The Relaxation Practices

These are the 6 Relaxation practices designed to help you learn and deepen your experience of relaxation – of body and mind, narrated by Dr. Ruth Gawler

It is a special feature of the Blue Sky Mind approach that deep relaxation is given such prominence. This is because science links stress, disease and the lack of wellbeing with physical tension and mental anxiety. The fact is, when we learn to deeply relax physically and mentally we set in train a series of events that return our bodies and minds to their natural balance – and this fosters good health on all levels.

While these relaxation practices provide a sound basis for deeper meditation generally, they particularly lead into a deeper experience of the Relaxation into Stillness practice.

It is recommended to make time to experiment with these exercises and incorporate elements of them into your daily meditation practice (more details in Blue Sky Mind).

DIG-BSM2-RG contains 6 tracks:

1: Centre of Awareness: 4:02mins

A simple exercise that helps develop a sense of where you centre of awareness is naturally, and then how to move your awareness around your body to enhance the relaxation process.

2: Conscious Relaxation: 6:49mins

This exercise helps us to become more connected to our bodies, and as a result, more able to relax each part of the body at will.

3: Conscious Contraction and Relaxation: 14:40mins

This experiment features an important step in the process of learning how to consciously relax the body – deeply and when needed. It may only need to be used a few times to “get it”, but it can be transformative as a step in the process of releasing tension, stress and anxiety.

4: The Relaxing Body Scan: 17:35mins

A simplified version of the Progressive Muscle Relaxation exercise, here we learn to relax the body more quickly while still relaxing it thoroughly; all the time using the process of the relaxation itself to mindfully lead us into that deeper stillness.

5: Rapid Relaxation: 8:22mins

This excellent practice uses subtle body movements and a focus upon the breath to rapidly let go of tension and busyness, and enter into a state of deep natural peace. This Rapid Relaxation practice can be a very useful prelude to other, longer meditation practices: 10 mins

6: Profound Relaxation: 12:07mins

This is a remarkable exercise. It teaches how to relax the body in a most thorough way; so much so that people report feeling it has even freed them from the binding cellular memories of old traumas, Highly recommended for regular use from time to time.