Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PGMR)
PGMR is an effective technique that breaks into the vicious cycle of worry and anxiety in GAD. Practiced daily, it targets the physical symptom of tension, can help reduce the frequency of worries, the physical symptoms of tension as well as improve your sleep. You can begin to use the PGMR technique straight away. Aim to do it once, or ideally twice a day, at a set neutral time. You only need to set aside around 10-15 minutes for each PGMR practice. You should do it at a planned time, like after brushing your teeth in the morning, to get into a routine with it. PGMR isn’t a technique to do when you feel anxious, it is a skill that builds up over time, that teaches your body to notice early warning signs of tension in the muscles and let them go. This helps your body to learn early warning signs of tension and to let it go earlier through a process called kinaesthetic awareness. PGMR is an evidence based tool that is recommended in clinical guidelines to reduce tension symptoms, worry and improve sleep. It can also help you to feel less irritable and more able to deal with the stressful situations we all have to deal with in our daily life. We carry a tension load in our bodies, this can build up like a coiled spring when we are under stress and worrying. When we worry, we feel tense. In turn, tension can then lead to aches and pains, headaches, gastro-intestinal upset, disrupt our sleep, and lead to even more worrying, in a vicious cycle of symptoms. PGMR can really help with this. It can take a while to reach its full effects, so keep going with it. Many people use it everyday in their lives to help them to manage tension and stress, even when they feel better.
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© Marie Chellingsworth (2020). The CBT Resource.
