Progressive muscle relaxation is more than just relaxing!
A course in progressive muscle relaxation can protect you from the sometimes nasty side effects of pharmaceutical products, but also alleviate existing symptoms of illness. Here you can find out how this can be explained and how this relaxation method has already developed.
"Progressive" means "advancing" or "gradual". Does that sound like effort? Yes, but wait: it doesn't mean that you have to reach many levels before you can relax. Rather, it means that relaxation spreads to the different levels of body, mind and soul. It's about more than just relaxed muscles.
How it all began...
The American doctor Edmund Jacobson (1885-1976) had been investigating since 1908 how a nervous person can be enabled to relax. It was already clear to him that a mentally tense person is also muscularly tense and that this condition brings about and maintains many health problems.
Jacobsen practised yoga. He knew that nervous relaxation could be induced through muscular relaxation and that this promoted any kind of recovery. So for about 20 years he honed his self-developed exercise sequences, which were supposed to effectively dissolve physical tension. Finally, he published his first book and called it "Progressive Muscle Relaxation". It was initially aimed at doctors. In response to demand, Jacobsen wrote a book for lay people in 1934 called "You must relax", which did not appear in German until 1990. Here it had the unwieldy title "Relaxation as Therapy - Progressive Relaxation in Theory and Practice". In the course of time, however, his original method proved to be too time-consuming as well as confusing and so it was methodically simplified and rounded off. Today, it is almost exclusively the simplified version that has prevailed.
The idea behind it
The basic principles of progressive muscle relaxation (PME) are the same as in yoga; namely the principles of rhythm and polarity:
- Tension is followed by relaxation, just as tension during the day is followed by relaxation at night.
- The parts of the autonomic nervous system responsible for this, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems, are addressed equally, but alternately.
- The repeated alternation of active and passive phases enables the entire body-mind system to come into balance and harmony.
In yoga, as in progressive muscle relaxation, a brief and powerful phase of tension is followed by a conscious phase of relaxation. In yoga, the tension phase consists of holding the asanas (postures that involve the use of certain muscles and ligaments). In PME, you tense certain muscle groups during this phase.
This is actually a very natural, rhythmic thing. But why are so many people tense and not their strength?
Simply because the tense state of muscles and psyche is perceived as normal. Because it has been that way for a very long time. Often since childhood. That's why we don't even think of consciously relaxing.
Therefore, the first step must be to feel into oneself and perceive how the muscle tension is at the moment. At the beginning of PME training, too, the focus is ideally on feeling into oneself: into the sensations when tensing and then releasing.
Development on four levels
Jacobson proved through extensive scientific research at Harvard University that...
- ...stress manifests itself in muscular tension.
- ...stress triggers mental or physical illness.
- ...the effect on muscle tone reduces the activity of the sympathetic nervous system.
- ...the relaxation response is a simple and natural remedy for psychosomatic disorders and contributes decisively to maintaining health.
| On the physical level | On the emotional/mental level | On the spiritual/mental level |
|---|---|---|
| Muscle tone decreases and tension eases | Inner calm | Restful awareness |
| Cardiovascular system regulates down and blood pressure decreases | Gefühl of harmony | „Mind carousel“ stops |
| Blood flow to skin vessels, extremities and muscles increases | More powerful presence | Concentration improves |
| Breath flows more calmly |
PME between then and now
Today it is scientifically recognised that a large proportion of existing illnesses can be traced back to a lack of relaxation and permanent stress.
Jacobson's originally described relaxation method includes a large number of muscle groups. It took a long time to practise them all. The PME practitioner and psychotherapist Joseph Wolpe proved a little later that a summary and time-reduced approach was equally effective. Wolpe, a South African, practised with his patients in a frame of five to seven sessions and used fewer muscle groups. Instead, he had his patients intensify the tension.
The shortened version commonly used today is mainly due to the work of Bernstein & Borkovec in the 1970s. Since then, PME has been shortened from the original 30 muscle groups to 16. Today, the tension and relaxation phases are 5-7 and 45-60 seconds respectively.
The efficiency of PME has been confirmed several times in studies. In 1994, Grawe et al. described 66 controlled studies and derived from them a broad spectrum of applications. They see the most effective use of PME as an integral part of multimodal therapies, for example in psychosomatic clinics and rehabs. In this context, it has proven most effective for anxiety disorders and psychosomatic illnesses (such as hypertension and chronic pain), which are stress-based and often involve sleep disturbances.
PME has also been shown to accelerate and improve recovery from medical and other treatments.
PME - Practice for children and the elderly
For children and seniors with mild dementia, it is recommended to combine progressive muscle relaxation with a fantasy journey. Those who like baking will like the following combined relaxation session. The theme is variable and can be used at home, in kindergartens or in retirement homes.
Visit to the bakery
Lie on your back and let your hands rest loosely beside you. Close your eyes and breathe in and out in a relaxed way, in and out, in and out....
You make your way to a bakery and now walk through a long tree-lined avenue. A friendly baker opens the door and beams at you. You are a little nervous and try to feel the ground under your feet:
- Curl your toes and pull them very tightly towards you.
- Let go again and now do it again. Curl your toes.
- Let them go again and shake your legs out.
- Let them rest quietly on the floor again and feel the tension fly away.
Now she asks you to come through a narrow door into the baking room. You have to make yourself very slim for this.
- Pull your belly in tightly. Tighten it and make yourself thin. Keep breathing in and out calmly, in and out, in and out....
- Now let your belly become soft again. A little further and you're through the door.
- So once again, pull your belly in. Hold... and let go.
Now you are standing in front of the bread dough. Around it are all kinds of used bowls - unwashed! How are you supposed to bake here?
- Tighten your face and make a grimace, because you are angry.
- Loosen your face again.
"Who left this mess?" you ask yourself.
- As you do so, you raise your eyebrows and frown. Many small wrinkles form on your forehead.
- Loosen your face again.
- Feel the relaxation and continue breathing calmly.
The nice baker's wife apologises and leads you into the next room. You now begin to knead the dough and form many beautiful things with it.
- Pull up the corners of your mouth as if you were smiling. Keep the corners of your mouth up and keep smiling....
- Now let go again and relax your mouth. You feel your face relax again and become warm. You breathe in and out.
The lump of dough and the dough figures are now to be put into boxes to be carried into the next room. The boxes are heavy!
- Bend one arm and show your upper arm muscles. Tense them firmly.
- Now let go again. Continue to breathe in and out.
- Now bend the other arm and tense your muscles.
- Release and place the arm back beside you.
Of course, you need both arms to carry the heavy boxes.
- Now bend both arms and tense the muscles in your arms. Continue to breathe calmly.
- Now relax and shake your arms slightly. Put them back on the floor next to you. You feel something warm coming into flow.
You go into the baking room with the full boxes. Just before the oven, you see an unformed lump of dough, grab it and knead it. It still has to be pressed.
- Clench one hand into a fist and squeeze the dough in it tightly.
- Then let go and stretch out your fingers. Shake out your hand and place it next to you. Feel the warmth in your hand.
- Then with the other hand. Ball your fist, hold and release. Shake out your hand and put it down. Feel the warmth in this hand.
Your loaves are all ready for the oven. The smell of freshly baked bread rises to your nose.
- Wrinkle your nose and pull it towards your forehead.
- Let go again and relax your nose. Breathe in and out calmly and enjoy the smell of freshly baked bread.
You have done it. Your bread is in the oven. You look out of the window and see a mighty tree. Suddenly you wish to be as strong and as calm as this tree.
- Tense your whole body. Be as firm as the tree for a moment. Your whole body is tense. Don't forget to breathe...
- Let go again and feel warmth flowing through your whole body.
Your bread is baking. Satisfied, you go outside. Now slowly come back into this room and stretch. Stretch your arms and legs... and open your eyes when it is time for you to do so.
PME simply works
If you tense your muscles, you squeeze blood out of the vessels. When you let go, the vessels dilate even more, which increases the blood supply. When the vessels dilate, something else happens: adrenaline production is reduced. This is perceived differently. For some people, relaxation feels like being grounded, for others, it feels like warmth or well-being.
Progressive muscle relaxation has also been shown to help with cardiovascular diseases and sleep disorders, as well as in the adjunctive treatment of cancer patients.
Scientific evaluations of PME
Focus on back pain
Rohrmann et al. (2001) studied the effectiveness of PME in a total of 60 people. 20 had back pain and had undergone disc surgery, 20 had multiple sclerosis and 20 were healthy. Before and after the PME sessions, the sIgA concentration in saliva was measured. (The sIgA antibody is needed for the immune defence, among other things.) They were also asked about the feeling of relaxation or tension.
There was a significant increase in sIgA in the MS patients and the healthy people, but not in the back pain patients. However, all three groups reported clearly noticeable feelings of relaxation.
According to this, the increase in antibodies for immune defence is also dependent on the type of disease.
Focus on sleep disorders
With regard to sleep disorders, Paterok developed and reviewed a specific multifactorial group therapy programme in 1993. The programme included progressive muscle relaxation, sleep education and problem-solving strategies.
27 patients completed the programme over several weeks. The success of the therapy was recorded using sleep diaries and measuring devices.
The results showed clear, clinically significant changes in sleep quality. In particular, the measurements documented a significantly faster falling asleep and longer sleeping through the night. The patients themselves reported that all three components of the treatment programme had been important for them.
Overall evaluation
Grawe et al. describe PME as "a comparatively well-studied therapy method". Altogether, efficacy studies had been conducted with a total of 3254 patients. The methodological quality of the studies was "somewhat above average", but the effect measurement was rather "narrowly designed". This means that only the changes in the main symptoms were observed. Almost 75 percent of the patients had experienced significant improvements in their symptoms and vegetative stability.
Conclusion
The numerous research results speak for the high effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation. It is just as effective in psychological pain therapy as in cardiovascular diseases, sleep disorders and problems of the digestive tract. It is even helpful for cancer patients. In most areas, the results are best when PME is used in combination with other measures. However, if you want to keep all these symptoms at bay for as long as possible, use PME offers as a preventive measure at a younger age - or otherwise ensure daily relaxation in your own life.
