Stress Management Health Center

Have you ever had an aching back or pain in your neck when you were anxious or stressed? When you have anxiety or stress in your life, one of the ways your body responds is with muscle tension. Progressive muscle relaxation is a method that helps relieve that tension.

Key points

• In progressive muscle relaxation, you tense a group of muscles as you breathe in, and you relax them as you breathe out. You work on your muscle groups in a certain order.
• When you first start, it may help to use an audio recording until you learn all the muscle groups in order. Check your local library or a bookstore for progressive muscle relaxation audio recordings.
• If you have trouble falling asleep, this method may also help with your sleep problems.

If you want to try other relaxation techniques, see:

Stress Management: Breathing Exercises for Relaxation.

Stress Management: Doing Guided Imagery to Relax.

Stress Management: Doing Meditation.

Stress Management: Practicing Yoga to Relax.

Stress Management: Relaxing Your Mind and Body.

Progressive muscle relaxation is a method to help you relax. You do a series of exercises in which you tense your muscles as you breathe in and relax them as you breathe out. You work on your muscle groups in a certain order.

Progressive muscle relaxation can reduce anxiety, stress, and muscle tension, and it may help if you have trouble falling asleep. As you learn how your "tense" muscles feel and how your "relaxed" muscles feel, you may be able to tell when you need to relax.

Progressive muscle relaxation is easy to do. And if you can find a place to lie down and get comfortable, you can do it anytime you need it.

The procedure

You can use an audio recording to help you focus on each muscle group, or you can learn the order of muscle groups and do the exercises from memory. Choose a place where you won't be interrupted and where you can lie down on your back and stretch out comfortably, such as a carpeted floor.

1. Breathe in, and tense the first muscle group (hard but not to the point of cramping) for 4 to 10 seconds.
2. Breathe out, and suddenly and completely relax the muscle group (do not relax it gradually).
3. Relax for 10 to 20 seconds before you work on the next muscle group.
4. When you are finished with all of the muscle groups, count backward from 5 to 1 to bring your focus back to the present.

After you have learned how to tense and relax each muscle group, here's something else to try. When you have a very tense muscle, you can practice tensing and relaxing that muscle area without going through the whole routine.

The muscle groups

The following is a list of the muscle groups in order and how to tense them. Remember to lie down when you do this.

Now that you have learned about progressive muscle relaxation, you are ready to give it a try. Check your local library or a bookstore for progressive muscle relaxation audio recordings.