Why Relax?

We know when we feel it.

We definitely know when we’re far away from it.

Industries across the globe and throughout human history have tirelessly worked to help us achieve it.

Relaxation.

But what is relaxation? And why is it important for bigger and deeper reasons than most of us acknowledge?

“Relaxation” is the process of engaging the body’s “relaxation response”, the opposite of our “stress response” which is often called “fight or flight”. 

This response is characterized by slower breathing, lower blood pressure, reduced heart rate and many other physical responses that essentially cue your body to settle down.

Stress gets a pretty bad reputation, but it’s a highly adaptive response researchers believe that humans have built and passed on over our history as a species. When we’re stressed, our heart rates quicken, blood rushes to our muscles and our bodies prepare to act. You are alive because your ancestors responded to threats in their environments and faced their challenges head on, aided by our body’s stress response. 

In its short-lived state, stress pushes you to act, increases your alertness and primes you to handle life’s challenges. Challenges are how you grow, learn and adapt. 

Problems arise when the stress becomes chronic. 

This is why it’s important to make time for and if necessary, learn the techniques to engage our relaxation response after a period of stress. 

Relaxation is a powerful antidote to the cumulative effects of stress, the wear and tear we weather as we move through life. The relaxation response actually changes how your body and mind function.

  • Mentally: Improved focus, memory, and thinking. Since cognitive problems like rumination (often called “overthinking”-- the process when you replay negative scenarios in your mind in a loop that worsen your mood or even immobilize you) often interrupt sleep, the mental improvements also have the potential to improve your sleep quality 

  • Emotionally: Improved sense of well-being and mood, less easily riled up and triggered by things going on around you

  • Physically: reduced muscle tension, headaches, migraines, and chronic pain. As mentioned above, better ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. If you’re familiar with fundamental principles of exercise, you know rest is essential to muscle growth. If you want more strength and energy, it’s obvious that you have to work for it. Less obvious is that you have to rest for it too.

  • Relationally: Who isn’t a better friend, spouse, boss, employee, sibling anything when you’re calm versus stressed? You’re more likely to be in a good mood, to laugh, to respond, to listen, to be present. Everyone experiences stress and there are periods when life just gets the best of us. But it’s easiest to be in the company of someone who is often relaxed versus volatile. In a way I’m sure you have felt throughout your life, and is supported by research, emotions are contagious. How you feel and how you make others feel matters in relationships.

  • Professionally: If you’re interested in leadership or c-suite positions in the future, relaxation is a skill you’ll want to master. “Executive presence” is defined by the Harvard Business Review as projecting both warmth and competence. It’s a key aspect of being respected and admired in often pressure-filled positions where you need to build relationships and trust with many people. Not everyone aspires to lead or manage, but if you do, learning to be present, unruffled even in the face of stress and adversity is a key skill to hone.

Interestingly, there is some recent research that suggests how we think about stress can affect the damage stress does to our bodies. A key aspect of minimizing stress is paradoxically found in embracing it.

Stanford psychology Assistant Professor Alia Crum argues that her research demonstrates that changing your attitude and embracing stress can actually be good for your mind and body. 

Finding meaning in life stressors, accepting the inevitability of stressful situations in a well-lived life, and believing that you can eventually cope and move on from stressors can actually negate stress’s more negative impacts on us as well.

So it sounds like our best course of action isn’t to avoid stress, but acknowledge its inevitability and even helpful presence in tackling our pursuits. 

It’s key to honor our need for regular, true, and deep rest to effectively rejuvenate the greatest tool we have and the only thing we really own in this life: ourselves.

"Relaxation 1." ACI Health, n.d., https://aci.health.nsw.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0020/212861/Relaxation_1.pdf.