The power of the Relaxation Response: A New Year's Resolution to relax into

Feel Better Every Day

As we embark on a new year, many of us are seeking ways to improve our wellbeing and reduce stress in our lives. One powerful tool that has stood the test of time is the Relaxation Response, a concept developed by Dr Herbert Benson, a Harvard cardiologist and pioneer in mind-body medicine.

The Relaxation Response is a physical state of deep rest that counteracts the Stress Response that may well feel more familiar in our bodies in these go go go 24/7 times we live in.

The Relaxation Response is a natural antidote to the Fight Flight response, which can be triggered all too often in our busy modern lives. Dr Benson's groundbreaking work, published in his 1975 book The Relaxation Response, remains relevant and potentially life-changing even today.

Why the Relaxation Response matters

With up to 90% of doctor's visits attributed to stress-related issues, it's clear that managing stress is crucial for our overall health. Stress can exacerbate chronic conditions, intensify pain, and contribute to a host of physical and mental health problems. By regularly practising the Relaxation Response, we can mitigate some of these effects and promote healing in our bodies.

How to elicit the Relaxation Response

The beauty of the relaxation response is its simplicity and accessibility. You don't need any special equipment or beliefs to benefit from it. Here's a basic method to get started:

1. Choose a quality you'd like more of in your life (e.g., calm, peace, joy – check out last week’s episode (38) Your Vibe for 2025 to help you choose).

2. Find a comfortable position where you feel supported.

3. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.

4. As you breathe in, imagine drawing in the quality you've chosen.

5. As you breathe out, imagine spreading that quality throughout your body.

6. Continue this practice for at least three minutes.

Consciously incorporate more rest into your routine

As we start the new year, it's an excellent time to prioritise rest and relaxation in our daily lives. This might mean scheduling regular breaks, practising yoga nidra, or simply giving ourselves permission to do less and be more.

Remember, your to-do list will never be completely finished. Life is inherently messy and busy. By making space for rest and relaxation, we're not falling behind – we're actually setting ourselves up for greater productivity, creativity, and overall wellbeing.

A different approach to New Year, New You

Instead of pushing ourselves to do more this year, why not challenge ourselves to rest more deeply? By consciously activating the Relaxation Response regularly, we can improve our physical health, mental clarity, and emotional balance.

Whether you choose to practise formal meditation, engage in repetitive activities like knitting or running, or simply take a few minutes each day to breathe mindfully, you're giving your body and mind a precious gift.

As we step into 2025, you might make a commitment to yourself to prioritise rest, play, and relaxation. By doing so, we're not just improving our own lives – we're contributing to a calmer, more peaceful world.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year! One that will include deep rest, joyful play, and the transformative power of the Relaxation Response.

Want to explore the Relaxation Response and rest more?

Half Moon (free subscribers) and Full Moon and Super Moon (paid subscribers) members of the Sole to Soul Circle will be getting your bonus content tomorrow. JOIN US

le grá,

Evei

TRANSCRIPT

It's not all bad. I mean, stress can be a wonderful thing. We live in exciting times

as well as challenging times, but we want to allow the nervous system to have

that flexibility and it helps us to have that overall flexibility by really

doing the things that calm the nervous system. And this is one gorgeous, gorgeous

way.

Hi,

I'm Eve Menezes Cunningham and welcome to the Feel Better Every Day

Podcast, Season 2. I am so excited to be sharing new trauma informed and ADHD

friendly ideas for you to help you take better care of yourself. That highest,

wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of

yourself, as well as the basic self-care which we all know can be so

challenging at times.

I really appreciate you tuning in. If you want a deeper dive, you'll be getting

bonus content each week if you sign up as a free or paid subscriber to the Sole

to Soul Circle. You can do that for free or from as little as €8.00 a

month.

And you can also find more ideas in the book 365 Ways to Feel Better Self-care

Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing.

Happy New Year. Welcome to Episode 38 (oops - 39) of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. I can't believe it's 39 and we're in Season 2 now and we're going weekly.

I hope that you're enjoying them and that also if you're a free subscriber or

paid subscriber, that's Half Moon member or Full Moon or Super Moon member of

the Sole to Soul Circle, that you're enjoying the deeper dive videos as well.

But there's something for everyone, and you don't need any of this to just listen

to your own body, listen to your own soul, listen to your own heart, listen to

your own thoughts, and just ask yourself in any given moment, ‘What do I need

right now? How might I rest, reboot, relax?’

And that being said, I hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, welcoming 2025, wishing you a wondrous New Year and also a ‘new year, new you’ in a very different way. So we're working still with 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and for today's episode

we're going into more depth around the Relaxation Response.

Developed by Dr Herbert Benson, and he, well

it was discovered by Dr Herbert Benson, he was a Harvard cardiologist working

out of the same lab as Dr Walter B Cannon who, decades earlier, had discovered

the Stress Response and fight, flight (later freeze was acknowledged and tend

and befriend and there are different responses to stress).

Dr Herbert Benson wrote a gorgeous book

published in 1975, the year I was born, and it's still radical now, I'm nearly

50. And this is the kind of thing more people need to know about because up to

90% of doctors visits are due to stress.

It's not that it's all in your head but it is

all in our bodies. So much stress then exacerbates whatever chronic conditions

you might have, whatever like pain spots or like you might get migraines, you

might get backache, whatever it might be, it's going to be made worse when

you're tight, when you're tense, when you're under stress.

Dr Herbert Benson was a cardiologist at

Harvard and he went on to create so much around, he was a mind-body medicine

pioneer, lecturing around the world into his 90s and he was studying meditating

monks and also meditating lay people in America.

They were so excited about what they were

experiencing when they were meditating, they wanted him to test what was

happening with their hearts. Because he was at Harvard in the 60s and 70s he

was kind of like, ‘Go away, stop it, you're embarrassing me,’ so he actually

snuck them in at night.

It's such a gorgeous book, The Relaxation

Response, if you want to read it. And he realised that yes, they were really

onto something. I'm going to demonstrate something a bit unusual about one way

to access this with even greater ease for the Full Moon and Super Moon members

of the Sole to Soul Circle, so if you would like to subscribe or upgrade, you

can do that at selfcarecoaching.net or at evemc.substack.com and you can do

this anytime, anywhere.

The more comfortable you are, the more held

you feel by the planet, by the furniture, by whatever, the more deeply you'll

be able to relax.

He discovered that it took three minutes or

longer to go into what he terms the Relaxation Response, but in this state of

rest, which is a wonderful way to start 2025, and to build deeper rest into

every day for yourself.

We do too much, we try to do too much, we then

beat ourselves up for not getting it all done and it will never all be done.

I'm so looking forward to sharing the Getting Organised episode with you in a

few weeks and my interviews with Lisa Woodruff, who just is an inspiration and

much of that is her reminder that your to-do list will never be done.

While we're alive, life is messy, so it's

really important to schedule in rest, to schedule in space. I changed my life I

think a year and a half ago when I started doing a daily yoga nidra and then

nearly a year ago I started making time on the advice of my acupuncturist to do

a longer yoga nidra every lunchtime. And I still find it challenging. I think I

have to do do-do-do-do-do but I am in that practice. It's an extension of my

yoga practice and sometimes it's more challenging than getting onto the mat and

doing a physical practice because doing is more comfortable than receiving and

just allowing.

So yoga nidra, there's more in the book on

that, there are free resources on the website, there are loads of bespoke

unique resources for the Full Moon and Super Moon members but you can access

loads of free ones at selfcarecoaching.net or through my YouTube channel.

But the point is even that is a meditation in

terms of you doing your best to stay alert and aware and harnessing that state

between sleep and wakefulness. We're going through a lot of different types of

brainwave activity, it's all wonderful but by allowing yourself freestyle rest

you're going to have more fun, you're going to have more time to play, to do

the things you want to do. And the Relaxation Response: it’s a practice, it’s a

meditation and it can be done in as little as three minutes.

So choose a quality you'd like more of in your

life. And while Herbert Benson recognised through his research that people

around the world throughout human history have been naturally entering what he

terms the Relaxation Response as an antidote to the stress response throughout

human history, it was just something when we felt at ease enough, the heart

rate, everything would soften, everything would relax and deep deep healing can

occur under these conditions.

He found a secular way to get the benefits so

you don't have to be praying or meditating, you don't have to believe in

anything, you can simply identify a quality you would like more of and breathe

that quality in and breathe that quality out.

By doing it for three minutes or longer,

you're helping then to activate the parasympathetic branch of the nervous

system, that Rest Digest response. You're helping it all flow more easily,

coming down from the sympathetic activity that's not ALL bad.

I mean stress can be a wonderful thing. We

live in exciting times as well as challenging times but we want to allow the

nervous system to have that flexibility and it helps us to have that overall

flexibility by really doing the things that calm the nervous system and this is

one gorgeous gorgeous way.

I'm looking forward to sharing a yoga pose

that can help you get into it more deeply in the Full Moon members’ deeper dive

video and I'll be talking a bit more about it in the video for Half Moon members

(free subscribers). You can become a Half Moon, Full Moon or Super Moon member

of the Sole to Soul Circle at evemc.substack.com but you don't NEED to do any

of that to give yourself permission to start 2025 differently.

Prioritise that reboot for yourself,

prioritise rest, prioritise play, prioritise fun, give yourself that

spaciousness. If the holiday period has been relaxing and enjoyable and you

want to bring more of that into the new year, brilliant. If it's been hectic

and chaotic and you're looking forward to getting back to work in a bit of

peace, whatever it is you want, give yourself permission to make space for it.

Let me know how you get on, thank you for

listening, watching, liking, subscribing, rating, reviewing, commenting, ask

whatever questions you want and I look forward to sharing more next week. Happy

New Year!

Thank you for listening to the Feel Better Every Day Podcast. If you haven't already

and would like to. I really appreciate your sharing umm, whether it's one with

one person who you think would benefit or on your social media.

If you haven't already subscribed, that will help you if you want to be less

likely to miss future episodes. But they're coming out every Tuesday now so you

can dip in and out as you like. They're available via your favourite podcasting

apps and on YouTube and there are links in my social media. Next week, we're

building on last week's theme around your vibe for 2025 and by doing a deeper

exploration of intentions.

And today, New Year's Eve, is a wonderful day to really think about what you're

ready to let go of, what you're ready to welcome. And I hope that you'll give

yourself some time and space tomorrow, New Year's Day, if you're listening to

this, the day it comes out. To give yourself a taste of all you want to welcome

into 2025 and whatever day of the year you're listening to this on, whatever

year you're listening to this in.

I hope that you will also give yourself some time each day to give yourself a

taste of what matters to you, what you want to prioritise, and be that bit more

intentional about making time for rest because you deserve to recharge.