Progressive Muscle Relaxation is a grounding, somatic practice that allows you to take time with each part of your body and release tension throughout. This can be an intentional time of bringing calm and awareness to one’s body and can help release tension in needed areas. These exercises, such as the one in the audio recording below, can be used as a guide for this practice on an as-needed or regular basis. When calling on this tool as needed, emotional dysregulation, anxiety, grief, physical pain, and many other sensations and experiences can be addressed. A regular practice can be useful in eliciting greater familiarity with your body’s norms and the messages it sends you. Progressive muscle relaxation can help you “listen” to what your body has to say. We can often detach from the intuition and intelligence that our bodies hold, and practices such as these lead us back to the wisdom of the body.
Below is a 10-minute audio guiding you through a progressive muscle relaxation exercise.
Liv Wolfenden is a Registered Mental Health Counselor Intern at Cypress Wellness Center. She works from a trauma-informed, social justice-oriented, holistic perspective. Her specializations include LGBTQIA+ population, poly/non-monogamous relationships, anxiety, and mood disorders.