Two sessions per day for as little as fifteen minutes per session is satisfactory for most users.

Relaxation can improve blood flow and digestion.  These methods can also help sleeping problems, pain, tension, or emotional turmoil.  You may consciously empty your mind of troubles and pain while concentrating only on rest.  You can have a friend read the following to you, or you can read it into a cassette tape and play it back.

Prior to beginning a relaxation technique:

Set the Mood

• Find a quiet place where you won't be disturbed.
• Close the door or bed curtains.
• Turn off lights, TV, radio, etc.
• Take the phone off the hook if it's an annoyance.
• You may like relaxing music without lyrics (classical music or environmental sounds).

• Adjust your personal/private light screen for a comfortable fit.
• Switch the light screen on.
• Gently look out as if you are focusing on an object far away.
• Look downwar

Sit Back and Stretch Out

• Breathe in S-L-O-W-L-Y
• Breathe out S-L-O-W-L-Y.  Feel your abdomen rise and then go down.
• Continue to concentrate on your breathing-slowly and rhythmically.  Breathe out slightly longer than you breathe in to completely empty your lungs of air.

Relaxation Technique
 

• Feel your whole body grow heavy and limp as you breathe in and out...
• Now feel your feet relax...
• Now relax your legs.  They feel so limp and loose right up to your hips.  Feel the warmth of your legs.
• Feel your trunk muscles relax now - as if you're afloat, breathing in and out.  You are calm and peaceful.
• Your hands are now relaxing.  All your finger and arm muscles are becoming relaxed and warm.
• Now loosen all your face muscles. Your mouth is relaxed and your eyes and forehead are relaxed, at rest in a calm and peaceful state.
• Now, your whole body is relaxed, limp, floating, and completely comfortable.  Concentrate only on your slow, rhythmical breathing.
• Now take yourself on a visual journey to  place or time where you feel calm, peaceful, and/or relaxed (the beach, the mountains, a childhood experience, etc.). Put yourself there, and gently use all your senses to make the journey as vivid as possible.
• After about five minutes, open your eyes and slowly let your body and mind become aware of your surroundings. Avoid sudden movement for at least 15 minutes.  Move your body slowly,. in position, feel your muscles respond to you.  Look around the room and your environment.