Annotation Describes the therapist behaviors necessary for the effective application of progressive relaxation training.

Offers comprehensive guidance for practitioners, students, and researchers in psychology, psychiatry, and counseling to teach relaxation to clients. Two clinical psychologists widely known for their writings on relaxation present state-of-the-art methods for teaching clients to ease muscle and mind tension to deal with stress and anxiety disorders, as well as other conditions where stress and anxiety play a role. Bernstein and Hazlett-Stevens explain who the targets for Progressive Relaxation Training (PRT) are; the rationale, basic procedures, and variations of PRT; the setting and possible problems and solutions of PRT; and how to assess a client's progress. They also address hypnosis, drugs, and PRT, as well as PRT used in a mindfulness-based clinical practice. Case studies and evaluative research in PRT are also included. Students and practitioners in psychology, psychiatry, and counseling will find this work of interest. This book may also be useful supplemental reading for behavior modification courses and practicum courses in behavior therapy.

In your busy, day-to-day life, sometimes you need to stop and take a breath to clear your head and maintain a sense of calm and well-being. In this New Harbinger Self-Help Essential, you will learn breathing techniques to help increase awareness of yourself and your inner experience, release tension, relax your body and mind, and reduce or eliminate symptoms of stress. The mindful breathing and mindfulness relaxation techniques outlined in this Essential will help you find peace of mind and feel more energized. New Harbinger Self-Help Essentials provide simple, effective exercises that you can use now to make lasting changes. This Essential is drawn from The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook, which details easy, step-by-step techniques for calming the body and mind in an increasingly overstimulated world. Now in its sixth edition, this workbook, highly regarded by therapists and their clients, remains the go-to source for stress reduction strategies that can be incorporated into even the busiest lives. The Relaxation and Stress Reduction Workbook has been awarded The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies Self-Help Seal of Merit — an award bestowed on outstanding self-help books that are consistent with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and that incorporate scientifically tested strategies for overcoming mental health difficulties. Used alone or in conjunction with therapy, our books offer powerful tools readers can use to jump-start changes in their lives.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This interdisciplinary book contains 22 essays and interventions on rest and restlessness, silence and noise, relaxation and work. It draws together approaches from artists, literary scholars, psychologists, activists, historians, geographers and sociologists who challenge assumptions about how rest operates across mind, bodies, and practices. Rest’s presence or absence affects everyone. Nevertheless, defining rest is problematic: both its meaning and what it feels like are affected by many socio-political, economic and cultural factors. The authors open up unexplored corners and experimental pathways into this complex topic, with contributions ranging from investigations of daydreaming and mindwandering, through histories of therapeutic relaxation and laziness, and creative-critical pieces on lullabies and the Sabbath, to experimental methods to measure aircraft noise and track somatic vigilance in urban space. The essays are grouped by scale of enquiry, into mind, body and practice, allowing readers to draw new connections across apparently distinct phenomena. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines in the social sciences, life sciences, arts and humanities.

In this time of quarantine and global uncertainty, it can be difficult to deal with the increased stress and anxiety. Using ancient self-care techniques rediscovered by Herbert Benson, M.D., a pioneer in mind/body medicine for health and wellness, you can relieve your stress, anxiety, and depression at home with just ten minutes a day. Herbert Benson, M.D., first wrote about a simple, effective mind/body approach to lowering blood pressure in The Relaxation Response. When Dr. Benson introduced this approach to relieving stress over forty years ago, his book became an instant national bestseller, which has sold over six million copies. Since that time, millions of people have learned the secret—without high-priced lectures or prescription medicines. The Relaxation Response has become the classic reference recommended by most health care professionals and authorities to treat the harmful effects of stress, anxiety, depression, and high blood pressure. Rediscovered by Dr. Benson and his colleagues in the laboratories of Harvard Medical School and its teaching hospitals, this revitalizing, therapeutic tack is now routinely recommended to treat patients suffering from stress and anxiety, including heart conditions, high blood pressure, chronic pain, insomnia, and many other physical and psychological ailments. It requires only minutes to learn, and just ten minutes of practice a day.

The fourth edition of Essentials of Managing Stress teaches readers practical skills and techniques on how to best handle daily stressors and empowers them with the tools needed to live a balanced life. The Fourth Edition is a highly accessible and student-friendly text that is designed to promote personal growth along with content retention. Students are guided through a series of more than 80 exercises and questionnaires that encourage them to adopt effective stress management practices into their personal health behaviors. A new chapter on Ecotherapy rounds out the text and provides insight into the healing powers of nature.

Broader coverage of the disorders for which relaxation training is known to be useful, and an expanded section on special populations, are new to the second edition of this volume. Roger Poppen provides a general framework for all relaxation training methodologies from a behavioural perspective, with a focus on new methods of training and assessing relaxation. Based on the research and clinical practice of the author and his students, methods are presented in sufficient detail for practitioners to adopt them in a variety of applications. The assessment procedure described is not specific to the training method and can be employed with any relaxation training procedure. Extrapolations and projections for future directions in