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The Holistic Mystic: |
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Good News: You Can Relax!
by Lonny Brown, Ph.D. |
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We live in stressful times, experiencing accelerated change and radical shifts in every area of life. As the world shrinks and the population explodes, resources dwindle, eco-systems destabilize, extreme weather occurs, economies flounder, established institutions crumble, and radicalism arises, we experience extreme uncertainty in our lives, fear in our minds, and tension in our bodies.
Nothing in human evolution has prepared us for such all-pervasive, unabated stress. The unfortunate direct and indirect health consequences of chronic stress include heart disease, stroke, migraine headaches, backache, obesity, diabetes, alcoholism, asthma, cancer, and more.
The overwhelming need for relief from the stress in their lives has driven millions to alcohol and drug addiction, eating disorders, gambling, high-risk sex, and dangerous thrill-seeking. The medical, economic and social costs of these destructive behaviors are enormous. Divorce, public apathy, crime, and even war can be linked to the untenable pressures we experience every day just trying to survive our own "civilized" way of life. Indeed, it is safe to say that the whole world needs to learn how to relax!
The good news is that stress-relieving self-relaxation techniques are natural, cost-free, risk-free, have only positive side-effects, and are universally beneficial. Once learned, they can be done nearly anywhere, anytime, for a lifetime. For stress-related disorders - which comprise 80% of all modern health problems - deep self-relaxation can be both therapeutic and preventive.
Everyone who's ever taken a hot bath knows the wonderful feeling of relaxing the body. But this physical level is just the beginning of the deep relaxation process. Really complete ("profound") relaxation includes the muscles, nerves, brain and mind, and effects one's whole being.
Imagine you are on retreat at a beautiful secluded health spa. You've just returned from a refreshing walk in the woods, feeling comfortably "spent." After enjoying some herbal tea by the fireplace, you retire to shower, then bathe in a soothing hot tub, complete with pulsing water jets stimulating your skin and relaxing your muscles. You then enter a warm, softly lit healing room, complete with beautiful candles, flower-essence aromas, calming music and an inviting massage table.
Here, at the healing hands of an exceptionally skillful master massage therapist, all remaining aches, tension, and toxins are totally drawn from your grateful body. With loose limbs, energy flowing, and skin glowing, you thoroughly appreciate this most thoroughly relaxing experience in your life.. and you vow to remember it.
You may not be able to afford this kind of extraordinary treatment very often, but you can voluntarily return to that state of deep relaxation - and more - at will, at home, on a regular basis.
An increasing number of people into yoga, meditation, contemplative prayer, biofeedback, hypnosis, and other intentional inner-directed self-development practices, are discovering the mental/emotion/spiritual dimensions of relaxation. These holistic auto-regulatory, self-healing methods naturally calm the body, quiet the mind, and balance one's energies. This "relaxation response" beneficially affects all symptoms of stress, including muscle tension, blood pressure, stress-hormone production, breathing, etc. It is the physiological component of meditation. It not only feels wonderful, but a growing body of clinical evidence shows it to be therapeutic, preventive, performance-enhancing, and life-extending.
Profound relaxation includes the muscles and limbs, but also goes to the very deepest levels of our being. Besides the limbs and muscles letting go, blood vessels dilate, circulation and energy are optimized, the breath is freed, the senses quieted, the brain and central nervous system balanced, and the mind stilled. This is literally relaxation to the core, achieved through a series of concentric withdrawals of all effort and holding.
Metabolically, profound relaxation goes beyond even the sleep-state. Because it is done intentionally and consciously, brain and body are quieted simultaneously, and the mind gets to enjoy the results. It is like coasting with one's whole metabolism in neutral, and floating, suspended in time and space, with a deep, abiding sense of peace. In energy anatomy, this occurs when the internal psychic centers (charkas), are all simultaneously "open," and the systems of the body are in balanced homeostasis.
True relaxation is an opportunity to experience ourselves as human beings, as opposed to human doings. Action is replaced with attention. Although the breath flows, the heart beats, and the body automatically performs a thousand subtle functions, the experience is one of total non-effort. Consciousness is withdrawn from the external senses but fully aware of itself. One's center of knowing effortlessly resides within free-floating internal space, in absolute stillness.
As impressive as this sounds, this deep level of relaxation is available to nearly everyone. You don't have to learn a lot or go on retreat or to experience it. It merely requires training and practice. So take heart.. when it comes to deep relaxation and true peace, rest assured, you can get there from here.
Excerpt from Profound Relaxation (unpublished) by Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D.
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Lonny Brown,
Ph.D.
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Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D. is the author of "Self-Actuated Healing" (Naturegraph, Publ.), and "Enlightenment In Our Time," (BookLocker.com/
LonnyBrown).
His writings on holistic health have appeared on AOL's Alternative Medicine Forum and in Alternative Health Practitioner, Yoga Journal, and many other progressive publications.
Dr. Brown teaches holistic health, mind/body healing, and stress reduction courses at hospitals, schools and businesses throughout the US. His Web site also features essays, tapes, books, and links to a variety of integrative health sources.
Lonny J. Brown, Ph.D. is also the author of " ENLIGHTENMENT ONLINE - The Newsletter for Spiritual Cyberspace.
holistic.com/lonny
lonny@holistic.com
lonnybrown@aol.com
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