How to Perform Simple Relaxation Techniques to Keep Tension Headaches Away
By simply focusing on your breathing, you move toward relaxation. For starters, whenever you find yourself dwelling on upsetting thoughts, shift your awareness to your breath (unfortunately, our thoughts are often a source of anxiety and unhappiness).
What you're going to learn in the following exercise is conscious regulation of breath. It's simple, takes almost no time and you can do it virtually anywhere.
The best way to do this exercise is to be seated with your back straight (although you can do it in any position).
Place the tip of your tongue against the ridge of tissue that's right behind your upper front teeth. Make sure you keep it there during the entire exercise (you'll be exhaling through your mouth around your tongue).
1. Exhale completely through your mouth (you should make a "whoosh" sound as you do this)
2. Close your mouth and inhale quietly through your nose to a mental count of four
3. Hold your breath to a mental count of seven
4. Exhale completely through your mouth, (making a whoosh sound) to a mental count of eight
This entire cycle (1 through 4 above) is one breath. Now inhale again and repeat the entire cycle three more times for a total of four breaths.
Keep in mind that you always inhale quietly through your nose and exhale loudly through your mouth. The tip of your tongue should stay in position (against the ridge of tissue just behind your upper front teeth) during all four breaths.
While the absolute time you spend on each phase is not important, the ratio for all three phases of the exercise is (remember the ratio is a mental count of four for the inhalation through your nose; a mental count of seven for holding your breath, and a mental count of eight for exhaling through your mouth).
This exercise acts as a tranquilizer for your nervous system. It becomes more powerful the more often you do it.
You can do it as often as you like, in fact the more often you do it the better your results will be.
With practice, you'll notice a sense of detachment and/or lightness after doing this exercise. Once you get in the habit of doing this technique, you'll find it defuses stress. I suggest that you use it whenever anything upsetting happens, or whenever you are aware of inner tension.
Related Tags: headache, tension headaches, chronic tension headaches, how to get rid of tension headaches
Paul Bacho is a certified athletic trainer in Cleveland, Ohio with over 28 years treating patients with chronic pain.
He's also co-author of "How to Get Permanent Relief From Chronic Tension Headaches," a holistic program that he's used to help hundreds of people get rid of tension headaches.
To get three free chapters of his program, go to http://www.tensionheadaches.org
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