Tag Archives: muscle tension

The secret to relaxation (aka de-stressing) is probably not what you think

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My friend Duff McDuffee is a long-time hypnotherapist and coach in Boulder. I’m on his mailing list, and he recently shared an excerpt from his upcoming book, The Joy of Doing: Redesigning Work to Work for Everyone.

I loved the email I got from him this week so much that I asked him if I could share it here, and he graciously said yes.

In my bodywork practice, TMJ clients fill out an intake online when they schedule online. I ask them how they know they are stressed, how they reduce stress, and if they have a regular stress-reduction practice.

I ask about this because stress is highly correlated to tense jaw muscles, and I want my clients to be more aware of this.

Stress causes a lot of suffering, and not everyone gets the connection.

We can be quite stressed — even chronically —yet unaware of it. After I decided years ago to find out how relaxed I could get while awake and not using substances, after meditating daily for a while, my body began to feel different. I literally felt like I had softened and even expanded beyond my skin!

I realized that I had been feeling muscle tension from being guarded after a serious childhood trauma.

It was time to let go of that and enjoy my life. Being relaxed feels happier.

It’s not what you do to relax, it’s how you feel.

The title of Duff’s email, “Doing things in a relaxed way”, says it all. Many of us don’t know the difference between resting and relaxing.

I’ll let Duff explain. (Read it here or on his website).

Doing things in a relaxed way

Edmund Jacobson was an American doctor in the early 20th century.

And he was the man who practically invented “relaxation.”

Too Tense

Jacobson noticed that many of his patients had mysterious ailments.

They complained of symptoms such as insomnia, headache, fatigue, and indigestion.

Often they had high blood pressure, appeared nervous, or had angry outbursts.

But besides these symptoms, they seemed perfectly healthy.

Using a microvoltage machine, Jacobson measured the muscle tonus of these patients.

He discovered that they had more tension in their muscles, even just sitting there.

They were literally “tense.”

As a result, he called these conditions “tension disorders.”

In his poorly titled book for the public You Must Relax, Jacobson wrote,

“In non-medical terms the cause of tension disorder is excessive effort.”

Teaching Relaxation

To treat these tension disorders, Dr. Jacobson spent an hour each week with a patient, teaching them to deliberately relax their muscles.

Before Jacobson, doctors often prescribed “rest.”

But he noticed that rest was different than muscular relaxation.

For rest people often did stimulating activities that increased tension in the muscles and nervous system.

So relaxation was quite different than rest.

To teach his patients to relax, Jacobson first had them sit in a chair.

He instructed his patient to bend their right hand upwards at the wrist, noticing the feeling of tensing the forearm extensor muscles.

Then he had them relax this muscle, causing their hand to drop.

Feeling into the top of the forearm, he guided them to continue to relax more and more, feeling that muscle becoming more and more loose and limp.

He then repeated this exercise with the left hand.

And so on, for all the muscles.

Relaxing Progressively

Over many months, Dr. Jacobson slowly guided them through progressively relaxing every muscle in their body.

Hence the name of his technique, “Progressive Relaxation.”

He also gave his patients a homework assignment:

Every day, lie down for an hour in the morning and an hour at night.

For that hour, practice deeply relaxing all your muscles, one by one.

As Jacobson’s patients learned to relax their muscular system, they also relaxed their nervous system.

Then their mysterious symptoms often went away.

This was because their affliction was not caused by a bacteria, virus, or injury.

Their suffering was created by a chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system, the “fight-or-flight response.”

Since muscles are controlled by the neuro-muscular system, relaxing the muscles relaxed the nerves.

And relaxed nerves lead to a relaxed body and mind.

Bringing Relaxation into Action

After mastering relaxation lying down, Jacobson advised his patients to practice relaxing while sitting upright.

Once they got the hang of that, he suggested trying to do simple tasks, such as reading the newspaper, while remaining totally relaxed.

The idea was to gradually extend this deep relaxation into more and more challenging activities, until they could ultimately bring it into work.

A stressful job was typically why a patient ended up in Dr. Jacobson’s office in the first place.

So he was helping people retrain their nervous systems to no longer get stressed while working.

He was linking up a profound state of relaxation with doing things that used to activate the nervous system.

Not Just for Hypnosis

Many hypnotists today use Progressive Muscle Relaxation as a way to induce a relaxed trance state.

So it’s still a valuable technique.

That said, we’ve mostly forgotten Jacobson’s original intention for his method.

The idea was to bring relaxation into activity.

Most people who do Progressive Muscle Relaxation spend five or ten minutes relaxing their muscles as a break.

This brings some minor relief.

But few people take the time to truly master relaxation, let alone learn to do difficult things in a relaxed way.

That’s a very different intention for the practice.

And it’s a way of doing things that could change your whole life.

Jacobson himself lived to 94 years old.

So maybe there’s something to this relaxation thing.

Have a relaxed week,

~Duff

Here’s a link to Duff’s Extreme Relaxation 16-minute hypnosis audio (51,000+ views on YouTube): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIYhV7g_Q4Y

Get all the versions here (includes the 16-minute version, a 30-minute version, a sleep version that doesn’t take you out of the trance, and a delta wave binaural beats version — wear headphones) for as little as $2: https://boulderhypnosisworks.gumroad.com/l/extreme-relaxation

For more about Duff and all of his offerings, check out https://boulderhypnosisworks.com.

Jaw issues? Now you can learn to treat yourself!

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I am now offering Self-Treatment for TMJ Issues on Zoom!

Most people with TMJ issues (1) don’t live near a skilled intra-oral manual therapist who can help, (2) are frustrated by TMJ treatments that don’t last, and (3) would love to learn how to treat themselves, any time, any place, for nothing but the initial cost of learning! 

Teach a man (or woman) to fish, right?

It’s not hard. If you are willing to get your fingers wet and can tell the difference between soft tissue and hard when you apply gentle pressure, I can teach you to release tension in your often-overworked internal jaw muscles that cause so many TMJ issues.

The most common reason these muscles become overworked is clenching and/or grinding your teeth. These are habitual, usually unconscious, responses to stress that create strain patterns in your body that affect your TMJs.

I can teach you how to change these habits.

First, we’ll learn about your TMJ issues — your symptoms, history, habits, and co-factors. 

Next, we’ll do some exercises to help you relax and loosen up. 

And then, we’ll slowly and gently locate your internal jaw muscles and coax the tension out of them, at your pace and comfort level. You’ll need short nails, clean hands, and tissues for this.

One of the great benefits of working on yourself is that you are in control of the pace and pressure, like this curious baby.

And then you’ll test by moving your jaw around so you can actually feel the difference between tension and relaxation.

The new spaciousness might just be a revelation.

You’ll have all the skills you need to make your relaxed jaw the new default.

I record the working part of the Zoom session and send you the video afterwards, so you’ll have it to watch the first few times you work on yourself by yourself. It takes some repetition to change this pattern and the habits.

You can also schedule a free phone consultation if you have any questions afterwards. Or, schedule one if you have questions up front…this treatment may not be of much help for those with advanced TMJ issues, but it can help prevent them.

You’ll have the support you need to treat yourself with confidence. 

More about me, besides being the writer of all these blog posts for all these years: I am a bodyworker, board certified in therapeutic massage and bodywork. I’ve been doing this for 10 years.

I’ve been working in people’s mouths since 2013, have studied intra-oral manual therapy with several teachers, and have taught self-treatment for TMJ issues on Zoom in both private sessions and classes. 

Imagine what your life would be like without jaw pain, clenching, or grinding. Would it free you up for more of what you enjoy? 

Click here to schedule your 75-minute Self-Treatment for TMJ Issues on Zoom Session for $150. 

New Self-Care for Jaw Pain course starts in February

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I am a bodyworker, and one of my specialties is TMJ Relief. I help relieve jaw pain due to muscle tension. I’ve been doing this since 2013.

It has not been safe to work in people’s open mouths since March. I’m a one-woman practice without the resources of a dental office to acquire state-of-the-art air cleaners and make a large investment in PPE.

Meanwhile, the need for relief is even greater due to the stresses of COVID and the economy, working unergonomically from home, and poor sleep. People are clenching and grinding and damaging their teeth more than they did before COVID.

So…not wanting my skills to go to waste, knowing I could relieve some of the suffering, I spent the summer developing a Zoom course for people who would like to learn how to relieve their own jaw pain, offering it for the first time in the fall.

I’m offering it again in February 2020. There are 4 classes a week apart in the course. You will learn to replace the clenching habit with Relaxed Resting Mouth Position — you can accomplish this during the 4 weeks of the course with some helpful hints and daily mindfulness.

You will learn the quickest stress reduction technique available, documented by a neurobiology lab.

You will get helpful information and direction about stopping a night-time grinding habit. It’s more involved than daytime clenching and usually takes longer to eliminate, yet people have done it so we’ll model them.

You’ll learn how to work on yourself, releasing tension in both your external and internal jaw muscles.

You can learn more and sign up on my website. You can also join my email list for future announcements, join my Facebook group Word of Mouth for people seeking solutions for jaw issues, take a jaw pain quiz, schedule a free 15-minute phone consultation or a 30-minute Zoom consultation.

The class starts February 4, and the size is limited, so if this interests you, please sign up early to ensure you get in.

Not everyone has jaw pain, but nearly everyone knows someone who does suffer from it. I would be much obliged if you would share this post if you know someone who’s suffering who would at least want to know about this offering.

Another reader shares his experience with the trauma releasing exercises

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Several readers have shared their experiences of doing the trauma releasing exercises of David Berceli here on this blog. Here’s a new report. David writes:

I ordered the video and it arrived yesterday. I tried the exercises for a second time today. I did the preparatory stretches and then did the wall position. Leaning against the wall I just tried to get deeper into my breathing, but for the longest time very little happened. I was having little tremors, but they still felt half-way forced.

Then gradually, after about seven minutes, some real trembling and shaking started. The more relaxed I became the more pronounced they were. I had no control over them at all. I almost felt like shouting down to my wife to come upstairs and see what was happening, because it was so strange. Just overall, rapid involuntary tremors in my legs, through my pelvis and along my torso. They went on and on for at least ten minutes.

Then I tried the lying position and it was less successful. Still, I’m grateful I tried and I’ll keep doing them.

Thank you, David, for writing.

Doing the exercises can generate the release of muscle tension in the form of shaking and trembling, but it doesn’t happen automatically.

It’s great that David kept at it. Tried the exercises a second time and continued to be willing for the trembling and shaking to start after having little “half-way forced” tremors.

There is a step in inducing tremors for the first time that no one can instruct you how to do. Between doing the exercises and involuntarily shaking and trembling, there’s a step that I think of as surrendering. It is a skill, but it’s a skill of “not doing” rather than doing. You have to be able to let go of your need to control your body.

That can be scary, but it can be done.

For some people, surrendering is easy and natural. For others, especially people who have been traumatized and who are carrying tension in their bodies, it isn’t easy or natural at all.

If you are one of these people, I urge you not to give up. Just keep at it and eventually you will surrender and shake.