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# 2022-01-22 - The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson | |
# Foreword | |
Three decades ago [1975] it was considered scientific heresy for a | |
Harvard physician and researcher to hypothesize that stress | |
contributes to health problems and to publish studies showing that | |
mental focusing techniques were good for the body. I broke ranks | |
with the medical establishment when I decided to pursue this theory | |
and to prove or disprove it in my medical research. | |
Seeing that we continue to neglect our potential for self-healing is | |
a source of both frustration and motivation for me. My goal has | |
always been to promote a healthy balance between self-care approaches | |
and more traditional approaches. | |
Amazingly, the very room and building in which my colleagues and I | |
studied the Transcendental Meditation devotees was where Walter B. | |
Cannon, the famous Harvard physiologist, had discovered "the | |
fight-or-flight response" 60 years before. Cannon theorized that | |
mammals have a physical ability to react to stress that evolved as a | |
survival mechanism. When faced with stressful situations, our bodies | |
release hormones--adrenaline and noradrenaline, or epinephrine and | |
norepinephrine--to increase heart rate, breathing rate, blood | |
pressure, metabolic rate, and blood flow to the muscles, gearing our | |
bodies to either do battle with an opponent or to flee. | |
Our studies revealed that the opposite was also true. The body is | |
also imbued with what I termed the Relaxation Response--an inducible, | |
physiologic state of quietude. Indeed, our progenitors handed down | |
to us a second, equally essential survival mechanism--the ability to | |
heal and rejuvenate our bodies. | |
... we extracted four essential components that would elicit the | |
Relaxation Response: | |
* A quiet environment. | |
* A mental device--a sound, word, phrase, or prayer repeated | |
silently or aloud, or a fixed gaze at an object. | |
* A passive attitude--not worrying about how well one is performing | |
the technique and simply putting aside distracting thoughts to | |
return to one's focus. | |
* A comfortable position. | |
Later we discovered that only the middle two components--the mental | |
device and the passive attitude--were required. | |
This is the generic technique that I have taught patients and that I | |
have used myself for many years: | |
* Pick a focus word, short phrase, or prayer that is firmly rooted | |
in your belief system. | |
* Sit quietly in a comfortable position. | |
* Close your eyes. | |
* Relax your muscles, progressively from your feet to your calves, | |
thighs, abdomen, shoulders, back, and head. | |
* Breathe slowly and naturally, and as you do, say your focus word, | |
sound, phrase, or prayer silently to yourself as you exhale. | |
* Assume a very passive attitude. Don't worry about how well | |
you're doing. When other thoughts come to mind, simply say to | |
yourself, "Oh well," and gently return to your repetitions. | |
* Continue for 10 to 20 minutes. | |
* Do not stand immediately. Continue sitting quietly for a minute | |
or so, allowing other thoughts to return. Then open your eyes and | |
sit for another minute before rising. | |
* Practice the technique once or twice daily. Good times to do so | |
are before breakfast and before dinner. | |
The argument most frequently used to disregard our findings was the | |
suggestion that the Relaxation Response was nothing more than the | |
re-observation of the prevalent--and I might add, consistently | |
misunderstood--placebo effect. In other words, critics said that the | |
physiologic changes my colleagues and I observed in our clinical | |
patients were self-suggested or "all in the patients' heads." | |
Together with other researchers, I established that the success of | |
the Relaxation Response was not attributable to the placebo effect. | |
The Relaxation Response worked regardless of a patients' belief. | |
When teaching patients to evoke the Relaxation Response, we asked | |
[patients], "Would you prefer a secular or religious approach?" We | |
put patients at ease, allowing them to choose a self-tailored | |
approach. And patients were far more apt to adhere to a regular | |
practice of mental focusing if the approach they selected was | |
meaningful and compelling to them personally. | |
Academic medicine, on the other hand, largely dismissed our findings | |
for the next 15 years. | |
Throughout my career, I resisted being associated with alternative | |
medicine. I did this for several reasons. | |
First, our findings were evidence-based and subjected to the strict | |
standards of Western scientific medicine. I contended that a | |
treatment or technique ceases to be "alternative" once it has | |
survived the battery of scientific proofs and has been published in | |
peer-reviewed medical journals. | |
Second, a major asset of the Relaxation Response... is that they are | |
self-administered. In this way, self-care is revolutionary and quite | |
different from the medicine commonly practiced in both traditional | |
and non-traditional settings. | |
Third, alternative medicine adds costs to traditional medicine while | |
the Relaxation Response and other self-care approaches reduce costs. | |
Research has shown that when mind/body medicine is employed, patients | |
make fewer visits to their doctors at health maintenance | |
organizations. | |
... I from that point on began to teach our patients the "two-step | |
procedure" the monks had practiced. First, you evoke the Relaxation | |
Response and reap its healthful rewards. Then, when your mind is | |
quiet, when focusing has opened a door in your mind, visualize an | |
outcome that is meaningful to you. Whatever your goal, these two | |
steps can be powerful... | |
... other self-care approaches such as exercise, stress management, | |
and nutrition. We learned that with self-care, we can effectively | |
treat any disorder to the extent that it is caused by stress or | |
mind/body interactions. | |
Medicine continues to be a reductionist practice, determined to find | |
specific factors that cause an illness as well as specific pills and | |
procedures that alleviate it. While this approach has great merit, | |
changes do not occur in the body in isolated steps. Rather, many | |
steps take place simultaneously. | |
# Chapter 1 | |
"But the present world is a different one. Grief, calamity, and evil | |
cause inner bitterness... Evil influences strike from early morning | |
until late at night... they injure the mind and reduce its | |
intelligence and they also injure the muscles and the flesh." | |
This chronicler lived 4,600 years ago in China, even though his | |
observations appear contemporary. Human beings have always felt | |
subjected to stress and often seem to look longingly backwards to | |
more peaceful times. Yet with each generation, complexity and | |
additional stress are added to our lives. | |
Humans, like other animals, react in a predictable way to acute and | |
chronic stressful situations, which trigger an inborn response that | |
has been part of our physiologic makeup for perhaps millions of | |
years. When we are faced with situations that require adjustment of | |
our behavior, an involuntary response increases our blood pressure, | |
heart rate, rate of breathing, blood flow to the muscles, and | |
metabolism, preparing us for conflict or escape. | |
But the response is not used as it was intended--that is, to prepare | |
for running or fighting with an enemy. ... When not used | |
appropriately, which is, most of the time, the fight-or-flight | |
response repeatedly elicited may ultimately lead to dire disease of | |
heart attack and stroke. | |
Each of us possesses a natural and innate protective mechanism | |
against "overstress," which allows us to turn off harmful bodily | |
effects... This response against "overstress" brings on bodily | |
changes that decrease heart rate, lower metabolism, decrease the rate | |
of breathing, and bring the body back into what is probably a | |
healthier balance. This is the Relaxation Response. | |
# Chapter 3 | |
Stress has long been the subject of psychological and physiological | |
speculation. Physiological stress has been described as the | |
outpouring of the steroid hormones from the adrenal glands, a theory | |
elaborated upon by Dr. Hans Selye of Montreal, who believes these | |
hormones are vitally important for the survival of an organism and | |
are exquisitely sensitive indices of stress. | |
According to the doctors, change, whether for "good" or "bad," causes | |
stress to a human being, leaving him [or her] more susceptible to | |
disease. | |
Our approach is similar in that we define stress as environmental | |
conditions that require behavioral adjustment. [This must include | |
the internal environment.] | |
Higher blood pressure paralleled the degree of "Westernization" of | |
Fiji Islanders. [The same held true for Puerto Ricans, Zulus, and | |
others.] | |
Reaching a long-sought-after, desirable position, for which you do | |
not feel adequately prepared, can raise blood pressure. | |
The degree of high blood pressure among blacks is not simply genetic | |
but probably is related to the living standards and stress under | |
which black people exist. | |
The concept of a hypertensive personality evolved from retrospective | |
studies [AKA longitudinal cohort studies]. Retrospective studies | |
have repeatedly shown that hypertensive individuals are persons who | |
do not deal with their emotions well or who cannot let out their | |
emotions. | |
The fallacy of this type of reasoning is obvious, because the disease | |
of hypertension itself may influence personality traits. What is | |
needed are "prospective" studies [AKA case-control studies]... No | |
such studies exist. | |
We believe the more often the fight-or-flight response is activated, | |
the more likely it is that you will develop high blood pressure, | |
especially if circumstances do not actually allow you to give battle | |
or flee. We may differ in what is stressful to us individually, | |
depending on our own value systems, but our society poses enough | |
stressful circumstances to affect all of us. | |
The involuntary, or autonomic, nervous system deals with the everyday | |
bodily functions that normally do not come into consciousness, such | |
as the maintenance of heart beat and blood pressure, regular | |
breathing, [and] the digestion of food. When the fight-or-flight | |
response is evoked, it brings into play the sympathetic nervous | |
system, which is part of the autonomic nervous system. The | |
sympathetic nervous system acts by secreting specific hormones: | |
adrenaline or epinephrine and noradrenaline and noradrenaline and | |
norepinephrine. [The fight-or-flight response] is controlled by a | |
part of an area in the brain called the hypothalamus and most, if not | |
all, of the response occurs in a coordinated, simultaneous manner. | |
[The] Relaxation Response [is] an opposite, involuntary response that | |
causes a reduction in the activity of the sympathetic nervous system. | |
Since we cannot easily change the nature of modern life, perhaps | |
better prevention and therapy of hypertension [and other | |
stress-related diseases] might be achieved by actively bringing forth | |
the Relaxation Response. | |
# Chapter 4 | |
Visceral learning, or biofeedback, as it is popularly called, | |
established that man[kind] could control his [or her] involuntary or | |
autonomic nervous system. | |
But centuries before such research, dramatic claims for control of | |
physiologic functions had already come to us from the East. | |
Fortunately, from a scientific standpoint, Transcendental Meditation, | |
developed by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, is a simple Yogic technique | |
carried out under relatively uniform conditions. | |
A great debt is owed Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a guru, who early in his | |
life had studied physics. Following the teachings of his mentor, | |
Shri Guru Deva, he eliminated from Yoga certain elements that he | |
considered to be nonessential. | |
Before beginning the tests, I met with the Maharishi to establish | |
whether he would be willing to cooperate with the new research even | |
if the findings proved to be detrimental to his movement. Convinced | |
that only beneficial results would follow, the Maharishi readily | |
agreed to accept my research findings. | |
The experiments showed that during meditation there was a remarkable | |
decrease in the body's oxygen consumption. The major physiologic | |
change associated with meditation is a decrease in the rate of | |
metabolism. Such a state of decreased metabolism, called | |
hypometabolism, is a restful state. [Body temperature does not drop | |
during meditation, differentiating it from hibernation.] | |
During sleep, oxygen consumption decreases slowly and progressively, | |
until, after 4 or 5 hours, it is about 8 percent lower than during | |
wakefulness. During meditation, however, the decrease averages | |
between 10 and 20 percent and occurs during the first 3 minutes of | |
meditation. It is not possible for a person to bring about such | |
decreases by other means. | |
Another physiologic difference between meditation and sleep has been | |
documented with the electroencephalogram. Alpha waves, slow brain | |
waves, increase in intensity and frequency during the practice of | |
meditation but are not commonly found in sleep. | |
Along with the [beneficial effects of meditation already mentioned], | |
there is a marked decrease in blood lactate, a substance produced by | |
the metabolism of skeletal muscles and of particular interest because | |
of its purported association with anxiety. | |
If increased lactate is instrumental in producing regular attacks of | |
anxiety, the finding of low levels of lactate in meditators is | |
consistent with their reports of significantly more relaxed, less | |
anxious feelings. Blood-lactate levels fall rapidly within the first | |
10 minutes of meditation. | |
Putting aside changes [already mentioned], other measurements | |
supported the concept of meditation as a highly relaxed condition | |
associated with lowered activity in the sympathetic nervous system. | |
In the tests of the volunteer meditators the heart rate decreased at | |
the average of about 3 beats per minute, and respiration rate, or | |
rate of breathing, also slowed. All these physiologic changes in | |
people who were practicing the simply learned technique of | |
Transcendental Meditation were very similar to the feats observed in | |
highly trained experts in Yoga and Zen with 15 to 20 years of | |
concentrated experience in meditation. | |
As the experiments progressed over several years, the concept | |
developed that the various physiologic changes that accompanied | |
Transcendental Meditation were part of an integrated response | |
opposite to the fight-or-flight response and that they were in no way | |
unique to Transcendental Meditation. | |
The trophotropic response described by [Dr. Walter R. Hess] in cats | |
is, we believe, the Relaxation Response in man[kind]. | |
Autogenic Training is a technique of medical therapy based on six | |
mental exercises devised by Dr. H.H. Schultz, a German neurologist. | |
Progressive Relaxation emphasized the relaxation of voluntary | |
skeletal muscles... [Sounds somewhat similar to TRE. See also: | |
TRE | |
] | |
Hypnosis may be defined as an altered state of consciousness which is | |
artificially induced and characterized by increased receptiveness to | |
suggestions. When deep relaxation is the suggested state to be | |
achieved by hypnosis, the physiologic changes of the Relaxation | |
Response may be evoked. | |
Sentic Cycles, devices by Dr. Manfred Clynes, a psychophysiological | |
researcher, demonstrates the close relation between emotional states | |
and predictable physiologic changes. A Sentic "Cycle" is composed of | |
eight "sentic states," or self-induced emotional experiences. | |
Changes consistent with the elicitation of the Relaxation Response | |
have been noted during the imagined emotional experiences of | |
reverence, love, and grief. | |
# Chapter 5 | |
The physiologic changes of the Relaxation Response we associated with | |
what has been called an altered state of consciousness. When we | |
speak of consciousness we should think of a continuum extending from | |
relatively deep unconsciousness at one end to an extraordinary | |
sensitivity at the other. The continuum passes from coma to sleep to | |
drowsiness, to alertness, to hyperalertness. In this continuum, one | |
of the levels of consciousness, we believe, is associated with the | |
Relaxation Response. It is an ALTERED state simply because we do not | |
commonly experience it, and because it usually does not occur | |
spontaneously; it must be consciously and purposefully evoked. | |
A way to achieve this altered state of consciousness with the | |
Relaxation Response is through the practice of what has been called | |
meditation... | |
As William Hayce aptly states: "To find religion is only one out of | |
many ways of reaching unity; and the process of remedying inner | |
incompleteness and reducing inner discord is a general psychological | |
process." | |
However, the term mysticism was not a common term until medieval | |
times. Rather the subject of these writings was contemplation... | |
# Chapter 6 | |
[Regarding the study of people who began with high blood pressure and | |
were taught Transcendental Meditation:] We observed, moreover, that | |
the decreases in blood pressure occurred during periods of the day | |
unrelated to the meditation. As long as the subjects continued to | |
meditate regularly for two brief periods a day, their blood pressures | |
stayed measurably lower. But the meditation had not cured them. The | |
subjects' lower blood pressure readings lasted only as long as they | |
practiced the Relaxation Response regularly. When... test | |
subjects... chose to stop the regular practice of Transcendental | |
Meditation, their blood pressures returned to their initial | |
hypertensive levels within four weeks. | |
By far the most appealing use of the Relaxation Response in relation | |
to hypertension lies in its preventative aspects. | |
These figures indicate that over 40 percent discontinued their use of | |
drugs after the intervention of Transcendental Meditation. After | |
twenty-one months of regular practice, only 12 percent continued to | |
use marijuana, a decrease of 66 percent. | |
# Chapter 7 | |
## How to Bring Forth the Relaxation Response | |
1) A Quiet Environment | |
Ideally, you should choose a quiet, calm environment with as few | |
distractions as possible. A quiet room is suitable, as is a place of | |
worship. The quiet environment contributes to the effectiveness of | |
the repeated word or phrase by making it easier to eliminate | |
distracting thoughts. | |
2) A Mental Device | |
To shift the mind form logical, externally oriented thought, there | |
should be a consistent stimulus: a sound, word, or phrase repeated | |
silently or aloud; or fixed gazing at an object. Since one of the | |
major difficulties in elicitation of the Relaxation Response is "mind | |
wandering," the repetition of the word or phrase is a way to help | |
break the train of distracting thoughts. Your eyes are usually | |
closed if you are using a repeated sound or word; of course, your | |
eyes are open if you are gazing. Attention to the normal rhythm of | |
breathing is also useful and enhances the repetition of the sound or | |
the word. | |
3) A Passive Attitude | |
When distracting thoughts occur, they are to be disregarded and | |
attention redirected to the repetition or gazing; you should not | |
worry about how well you are performing the technique, because this | |
may well prevent the Relaxation Response form occurring. Adopt a | |
"let it happen" attitude. The passive attitude is perhaps the most | |
important element in eliciting the Relaxation Response. Distracting | |
thoughts will occur. Do not worry about them. When these thoughts | |
do present themselves and you become aware of them, simply return to | |
the repetition of the mental device. These other thoughts do not | |
mean you are performing the technique incorrectly. They are to be | |
expected. | |
4) A Comfortable Position | |
A comfortable position is important so that there is no undue | |
muscular tension. Some methods call for a sitting position. A few | |
practitioners use the cross-legged "lotus" position of the Yogi. If | |
you are lying down, there is a tendency to fall asleep. As we have | |
noted previously, the various postures of kneeling, swaying, or | |
sitting in a cross-legged position are believed to have evolved to | |
prevent falling asleep. You should be comfortable and relaxed. | |
The subjective feelings that accompany the elicitation of the | |
Relaxation Response vary among individuals. The majority of people | |
feel a sense of calm and feel very relaxed. ... Still others have | |
noted relatively little change on a subjective level. Regardless of | |
the subjective feelings described by our subjects, we have found that | |
the physiologic changes, such as decreased oxygen consumption, are | |
taking place. | |
From our personal observations, many people who meditate for several | |
hours every day for weeks at a time tend to hallucinate. [Which | |
apparently does not contribute to the Relaxation Response.] | |
# Chapter 8 | |
We need the Relaxation Response even more today because our world is | |
changing at an ever-increasing pace. Is it unreasonable to | |
incorporate this inborn capacity into our daily lives by having a | |
"Relaxation Response break" instead of a coffee break? | |
author: Benson, Herbert, 1935- | |
detail: gopher://gopherpedia.com/0/The_Relaxation_Response | |
LOC: RA785 .B48 | |
tags: book,health,meditation,non-fiction,science | |
title: The Relaxation Response | |
# Tags | |
book | |
health | |
meditation | |
non-fiction | |
science |