Relaxation Therapy

If you're like most people, you may feel that having relaxation therapy on a regular basis is an expensive self-indulgence. After all it's time just for you. Well, ask yourself this: who will benefit most from you being well-balanced, chilled out and happier with yourself? You alone? Or will it help the people you live and work with as much - maybe even more. So could you do it for their sakes? Sometimes it's just having a non-judgemental person to talk to (the practitioner) that helps you most. So go on, indulge yourself with an occasional, or regular, relaxation therapy session.

Relaxation therapy is any available complementary therapy, although here we will mention a few specifically. The principle is that at times our energy gets out of balance: call it Chi / Ki. Each therapy is not only conducive to relaxation, you are also more together as a person. It's easy to deride yourself that you're intelligent and should pull yourself together, but remember, no one else can do it for you, and you can't do it alone. At the very least, on your own it takes longer and relaxation therapy can give you a different perspective on your current problems.

These use methods of passing your hands over the body:

Reiki healing treatments are very good: you just lie on a treatment couch, fully clothed, and healing and balancing energies are channelled through you from the therapist's hands. We are all a complex combination of many parts, and this healing helps to draw those parts together. It's hard to know how to describe it, but it sort of puts your head straight, and is empowering in a very natural way.

Qigong/Chi Kung: This exercise is also relaxation therapy. It's gentle and yet very active. There are various styles of Qigong available: Hua Gong, Spring Forest Qigong, Stand Still Be Fit, (and that's exercise!). As an exercise style it increases your energy instead of expending it, and it's healing and re-balancing too. "Qigong Energy-Animated DVD's: Praised by Experts" . [Yoga is a similar exercise / healing activity].

The following work the energy points and increase the flow of energy along the body:

Acupuncture – take care to use a properly registered practitioner.
Acupressure – a similar process but without the use of needles.
Ayurvedic/Indian massage (oil-based remedial massage).
Shiatsu and Thai massage are done fully clothed, using pressure points: Jin Shin Jyutsu is similar.
Thought Field Therapy (TFT - Books by Roger Callahan) and Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT - Gary Craig) are great for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder - you tap particular points on your body to ease emotional distress. Pressure point relaxation therapy helps you to feel re-energised and relaxed.

Hypnotherapy: This relaxation therapy starts with deeply relaxing techniques as the essential element. Beyond this, your practitioner can help you deal with fears and phobias, help you to stop smoking, let go of excess weight, improve your sport, and generally tap into your natural creativity. It releases you from the everyday world for a while, allowing change before you come back, feeling very refreshed. A deep hypnotherapy session is worth hours of ordinary sleep. You are helped to reprogram for change. Why not try hypnotherapy CDs?

Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP): This does similar work to hypnotherapy, in that you reprogram with a selection of processes that change your neural connections. Often a form of waking hypnosis, but hypnosis is included anyway.

At Easy Destress, we recommend that you have a routine relaxation therapy treatment, if only by listening to suitable CDs. All kinds of CDs are available at audible.co.uk .