Letting Go of Unpleasant Emotions with Relaxation and Mindfulness

In previous posts, I have discussed the subjects of relaxation and mindfulness. In this post, I want to explain how relaxation and mindfulness work together to help you let go of unpleasant emotions that arise from cognitive processes (emotions that arise from organic causes are a different matter and are outside the scope of this article).

Relaxation activates the body's parasympathetic nervous system and deactivates the sympathetic nervous system. This turns off the stress response in the body. When you are completely relaxed and the stress response is off, you are not experiencing any unpleasant emotions.

Mindfulness deactivates the default mode network in the brain. The default mode network is active when the mind is wandering and thinking about the past or future etc. And when the default mode network is active, emotions can get out of control and feed on themselves amplifying their effect. However when the default mode network is inactive, emotions are not amplified, they are reduced to faint shadows that hardly cause any trouble.

Relaxation and mindfulness work well together. It is easier to be mindful if you are relaxed. It is easier to stay relaxed if you are mindful.

One aspect of the stress response is to become fixated on the source of stress. When the source of stress is emotional, this tendency toward fixation draws you into the default mode network where emotions become amplified. Relaxation helps break the fixation caused by stress and makes it easier to keep the default mode network inactive.

Mindfulness deactivates the default mode network which keeps emotions from amplifying, producing emotional pain, and causing a stress reaction.

There are various ways to practice relaxation and mindfulness together.

• Do relaxation exercises. The attention needed to do relaxation exercises is a form of mindfulness.

• Focus your attention on the pleasant feeling of relaxation while you breathe in a relaxing way. You can do this as a form of meditation or while you are doing other activities. Notice if your mind wanders, or if you feel stronger emotions, or if you feel stress, and when you do, try to restore relaxation and focus.

• Try to relax while doing mindfulness exercises. To relax, breathe in a relaxing way, notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale, and move in a relaxed way if you are active. Mindfulness exercises can be as simple as being aware of what you are doing as you are doing it, or noticing all the sensations that come into your awareness, or focusing you attention on your surroundings. You can do mindfulness exercises as a form of meditation or while you are doing other activities such as taking a walk or washing the dishes.

This article is about letting go of unpleasant emotions. There are also times when it is helpful to let out emotions, ie. to explore their source.

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Copyright © 2020 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Practicing Relaxing Meditation Before Insight Meditation

When I have been on meditation retreats at a Buddhist monastery, we would do bowing practice and chanting practice before sitting meditation. This is how the monks normally prepare for meditation. If the monks who are professional meditators need to prepare for meditation, it seems reasonable that a lay person would also need to prepare for meditation.

Before I start a meditation session, I often prepare my mind for it by doing relaxation exercises first. This helps me to have better concentration and a more consistent experience when I meditate and it frequently eliminates any unpleasant emotions I might be experiencing at the time. Stress and mental fatigue are two main causes of poor concentration and mental turbulence. Relaxation exercises ease stress and mental fatigue.

These relaxation exercises can also be considered a form of meditation. If you try them you will see that they require concentration and attention to do them and that sometimes you may find yourself distracted by stray thoughts and you need to refocus your attention back on the exercises just like you do with meditation. If you are upset, or tense, or experiencing mental turbulence and you don't have enough time to do both relaxation exercises and sitting meditation, you might choose to do just these relaxing meditation exercises.

These meditations should be done in a relaxed way. That doesn't mean forcing yourself to go slow if you are in a hurry. It means don't be in a hurry. Let go of the hurry and be relaxed as you do the meditations.

First I do physical relaxation exercises like progressive muscular relaxation where I move each part of the body ten times. Every joint in the body has two sets of muscles that move it. One set bends the joint and the other straightens it. When you bend a joint, the muscles that straighten it receive a nerve impulse that causes them to relax. When you straighten a joint, the muscles that bend it receive a nerve impulse that causes them to relax. So bending and straightening joints is a very effective way to relax muscle tension. Unpleasant emotions often cause muscle tension when they affect your facial expression, posture, tone of voice, or rate of breathing. Relaxing this muscle tension can be helpful in dissolving those emotions. Other types of physical relaxation exercises that also work well include certain forms of tai-chi, qigong, and yoga, etc.

Next, I do mental relaxation exercises, either lying down or sitting in a chair. (If you try these exercises sitting in a chair and have trouble reaching the deep states of relaxation or the transition described below, it might help to do the exercises lying down.)

First I visualize colors of the spectrum where I name each color (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) and at the same time visualize either just the color or something of that color (fruits, flowers, and vegetables work well but it can be anything).

Then I do an autogenic relaxation exercise where I mentally name and relax each part of my body noticing a relaxed, heavy, tingling or numb feeling in each part as I relax it.

I repeat the visualization and the autogenic relaxation alternately several times. As I do this, I notice my respiration calming down to the point where I am aware of my heartbeat. While visualizing colors, if you name each color as you visualize it you might notice a feeling of relaxation as you name each color. This can happen if your breathing becomes synchronized with your heartbeat and you exhale as you name each color (even though you are just thinking the name not saying it aloud). As you do this you may notice a feeling of relaxation in your body pulsing along with your heartbeat. You can then bring that same pulsing relaxation to the autogenic relaxation where you notice tingling in each part of the body in synchrony with your heart beat.

If I first start the pulsing relaxation during the visualizations and than make my whole body tingling/numb/heavy with the autogenic relaxation, I often feel a transition to a different mental state. Sometimes the transition may be stronger, other times it may be more subtle.

As this transition occurs, it may seem like you lost focus for a moment but now your mind is very clear and alert. Any unpleasant emotions I may have been feeling have dissipated and I feel positive spiritual emotions such as forgiveness, compassion, goodwill, and humility. These spiritual feelings come from the empathic network in the brain. If you can notice the difference between being in your analytical network and empathic network, it will be easier to maintain this relaxed state and these spiritual feelings if you try to stay in the empathic network. At this stage I also find blissful states are easily accessible. This pleasant state is fragile and may be disrupted by unpleasant or stressful experiences, but sitting meditation can make it more durable and resistant to disruption.

It can also help to spend a brief time breathing in a relaxing way counting to three as you exhale (to slow down and prolong your exhalation - which has a relaxing effect), pause for a moment and then inhale and repeat this mode of breathing until you experience the transition.

Sometimes you may do these exercises and not quite reach the same deep level of tranquility that you have in the past, and you might not be sure exactly why. This can be due to what I call "invisible stress". At times you can be somewhat tense or stressed but not be aware of it. Maybe because you experience it so often it seems normal, or there may be an unpleasant emotion lurking just below the level of consciousness. But if you look around within your mind and body you can sometimes find it and recognize it. Then, once you are aware of a feeling of tension or stress or emotion, you can continue with these exercises until you fully relax. It might help to repeat the physical relaxation exercises to help you be more aware of feelings of stress in your body, and this is one reason you should not skip the physical relaxation exercises at the start of a session even if you don't feel physical stress or tension.

Another obstacle to full relaxation can be stress that has some type of biological cause. In this case a mental technique may not be able counter it. One situation that can occur is if you eat a lot of sugary foods, a few hours later you might experience low blood sugar due to the body overreacting to elevated sugar levels. When this overreaction happens, the body uses stress hormones to signal the the body to release sugar into the blood causing you to experience stress. In this case consuming a small amount of carbohydrates might be able to bring your blood sugar levels back to normal and allow you to reach full relaxation using these exercises. In this situation, one way to tell when you blood sugar levels are back to normal is if you find your mood is slightly elevated after consuming the carbohydrates.

While doing the relaxing meditation exercises, it can be helpful to notice the stages you go through as you become more and more relaxed:

If you are tense and don't realize it, when you do physical relaxation exercises and notice the sensations in your muscles, you may start to notice the feelings of physical tension and mental stress. Physical tension is often caused by mental stress. As you become more aware of these feelings in some cases you might feel like releasing emotions through physical expressions such as grimacing or crying. If present, these feelings should diminish if you do mental relaxation exercises after the physical exercises.

When you first start a session of mental relaxation exercises, you may sometimes become distracted by thoughts about whatever might be causing any mental turbulence you are experiencing, such as thoughts about events of the day or worries about the future. After continuing with the mental relaxation exercises, you may notice these distracting thoughts quiet down, and the distractions that arise are just random thoughts about this and that. When those types of thoughts quiet down, you may notice nonsensical dreamlike thoughts arising. At this stage (if I don't get the feeling of floating earlier) I will begin sitting and meditating. (This link has been changed the old link is here.)

It may help to maintain the relaxed state after you finish the relaxing meditation exercises if you continue to think of the floating feeling.

While you are in a deeply relaxed state, you might find that you are able to think of something unpleasant or some unpleasant situation or something you are worried about without actually feeling any unpleasant emotions. If you practice this during a relaxing meditation session, you might be able to maintain that non-attachment after the session - be able to think about it without reacting. And if you can think about it without reacting, then if it happens you might not react strongly either. So while you are in the deeply relaxed state you can practice and learn how to let go of attachments and aversions. You might even get a general feeling for letting go that you can apply to any situation in daily life.

One thing that can be helpful for maintaining a peaceful feeling in daily life is to remind yourself, "The only thing that can interrupt my peace is me." After a meditation session as you return to daily life, if you notice a peaceful feeling and try to stay relaxed and mindful of it, you will also notice what interferes with the peaceful feeling. Over time you will come to understand that all disturbances to that peaceful feeling pass through your mind and it is your mind/body that interrupts the peaceful feeling. Reminding yourself of this can help you maintain that peaceful feeling during daily life.

After doing the relaxing meditation, the mind may still have a tendency to resume its running chatter and this can create mental turbulence and undo the effects of the relaxation exercises. To prevent this it can be helpful to quiet the mental chatter by meditating by counting the breath. Try to stay mindful of the peaceful feeling while you breathe in a relaxed way and as you do so, count exhalations up to ten and then start over at one. You can also count inhalations or both exhalations and inhalations. As the mind calms down, you can count fewer breaths - maybe up to 4 or 5. Try to keep your attention on the peaceful feeling and counting but do this in a relaxed way. Making an intense effort will create tension and have the opposite effect from what is desired. Whenever you notice you have become distracted, consciously notice what distracted you (a thought, an emotion, an impulse or a sensation etc) and then gently return your attention to counting the breath. Some people may consider counting the breath a technique for beginners. It isn't a beginner's technique or an advanced technique. It has various uses one of which is to help quiet mental chatter. If you lose the peaceful feeling while you are meditating this way, you can try to regain it by doing the visualization and the autogenic relaxation while you are meditating.

It can be beneficial to be mindful of whether or not you are relaxed or experiencing muscle tension in daily life. Noticing the physical sensations that accompany emotions can help with this. When you notice you are tense, try to relax.

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Copyright 2020, 2023 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright by their owners.

Relaxation and Enlightenment

Contents

Introduction
How I Practice Buddhism
Further Reading
Try it Yourself

Introduction

On an internet forum I participate in, someone asked "Can Enlightenment be taught?". My thoughts on this subject are influenced by my understanding of Buddhism and my own experiences meditating. In Buddhism, the term in the language of the sutras is better translated as "awakening" than enlightenment. There are stages of awakening and the final goal of spiritual practice is to end suffering for the practitioner. (In Buddhism, pain is considered different from suffering. Pain is a physical sensation, suffering is mental anguish. When I write about suffering here I am referring to mental anguish, ie unpleasant emotions.)

My own meditation practice has evolved over time and it has become something very different from what is typically taught by Buddhist teachers. So much so that I posted on the Dharma Overground, a forum for Buddhist practitioners, and asked if what I was doing was even Buddhism. I found out that what I was doing is Buddhism but Buddhist practice is not typically explained in the way I did. It seems to me that my approach is easier to learn and to practice than the traditional methods of teaching. It doesn't involve any abstruse philosophical concepts, the practices are easy to do, they don't require intense concentration, and there are a huge variety that you can choose from.

Buddhist practice centers around learning to let go of attachments and aversion because these mental constructs are the source of mental anguish which constitutes suffering. The key question of Buddhist practice is: How does one learn to let go of attachments and aversions? Different schools offer different solutions. They are based on traditional methods and often involve abstruse philosophical concepts.

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How I Practice Buddhism

My answer to the question uses modern knowledge of how the nervous system works. To understand this, consider what it would be like to not experience suffering. Nothing could cause you mental anguish. Anything could happen, and you would be serene and relaxed.

The term for "suffering" in the language of the sutras is "dukkha" and if you google "dukkha = stress", you will find that stress is sometimes used as a translation for dukkha. So one way to understand Buddhism is that the end result of the practice is to end stress. If you look carefully within when you experience any type of unpleasant emotion you will see that it is a form of stress. If you can relax deeply, the emotion, the mental anguish, will dissipate. Maybe you have noticed that sometimes when you wake up from sleep you feel good and it takes a few seconds to remember a big problem you are in the middle of and then you feel unhappy or stressed again? That is because deep relaxation causes unpleasant emotions to dissipate. When you are having a big problem do you ever just want to lie down in bed? That is because when you are deeply relaxed, on the edge of sleep, you don't feel unpleasant emotions as strongly.

So if you could understand how the body switches from "stress" to "relaxation" and learn how to control that switch, you could develop a system where you could cultivate your ability to turn the switch to "relaxation" and keep it there even when you are in normal waking consciousness.

Because of this, I would say that yes, enlightenment can be taught, because people can learn to control the neurological switch between stress and relaxation. In modern society people experience a lot of stress. The nervous system becomes better at what it does more often, so people become unbalanced, they become stressed very easily and find it hard to relax. This process can be reversed. By practicing meditation and other relaxation techniques, a person can learn to relax very easily and over time become more and more resistant to stress.

However, I don't really think the terms "enlightenment" or "awakening" are useful or helpful. I use these words here because other people use them and if I want to communicate I have to use the terms they do. But in Buddhism, the end goal is the end of suffering (nirvana), awakening is a description of some of the states that precede it. My opinion is that recognizing enlightenment in a system of development is counterproductive because people become distracted by and it interferes with the practice. So I don't use the term in my own system of practice. Each person can tell if they are stressed or suffering and they understand their own ability to relax and stay relaxed.

The advantage of looking at Buddhist practice from the perspective of relaxation is that it is easy to understand. There are no complicated philosophical concepts like non-self, dependent origination, non-symbolic consciousness, or Buddha nature. And it is easy to measure your progress, you know at anytime if you are feeling stress. You can tell if a practice is helping you immediately. You don't have to hope that something mystical will happen years in the future. And you can use many different relaxation techniques developed by other traditions or modern doctors and scientists. You can use the techniques that work best for you.

(It is also important to understand that sometimes emotions are produced by biological processes. For example, in some cases depression or anxiety is caused by abnormal brain chemistry and a purely mental technique will not cure it. However, any secondary emotional reactions like anger at being depressed, can be helped by relaxation.)

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Further Reading

I have several articles on my blog and web site that describe the practices I have found to be helpful:

• "Turning Off Stress: The Parasympathetic Nervous System And Spiritual Development"
  http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html
  This article is about the neurological switch between stress and relaxation. It offers many suggestions for relaxation exercises.
  

  
  

• "Serenity Meditation"
  https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity
  This article provides instructions for the type of meditation I practice. The technique is very relaxing.
  

  
  

• "Focusing the Mind Can Help You Relax"
  http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/05/focusing-mind-can-help-you-relax.html
  

  
  

• "Diet Exercise and Serotonin"
  http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/occasionally-i-post-something-to.html#misc_diet_mood
  Meditation and relaxation exercises rely on a properly functioning nervous system to be optimally effective. Diet and exercise are important factors in keeping your nervous system functioning well. This article has a couple of sugestion on diet and exercise that may improve the results you get from meditation and relaxation exercises.
  

  
  

• My posts on this topic at Dharma Overground:
  

  https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/8317313#_19_message_8317313
  

  https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/8317313#_19_message_8322964
  

  https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/8317313#_19_message_8334612
  

  https://www.dharmaoverground.org/discussion/-/message_boards/message/8317313#_19_message_8335074
  

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Try it Yourself

If you want to try this type of practice, start meditating or doing relaxation exercises. The articles above offer many techniques to choose from. Find the ones that work best for you. Some may work best when you are highly stressed, other may be best when you are only slightly stressed.

The key to this practice is to experience how relaxing makes you feel better. Notice your emotional state after you do the relaxation exercises. Once you see that relaxing reduces unpleasant emotions and makes you feel better, you will naturally turn to relaxation when you are suffering. It doesn't take will power any more than taking aspirin for a headache does. You do it because you know from experience that it offers relief.

Develop the habit of meditating or doing some type of relaxation exercise every day. It doesn't have to be the same technique every time. Just lean how to relax, get to know what it feels like to be relaxed, see if you can stay relaxed. Noticing what causes you to stop being relaxed will help you learn how to stay relaxed. In time your ability to relax and stay relaxed will improve. You will experience fewer unpleasant emotions, less mental anguish, and less suffering.

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Copyright © 2018 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

A System for Spiritual Development: Hacking Your Brain Chemistry Without Drugs

Below are links to, and excerpts from, four related articles on my blog and website which together describe a set of practices that can produce positive feelings and reduce stress. This can help you live according to spiritual values such as love, kindness, forgiveness, and tolerance.

The subjects covered in the articles include:

1. How to use meditation to set up a feedback loop in the brain that increases production of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins and reduces levels of cortisol.
   

   A meditation technique is described that produces a relaxed mental state and a pleasant contented mood. Taken further, it can produce intense positive emotions and spiritual experiences. However, the main purpose of the meditation is to give you the skills you can use in daily life to maintain a pleasant relaxed mental state and contented mood between meditation sessions.
   

2. What it is like.
   

   This is a description of extreme spiritual experiences that can be produced by the meditation technique described in the first article.
   

3. How to increase serotonin production in the brain through diet and nutrition.
   

   This article explains how eating carbohydrates and protein in the right sequence and at the right times can help increase serotonin production in the brain. Serotonin is a neurotransmitter that is involved in how the brain produces pleasant feelings. This can be helpful in producing the experiences described in the first two articles.
   

4. How to turn off the body's reaction to stress.
   

   This article tells you how to turn off the body's reaction to stress naturally by stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This is helpful in learning to breathe in a relaxing way and can help you make more progress faster using the meditation technique described in the first article.
   

Links and Excerpts

1. How to use meditation to produce spiritual experiences by setting up a feedback loop in the brain that increases production of dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins and reduces levels of cortisol:
   https://sites.google.com/site/chs4o8pt/meditation-1#meditation_serenity
   

   Simplified Instructions
   

   Sit comfortably in whatever way you prefer, in a chair or on the floor. No special meditation posture is needed. Close your eyes. Notice how you feel throughout your body. Do you feel anxious or tense? Try to relax your whole body. Take a deep breath and relax your whole body as you exhale. Notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation? Now breathe normally and relax your whole body as you exhale. Notice the same feeling of relaxation. Relax your whole body as you inhale and notice a similar feeling of relaxation. It might help you to relax if you slow down your breathing somewhat. Continue to relax your whole body as you inhale and exhale and notice the pleasant feelings of relaxation. Your whole body may begin feel heavy as you become more and more relaxed. While you meditate this way, also say to yourself, (inwardly not aloud) "in" as you inhale, and "out" as you exhale. Notice the absence of mental chatter as you focus your attention on the words "in" an "out". Meditate this way with the understanding that you are trying to have a pleasant, relaxing, calming meditation session. After a while, observing the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale might make you want to smile.
   

   If you feel like it, go ahead and smile, even if it's just a little bit, and notice the pleasant emotions that accompany smiling as you continue to meditate
   

   ...

   Smiling causes the brain to release dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin, which are molecules that will elevate your mood. Smiling also reduces levels of the anxiety causing stress hormone cortisol. These chemical changes will produce a pleasant effect and may make you want to smile even more. This can result in a feedback loop that produces intense feelings of feelings of happiness, loving kindness, and connectedness.
   

2. What it is like:
   http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2015/02/joy-during-meditation.html#joy_trip
   

   But this type of serenity meditation creates a feedback loop causing the brain to release endorphins, serotonin and dopamine.
   

   It really is like a drug trip, maybe not a psychedelic trip but it's not normal meditation. Every breath you take is like a hit from a bong, but there's no bong. And it is hugely spiritual. It doesn't require super intense concentration so I think most people could learn to do it. I had to stop the other day because it was so intense I was getting nervous. How many people do you know who were feeling so happy, and connected to all things and feeling such intense metta that they were worried they might never get back to normal? And I felt the presence of non-physical entities too.
   

   It also creates a kind of synesthesia where everything I see and hear I also feel in my body as if they are part of me. There is an effect like the brain is a virtual reality machine and what I see is really a movie inside my head projected on the unchanging screen of pure awareness, like my mind contains the whole universe including me walking around inside it. Other times I feel like my self and its boundaries are dissolving and I am expanding to merge into infinite space. It's not scary, it's like coming home.
   

   This meditation changes the "energy" of your surroundings too. You could go to the filthiest shack in the poorest slum in the most miserable godforsaken corner of nowhere and meditating this way would make it a place of beauty and joy. These effects are not gross like a psychedelic trip they are subtle like a change in understanding. And these experiences are not restricted to sitting meditation, you can have them walking around town or out in nature. When you do this, you see it transforms reality because when you walk around smiling, people smile back. In that way, it doesn't just change you, it changes the people around you. It doesn't just make you happy, it makes the world friendly.
   

   It also produces a state of mind where nothing can upset you because you find something within you which you can relax, and when you do, any unpleasant emotions flow away as soon as they arise. It's as if relaxing opens a door and unpleasant emotions go out through the door as soon as they appear. They just appear and go. Not just during meditation but during daily life.
   

   It's not nirvana, I still experience some worries, annoyances, and emotional ups and downs, but this type of meditation showed me that happiness is a choice.
   

   The best thing about this type of meditation is not the intense experiences, the best thing is that between meditation sessions I'm happier and I worry less.
   

   And it doesn't cause vomiting or diarrhea like Ayahuasca does. It's 100% free. And as far as I know it's legal everywhere.
   

3. How to increase serotonin production in the brain through diet and nutrition:
   http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/p/occasionally-i-post-something-to.html#misc_diet_mood
   

   It is possible to increase serotonin production in the brain by eating protein 20 to 40 minutes after eating carbohydrates. Eat at least 25-35 grams (about 120 calories) of carbohydrates, wait 20 to 40 minutes, and then eat protein. (The source of carbohydrates should be low in protein and fat.) A simple way to do this is to eat the carbohydrate portion of your meal first then wait 20 minutes before eating the protein portion...
   

4. How to turn off the body's reaction to stress:
   http://ncu9nc.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-parasympathetic-nervous-system-and.html
   

   The sympathetic nervous system is involved in producing the body's response to stress. The parasympathetic nervous system is involved in turning off the body's response to stress.
   

   Anything that activates the parasympathetic nervous system suppresses the sympathetic nervous system and helps you to relax.
   

   There are many undesirable effects of stress on physical and mental health so learning to turn off stress can make your life better in many, many ways.
   

   Learning to turn off stress is also helpful in spiritual development because when you are stressed, you are more likely to be thinking about yourself and your problems ie. being egocentric. But when you are relaxed, you are less likely to be thinking about yourself and more likely to be in harmony with spiritual values like love, kindness, forgiveness, tolerance etc.
   

   ...

   The best way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and turn off stress that I know of is to do exercises which involve gently moving or stretching your muscles while exhaling slowly as you count to ten. This technique is extremely effective because it combines four separate methods for activating the parasympathetic nervous system in one technique...
   

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Copyright © 2018 by ncu9nc All rights reserved. Texts quoted from other sources are Copyright © by their owners.

Turning Off Stress: The Parasympathetic Nervous System And Spiritual Development

Contents
Introduction
Turning off Stress
How to do the Exercises
Simplified Instructions
Anaerobic Exercises
Related Articles

Introduction

Your sympathetic nervous system produces your body's response to stress. Your parasympathetic nervous system turns off your body's response to stress.

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work in opposition. Anything that activates the parasympathetic nervous system suppresses the sympathetic nervous system and helps you to relax, to turn off stress. In this article I will describe easy exercises you can do that will activate the parasympathetic nervous system, help you to develop it, and teach you how to turn off stress.

The opposite effects of the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are similar to the way the analytical neural network in the brain and the empathic-intuitive network cannot both be in use at the same time (which I have written about on my web site). In our modern civilization, many people become unbalanced with their analytical network being overdeveloped and their empathic network underdeveloped. This can make them callous. Meditation helps to develop the empathic network bringing the analytical and empathic networks into balance. This is one reason meditation can be a helpful practice in spiritual development and psychic development.

Learning to turn off stress is also helpful in spiritual development because when you are stressed, you are more likely to be thinking about yourself and your problems ie. being egocentric. But when you are relaxed, you are less likely to be thinking about yourself and more likely to be in harmony with spiritual values like love, kindness, forgiveness, tolerance etc. And just like with the analytical and empathic networks in the brain, the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems can get out of balance. In our busy modern society people experience a lot of stress and their sympathetic nervous system can become overdeveloped and their parasympathetic nervous system can become underdeveloped. Doing exercises like those described below can help you to develop your parasympathetic nervous system and bring it into balance with your sympathetic nervous system.

There are also many undesirable effects of stress on physical and mental health so developing the parasympathetic nervous system, learning to turn off stress, can make your life better in many ways.

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Turning off Stress

The best way to activate the parasympathetic nervous system and turn off stress that I know of is to do exercises which involve gently moving or stretching your muscles while exhaling slowly as you count to ten. This technique is extremely effective because it combines four separate methods for activating the parasympathetic nervous system in one technique:

• Deep Breathing
  
• Muscle relaxation
  
• Body Awareness
  
• Meditation
  

Some other relaxation techniques such as guided meditations, visualizations, hypnotic inductions, etc. work by making you sleepy or putting you in an altered state of consciousness, and when you return to normal consciousness, the stress comes back. This technique works by turning off the body's stress response, and the effect stays with you long after you are done. When practiced over a period of weeks or months it can strengthen your parasympathetic nervous system improving your ability to turn off stress and keep it turned off.

The sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work in opposition. Anything that counters the sympathetic nervous system's stress response activates the parasympathetic nervous system and helps turn off stress. The stress response involves increased muscle tension, mental fixation on the source of the stress, and shallow rapid breathing. By moving slowly and gently and or stretching your muscles, you counter muscle tension. By meditating, ie. focusing your attention on your breathing, body movements, and counting, you counter mental fixation. By breathing slowly and deeply, you counter shallow rapid breathing. Deep breathing and meditation alone can be relaxing but when you combine them and add stretches or gentle slow movements you counter the stress response on multiple levels and together they form a powerful way to turn off stress.

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How to do the Exercises

Here are a few pointers on doing this type of exercise.

• If you have back trouble or any other type of physical ailment, don't do anything that would be bad for your condition. Consult with a doctor if necessary.
  
• You can use any combination of:
  
  • Yoga postures
    
  • Stretches recommended for use before a workout
    
  • Tai Chi movements
    
  • Qi Gong movements - For example, 8 Brocades or Ba Duan Jin (Baduanjin) can be done sitting or standing. There is a diagram at Tai Chi Village that is useful as a memory aid and Wikipedia has a brief description of each movement.
    
  • Progressive muscular relaxation - This can be particularly helpful when you are tense or worried and you feel tension throughout your entire body which is hard to relax.
    
  • Isometric exercises (Allow several seconds between exercises to let your muscles relax).
    
• The type of movements and stretches should not be strenuous, they should be relaxing, and you should not stretch beyond what is comfortable, the purpose is to relax.
  
• Remember to exhale slowly counting to ten as you do each posture or movement, or for simple movements such as those used in progressive muscular relaxation, exhale slowly counting five to ten repetitions of the movement. You don't have to count exactly to ten while exhaling - do whatever number feels most relaxing. If you find yourself counting too high, count more slowly. Or you can just say to yourself, "in" as you inhale, and "out" as you exhale.
  
• Try to relax your whole body as you exhale and try to notice the feeling of relaxation in your whole body as you relax. Do the same as you inhale, try to relax your whole body and notice the feeling of relaxation in your whole body. This will help make turning off stress a conscious process. It can also be helpful to practice sitting in a chair, relaxing your whole body as you inhale, relaxing your whole body as you exhale and noticing the feeling of relaxation in your whole body.
  
• Ten to twenty minutes of gentle stretches and/or slow gentle movements is an appropriate length for a session.
  
• You can do longer sessions or multiple sessions per day if you want to.
  
• If you practice the form of Serenity Meditation I describe on my web site, you can try to notice the pleasant feeling of relaxation as you inhale and exhale, and if that makes you want to smile go ahead and smile and notice the pleasant feelings that are released when you smile.
  
• You can do some or all of the session sitting in a chair if you use postures and movements that can be done while sitting.
  
• You can also use this technique during daily activities. Breathe slowly, move in a relaxed way, and notice the feeling of relaxation while you do daily activities like washing the dishes, walking, taking a shower, etc. It is commonly believed that people are tense and hurried because they are stressed. But if you put what you learn from these exercises into practice in daily life, you might see that it is also true that people are stressed because they are tense and hurried. When you relax and slow down you feel less stressed. This is because the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems work in opposition. Anything that reduces the effects of one system does it by activating the other system.
  

These kinds of exercises together with Meditation make up a very powerful system for spiritual development.

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Simplified Instructions

Here is a simplified form of his technique that is very easy to do: Sit comfortably the way you normally do, for example, when watching TV or eating dinner. Try to relax your whole body. Notice if there is any tension in your body such as in your jaw, or shoulders and try to relax it. Then hold your hands in front of your abdomen with your palms facing each other a few inches apart. As you inhale, slowly separate your hands by moving them apart a foot or two while slowly saying to yourself, "in". Then slowly bring the hands back together until they are a few inches apart while slowly saying to yourself, "out". Repeat this for ten to twenty minutes. Feel free to make slight variations in the movements of the hands or arms to produce a more graceful flowing movement.

You can do this lying down with a slight modification: Instead of moving your hands apart, keep your hands at your sides and gently and slowly open and close your hands as you slowly inhale and exhale. Any simple movement will work because the parasympathetic nervous system acts in opposition to the sympathetic nervous system. Any slow gentle movement in one part of the body activates the parasympathetic nervous system and helps to counteract muscle tension and other effects of stress throughout the mind and body.

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Anaerobic Exercises

Doing a few minutes of vigorous anaerobic exercises such as calisthenics (push-ups, pull-ups, squats, etc.), weight lifting, or sprinting can also be used to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. This is because these kinds of exercises create stress and when you stop this type of activity, the the body's mechanism for recovering from stress, the parasympathetic nervous system, is activated.

A few minutes of Anaerobic exercise may also increase serotonin levels in the brain.

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Related articles from my blog:

Spiritual Living: Hacking Your Brain Chemistry Without Drugs

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