Patient was instructed today regarding progressive muscle relaxation technique for anxiety management as follows:
- Progressive muscle relaxation is a two-step process of first voluntarily tensing individual muscle groups in the body and then, relaxing them by releasing the tension.
- This exercise of sequential tensing of a muscle group for 3 seconds and relaxing for 5 seconds, helps relax both the mind and the muscles throughout the body.
- Individuals with anxiety disorders maintain a lot of tension in the muscles, as a part of the clinical spectrum of anxiety, which manifests as diffuse body aches and tension headaches.
- With progressive muscle relaxation, a wave of relaxation can spread across all the muscles in the body.
- This wave of relaxation will help lessen tension and thereby, relieve the distress of anxiety and offer relief from other physical symptoms of anxiety, such as, body aches and tension headaches.
