This audio recording is designed to teach you how to relax, to escape from the stress of everyday life, forget your worries and just let go. Ever thought that it would be nice to just relax completely? Well that's exactly what you are going to do as you listen to this recording.

In the first part of this recording Emma Thurston and Norman Brooke take you step-by-step through a full self directed relaxation session which will last for about 30 minutes. Self directed relaxation aims to relax each of the body's muscle groups while emphasising slow, easy breathing and visualisation of the tension flowing out of the body. The objective of this training is to gradually help to reduce the time needed to achieve complete relaxation. While initially it will take several minutes to go through these instructions, with some practice greater and greater relaxation should be achieved in less time.

In the second part of the recording you will be taken step-by-step through a Progressive Muscular relaxation session which will also last for about 30 minutes. To get you to relax you are asked to perform a series of exercises. When a muscle is contracted and then relaxed it returns to a state that is more relaxed than before the contraction took place. To achieve a totally relaxed state we need to perform a series of exercises that contract and relax all the muscles in the body. Eventually only a few seconds will be needed to achieve full body relaxation.

In the third part of this recording you will learn about stress, what causes it and strategies for managing it.

John Kremer