Relaxation Exercise

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• Move your bottom right to the back of your chair, place your knees and feet hip- width apart with the feet flat on the floor and relax your hands onto the desk or your lap.
• Become aware of the rhythm of your breathing without trying to change it.
• On an in breath (inhaling) gently press the soles of your feet against the floor and release the resulting tension slowly as you breath out (from here on known as the out breath)
• Gently squeeze your knees together as you breath in and slowly release back to relaxed on the out breath.
• Continuing to slowly tense on the in breath and release just as slowly on the out breath:-
• Tighten the muscles you are sitting on and release
• Gently push the back of your waist against the chair ?? release
• Push your hands against the desk or your thighs ?..release
• Slowly raise your shoulders up to your ears and SLOWLY lower them down?? and down as far as they will go ? this will probably be lower than you expect.

Read all of this paragraph before acting on it :-

• Now you will need to close your eyes and become aware of the rhythm of the breath again. Mentally count how long it is taking for the in breath and how long for the out breath and then add one to each number. If this is comfortable add another one to each breath.
• Spend a few moments quietly before slowly opening your eyes and rejoining your world.
• Once you are used to this routine you should repeat each move three times working with the breath.