Do You Really Know How to Relax?

By Diep Duong Nhi (Durga Devi)

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When talking about relaxation, people might think about lying down on the sofa watching Netflix, playing video games, scrolling over and over through social media, or hanging out with friends. However, most of us misunderstand the difference between relaxation and entertainment.

Just as hot engines need to be cooled down when they overheat, our body and mind’s efficiency is decreased when they are overworked. Learning how to save and conserve energy that our body produces on a daily basis is the key to learning how to relax.

Unfortunately, the majority of people today often exhaust all the energy the body produces for the day, often early on in the day. The growth of categories such as coffee, energy drinks has been proven for this point. Below are the main sources of energy wastage:

• “More of our energy is spent in keeping our muscles in continual readiness for work than in actually useful work done.” – Swami Vishnu Devananda. Try to observe your body when driving every morning to work. Most of the time we tense the whole body, our shoulders, our neck, and our Mind think about what is going to happen. We’re actually turning our defense mechanism on while we should only use some particular muscles for the driving action instead. An enormous amount of energy is wasted on unnecessary muscular tension while performing a simple act.

• Even during entertainment, we think we are relaxing but actually most of the time we aren’t. Let’s imagine we’re watching Netflix – a movie, a TV show, a documentary – these shows require high engagement. Most of the time we’re nervous, excited, scared,…following the flow of the show or characters. During these times, we’re spending a lot of energy via physical and mental tension.

• It happens during sleep too, we unconsciously forget to release all the muscles, resulting in a lot of energy being used during sleep without being aware of it, that’s why there are many people who have slept so many hours but still feel tired in the morning.

• Another way of spending energy without muscular movement is via emotions. Anger, worries, anxiety burn our energy quickly than anything else. As Swami Vishnu Devananda also explains: “A few minutes of anger can cost more energy than a day of physical labor.” If we observe a person in anger, his face turns red, his heart beats much faster than usual, his breath shortens, and all his muscles are tense like being ready to beat someone. His Mind runs like an ocean with big waves in a heavy storm day…all his energy has been burned out in a few minutes.

So what is proper relaxation? And how to do it?

According to ancient wisdom, proper relaxation requires 3 layers of relaxation: physical, mental, and spiritual. And Savasana pose – also known as corpse pose or dead pose – is referred to as proper relaxation. Relaxation can be done in any act, not only in a relaxed time.

1. Relaxing while you’re working

   • It sounds like they could not go together. But actually, learning how to do it helps you perform the work better and save a lot of energy. This concept is similar to when you do a posture in yoga class and hear the instructor say “relax in the posture”. This means we only tense some particular muscles which are involved to perform the posture, and relaxing all other muscles and your Mind have to be relaxed as well. At that time, you can go deeper into the posture and get the full benefits of it.

   • How to apply:

     • Try to observe carefully all actions daily, and only use or tense the muscles needed to create that muscular movement such as: when you’re driving, you don’t need to tense your shoulders, your neck, and your Mind, try to be relaxed. This can be explained why the experienced drivers can drive the whole day long and are not tired at all while the new driver can be exhausted after only 15 or 20 minutes. It sounds simple but not really easy to practice. You need to be fully aware of all acts we perform every single day.

     • Importantly, be aware of your emotions, especially negative ones such as anger, worries, anxiety,… these are the fastest way to bring you into energetic debt.

Proper relaxation during relax time:

• Classical yoga defines a perfect relaxation as practically no prana or vital energy is used during relaxation. Savasana or known as corpse pose is referred to as relaxation asana which includes these 3 above methods during practice: physical, mental, and spiritual. It is a simple-sounding pose that everybody can easily perform but actually it is the most difficult one to master.

  • Physical relaxation: During this pose, we practice eliminating tension from the body by auto-suggesting each particular part of the body relaxes starting from toes to head to internal organs.

  • Mental relaxation: “The constant tension put on the Mind owning unnecessary worries and anxieties takes away more energy than physical tension.” – Swami Vishnudevananda. During mental relaxation, we should breathe slowly, deeply, and concentrate on breathing. The mind will become calm and relaxed. You feel peace and joy, you can feel like you’re floating or are as light as a feather.

  • Spiritual relaxation: the majority are difficult to achieve mental relaxation. The only way to attain it is to withdraw ourselves completely from the body, the Mind or ego-consciousness, and identify ourselves with the true happiness, peace, bliss from the pure consciousness within ourselves. In other words, we identify with the Self or the Soul where are the source of all power, knowledge, peace, happiness, and strength.

• The detailed instruction into Savasana pose can be found here – Yogic relaxation: https://nhiownstateofmind.wordpress.com/…/3-evening…/

Conclusion: Economizing the energy we use is the main purpose of learning how to relax. It includes:

• Relaxing while working:

  • Release all muscles which are not involved in the action and release tension from the Mind while performing any working.

  • Be aware of negative emotions. This is the fastest source of burning our energy

• Proper relaxation:

  • Don’t misunderstand between relaxation and entertainment.

  • Ideal relaxation is practically no prana has been used.

  • Attain a perfect relaxation via 3 methods: physical, mental, and spiritual of Savasana pose.

A proper relaxation keeps the body and mind in good condition and high productivity and rejuvenates every single day.