Relaxation training
Deep Relaxation is a luxury state for many nowadays. We live life faster and have a lot more sensory input to integrate. A lot of people never fully come to a state of regenerative rest, a state without too much input.
Yet, what can we do when our system rings alarm bells of being overly stimulated? We need to let our restlessness slowly come down. Not at once. Movement is good, but without haste or pressure. And after movement one can find a natural tiredness back, instead of an unnatural tiredness that often shows cycles of mechanic hyperactive stages and heavy painful stages but never a relaxation of the muscles.
Progressive Relaxation
There are many different ways of inducing a state of relaxation. A quite technical way is called Progressive Relaxation by Jacobson, in which all the muscles are first tensed then relaxed. You learn to distinguish the muscle groups and to condition yourself to respond with relaxation in a fixed routine. You can learn to create longer and shorter structures for different times of the day.
Yoga Nidra
Then there is Yoga Nidra, literally ‘sleep of the yogis’, a preparation of body- and mind relaxation before deeper stages of meditation can be entered. It is a state between sleeping and waking with the deepest possible quietness of the body and the mind free floating (as opposed to meditation where the mind is focused). All the senses are withdrawn except the hearing. The teacher works with suggestions like touching awareness on points on the body and thinking of light and heavy. Yoga Nidra has many scientifically proven effect in reducing stress and anxiety.
Visualization /autosuggestion
One can work with many creative free forms of visualization or autosuggestion. For some people being guided into landscapes and suggestion of pleasant sensory changes of elements around ones body can induce a sense of being far away from daily habits and stressors, in that way breaking muscular patterns of holding tension. (Auto)suggestion (autogenic training) of warmth and heaviness and rhythmic breath can alter the bodily functions towards more relaxation.