Autogenic Training (AT) is really a systematic program you can use to relax and reduce your anxiety. You use verbal commands to effectively reduce your anxiety. AT was developed by Oskar Vogt, a famous brain physiologist in the nineteenth century. He taught visitors to put themselves right into a trance to reduce tension and fatigue. The aim of AT is to normalize the physical, mental, and emotional processes that can become unbalanced by anxiety. Johannes H. Schultz, a Berlin psychiatrist, found that you can create a state very much as an hypnotic trance just by thinking of heaviness and warmth in your extremities.
AT has shown to be most effective with generalized anxiety, but it can also increase your resistance to anxiety and lower or eliminate sleeping disorders. At least one study found that autogenic training provided relief for the majority of participants suffering from panic. AT shouldn't be used with children under age five, or with anyone suffering from a severe mental or emotional disorder.
Check with your health-care practitioner if you have a chronic disease such as diabetes, or heart disease or high blood pressure. If you feel totally anxious or restless while practicing AT or experience disquieting side effects, discontinue AT or utilize it under the supervision of a professional AT instructor.
Originate from four to ten months to master all six exercises, using one- and half-minute sessions five to eight times each day. As you become more comfortable with AT, gradually boost the length of sessions to thirty or forty minutes twice daily. Just let what goes on happen and dont attempt to analyze it. You will find three AT positions:
Sitting in an armchair that supports your head, back, and extremities comfortably. Sitting on the stool and stooping over with your arms resting on your thighs, your hands draped between your knees. Lying down with your head supported on the pillow, your legs about eight inches apart, your toes pointed slightly outward, and your arms resting comfortably at your sides without touching them.
Adjust the AT program to your own pace. Have patience and dont move too quickly; make sure youve mastered one exercise before trying the next one. If you have trouble achieving a feeling of heaviness, picture heaviness, weights weighing you down, gently sinking, or whatever matches your needs. If you have difficulty experiencing a feeling of warmth, picture your arm lying on a warm heating pad or imagine being in a nice warm shower or bath, or sitting outside in the sunshine. If you have a problem becoming aware of your heartbeat, hold your give your heart.
Breathing is important for life. If youre breathing in the upper part of your chest, not allowing sufficient blood to oxygenate the lungs, brain, along with other tissues, you may be adding to your anxiety. When anxious, you may be restricting your breathing even more, increasing muscular tension, anxiety, and irritability. Do you notice how when you feel anxious, you tend to halt your breathing? When you begin to feel anxious, deep breathing can help relax you. But there is a specific way to breathe to acquire anxiety reduction.
Relaxing breathing is deep and originates from the diaphragm or abdomen. Tense breathing occurs in the upper chest and is fast and shallow. Notice how you breathe by: sitting comfortably in a relaxed position; closing your eyes and placing your hands over your navel; then, without making any effort to change, noticing whether your stomach is expanding out or flattening as you exhale.
To achieve abdominal breathing, begin finding a quiet environment where you wont be disturbed. As you reduce noise and other demands on you, your mind will turn inward. Start to notice the rhythmic rise and fall of your chest. While you focus on your breathing, you'll naturally begin to breathe more slowly and deeply and your body will shift into a more relaxed mode. Gently suggest to your body that your breathing will move lower in your body, toward your middle, toward your navel.
Harvard psychologist Dr. Joan Borysenko, author of Minding your body, Mending the Mind, is one of numerous mental-health professionals who believes that breathing effectively is a good way to break a cycle of anxiety. When you keep your mind and body busy with breathing, anxiety disappears.
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