussed I would

ask them to reverse the process so they breathe in from the crown of their heads down to

their toes and exhale from their toes up to the crown of their heads. This is a safe relaxation

practice that I would be happy adopting at any stage in my teaching experience.

Golgi Tendon Receptor Relaxation

The Isometric tension and relaxation technique is a great method for stimulating the receptors

that turn on and off the motor units that contract our muscles. By tensing our muscles, the

Golgi tendon organ in the tendons connected to the muscles reflexly relaxes the muscles

involved. So the harder the student tenses, the more the golgi tendon receptors will stimulate

the release of those muscles. The more we practice switching on and off our motor units that

control our muscles, the better we become at getting our bodies to relax. I have already been

incorporating this exercise into my relaxation and my students loved it. Such a process is

easy to follow and immediately effective. However, I wouldn’t use it all the time since some

students will get bored and it is preferential to offer a greater range of relaxation approaches

so people can explore this subject deeper.

Sixty-One Points Exercise

In this exercise, I would ask the student to focus their minds

on a specific part of the body for one breath cycle before

moving onto the next progressing in the order given in the

image to the left. The idea is that once they have

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successfully covered all 61 sections, they will have become fully relaxed without letting the

mind wander. I would avoid using this exercise to begin with because it requires patience to

get through all sections and beginner students may not be ready to relax for the period of time

it takes to complete the exercise. I would however like to try it later on with a group of

dedicated yoga students.

The Use of Music, Visualisation, Poetry or Yoga Prose

I like to diversify the range of material that can be used in a yoga class to fit with my own

cultural heritage. As such, I would in some classes, use a piece of soothing flowing classical

music to offer a positive and simple way to focus the mind. In a musical piece I would engage

the mind with the body by asking the student to imagine something moving to the music. In

this scenario the main risk is that the students don’t like leaves and I’m asking them to

imagine a leaf floating to the rise and fall of the sound. However, I think it’s important to

express the character of the classes I teach so that people who do like that style can benefit

from it.

Possibly when I become more familiar with my students will I introduce some poetry or

readings from Patanjali that I think would be relevant to the class and benefit my students.

However, I would avoid the Bhagavad Gita since this is an ancient Hindu script, abstract in

content and religious in character. I would prefer to keep my classes secular so that they are

open to people of faith belief and non-belief alike.

I would be even more careful using visulaisation to bring students into relaxation. This is

because specific words and their meanings risk triggering memories and thoughts other than

the ones I am asking my students to have. Even asking someone to imagine a place that

they love will be based upon their experience of that place, the persons involved and the

history of it all, and although the place may be special, the associated memories leading from

it may be painful.

Another visualisation approach runs the risk of taking a person into a hypnotic state: imagine

you’re walking down some stairs, you open a door at the bottom and it takes you into a

room… In my view this dreamlike journey could also go wrong, what if the room is not one

the student wants to enter? Being unqualified to deal with hypnosis, which this approach

leans towards, I may find myself taking students far deeper into relaxation than I can handle.

Fun and exciting as they are, I feel it’s unnecessary to use visualisation methods of relaxation

in a class now or in the near future when there are so many other effective means to reach

that ultimate end of calm. It’s important to me that I find ways that don’t place my students

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emotional wellbeing at risk, particularly those suffering from depression or other psychological

issues.

Concentration on the heart centre

‘Dharana is the binding of the mind to one place, object or idea.’ (The Yoga Sutras of

Patanjali, 1978: 171) Dharana is a practice that prepares the mind for meditation. By

focussing the mind on one spot, in this case the heart, the student is learning to increase their

concentration span. I would ask students to imagine inhaling and exhaling through this point.

However, this exercise is also more challenging than other relaxation approaches because of

the minds tendency to wander so I would offer this after gaining more experience in teaching

relaxation to gain confidence in promoting this to my students.

Positive Affirmations

To apply this approach I would ask students to: think about their relaxation as something that

they deserve; that in order to be good to the world they must be good to themselves; to think

about how good their body and mind feel after completing this session and about how much

their bodies can let go after this period of exertion. This is a process that I intend to use

straight away in my classes. I think it’s particularly useful to beginner students who aren’t

used to taking time out for themselves or who lack self-esteem.

Discussion of how you would cope with any problems you might encounter

In relaxation even the thought of moving signals nerve impulses to the brain to recruit some

motor neurons thereby breaking the relaxation process. My role as teacher is to convince my

students to remain in relaxation for as long as possible thereby gaining the maximum

benefits.

To achieve this I need to consider the risk that more abstract relaxation exercises can cause

the more ‘flighty’ students to go off into a tangent. As such, I would start teaching a course

with the more basic and practical relaxation approaches mentioned earlier such as the Golgi

Tendon Receptor Relaxation or the Sweeping of Breath Up And Down The Body.

The most obvious problem I will encounter is getting students out of their fast awake alpha

brainwave patterns into slow beta patterns but not to the extent they start falling asleep. In the

latter case, the eyes start to dart around under the lids, and this indicates the person has lost

their ability to focus. For these students I will encourage them to try and maintain a steady

gaze under softly closed eyes. For students that find it difficult not to fall asleap, I will ask

them to gently retain tension in their mula bandha or to bring their feet closer together.

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Some may find it difficult to relax if the inhibitory circuits to their brain are in tact but have

been under utilised to the extent that they have become dysfunctional. For these students,

they want to enter relaxation but simply find it impossible to achieve. I would promote plenty

of relaxation practice to train their neuromuscular pathways to become active upon command.

For other students, they experience what Coulter terms ‘relaxation induced anxiety’ (Anatomy

of Hatha Yoga, 2001: 562). This kind of anxiety is more common in students unaccustomed to

relaxing their skeletal muscles so that when they do; they enter a place of mental,

psychological and/or spiritual tension. There are a number of other possible reasons

students experience difficulty in entering this slow Beta brain wave state such as low self

esteem and lack of belief in their ability to relax, a fear of letting go, caffeine or other stimulant

induced awakeness or, particularly in depression, a fear of facing their own thoughts and

emotions.

To deal with these challenges I would ensure that I only try to bring students into relaxation

after a full yoga session, when their bodies are physically tired and ready to relax. I would

also give students the following options: to relax with their eyes open, to relax in crocodile

(particularly for students with depression) and permission to leave the room at any stage if

they prefer. I would also add some positive affirmations to the session to try to help them

understand that they can relax and that to do so has benefits to them and the surrounding

world. Continued practice of relaxation with all these features should help to deal with most of

the above problems over time.

Inclusion of insights drawn from personal experience

Although I acknowledge that crocodile isn’t one of the key poses in which to relax, I personally

really enjoy the soothing effect it has on my lower back and there are days when I prefer the

privacy of sheltering my face, feelings and innermost thoughts even from my teacher, who

although probably isn’t looking might be! I like to be in my world, free from any possible

distractions. I find that by letting my heels fall outwards there is greater space in my sacrum,

which helps my lower back to relax. I do recognise though that this is not suitable for the

majority of students and bears the disadvantage that it is not normally held for more than a

minute (although it can be held up to 30 minutes) making the relaxation period potentially very

short.

Interestingly, during pregnancy I found lying on my back uncomfortable not only for the

reasons stated earlier in the section Lying Sideways, but because the weight of the baby

when standing pulled my lumbar spine forwards and creating a lordotic curve which in turn

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made my lower back fragile. I found after three months that any relaxation position that

neutralised my lumbar spine relaxing and so loved semi-supine.

I prefer to adopt an approach of horizontal symmetry when tensing and relaxing the muscles

in the Golgi Tendon Receptor Relaxation exercise mentioned earlier. Methods that suggest

tensing the right leg then left leg always leave me feeling temporarily out of balance as the

side I have most recently tensed always feels more relaxed than the other. For this reason, I

prefer to progress from the toes up all the way to the head with both sides working in unison.

I also like to keep this process as simple as possible so as to avoid stressing the practitioner

and thereby compromising their state of relaxation.

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Bibliography

Belling, N (2008) The Yoga Handbook, London: New Holland Publishers

Brown, C (2009) The Yoga Bible, London: Octopus Publishing Group

Coulter, H D (2001) Anatomy of Hatha Yoga, Marlboro: Body and Breath Inc

Iyengar, G (1990) Yoga a Gem For Women, Spokane: Timeless Books

Muktibodhananda, S (1998) Hatha Yoga Pradipika, 3rd Edition, Bihar: Yoga Publications

Satchidananda, S (1978) The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Virginia: Integral Yoga Publications

Websites

http://www.web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm

http://www.yogajournal.com/teacher/images/savasana.jpg

http://www.stthomasmoorside.org.uk/Images/Hall_Stage.jpg

http://sweettater.files.wordpress.com/2009/09/savasana.jpg

http://content.answers.com/main/content/img/oxford/Oxford_Sports/0199210896.Golgi-tendon-organ.1.jpg

http://sleepzine.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/51yt4dwjqcl_sl500_aa280_.jpg

http://www.mindthebody.co.uk/uploads/image/AT_lessons.png

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