I am going to teach you a simple lesson you can implement pretty much immediately. But before I share this with you, I want you to take a notice of your current physical state. Are you relaxed or tensed? Do you know why is it so?

The fact is, that the origin of these two states is fundamentally different. If you are a person that does not understand this difference, you are likely to suffer from the consequences of unnecessary tension. Let me give you a few examples where tension occurs in our lives. A person that has to give a speech to the room full of people will usually get tensed. A person sitting in front of the computer the whole day will usually get tensed. A student working the whole night to hand in his assignment just before the deadline is likely to be tensed.

The majority of tension in today’s society is created unconsciously. People do not often decide to get tensed and people do not often notice the process of getting tensed. Consequently, you can expect that many people are tensed even without being consciously aware of that. Was that your case in the simple experiment you did a minute ago? Whatever your answer is, I hope you agree that the tension usually happens behind the curtain of our conscious attention. But here is the kicker. You can consciously decide to relax. No, it is not as easy as saying “Relax” to yourself; you have to learn what works for you and practice it. However the understanding that tension is created unconsciously and that relaxation is created consciously is essential.

To deal with tension or to prevent an unconscious build-up of it, you have to take a conscious action to relax. There are many techniques available to do this, but let just start with the simplest and probably most beneficial one. What I want you to try today is to consciously do an active relaxation practice before going to sleep. First, I want you to spend a minute or two of lightly stretching your body. Then, when you lie comfortably in your bed, I want you to notice areas of tension in your body and let this tension go. If you do not know how to do this, you can try the progressive muscle relaxation technique. After you eliminate the tension, just focus on how good and relaxed your body feels and make the conscious effort to stay in position that feels comfortable and relaxing until you fall asleep.

I am sure you will be positively surprised how good you will feel in the morning. Particularly, if you have been through a lot of stress recently, and your body was unconsciously tensed for a long time. You can apply the principle of conscious active relaxation in any situation when you feel tensed, or when you want to prevent the tension from happening. I hope this experiment will convince you about the profound effects of conscious active relaxation, and that you will apply it at least before going to sleep every night. The risks of not doing so are simply too big.