Relaxation: Definition, Techniques, & Videos

By Kelsey Schultz, Ph.D. Candidate
​Reviewed by Tchiki Davis, M.A., Ph.D.
Relaxation might sound like an indulgence, but research shows it’s essential for our health and well-being. Learn more about relaxation and techniques for slowing down.
*This page may include affiliate links; that means we earn from qualifying purchases of products.
In American culture, relaxation is considered a luxury, something only those privileged enough to have sufficient resources get to enjoy on occasion. However, relaxation is actually an important part of our mental and physical health. When we don’t allow ourselves to take time to unwind, the harmful effects of daily stressors begin to accumulate and can contribute to psychological and physical maladies like depression, memory loss, heart disease, stroke, and diabetes (just to name a few). Relaxing gives our bodies and minds a chance to recover from stress and live our best lives.
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What Is Relaxation? (A Definition)

Relaxation is the absence of tension. When we’re relaxed our breathing is deep, our heart rate is steady, and our mind is clear. Physiologically, relaxation is the activation of our parasympathetic nervous system.
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Our nervous system is divided into 2 branches: the central nervous system, which includes our brains and our spinal cord, and the peripheral nervous system, which includes everything else. The peripheral nervous system can be subdivided into 2 branches as well: the somatic nervous system, which facilitates voluntary movements and physical sensations like touch, and the autonomic nervous system, which governs involuntary muscle contractions (like your heartbeat) and internal sensations (like the way your stomach feels when you’re hungry).
Within the autonomic nervous system are the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. The sympathetic system is your “fight or flight” system. It’s what’s active when you’re excited, scared, or stressed out. The parasympathetic nervous system is what’s sometimes called your “rest and digest” system. It’s the one that’s activated when you are feeling calm and relaxed. 

​Activation of the sympathetic nervous system is not inherently a bad thing. It’s active when we’re falling in love, playing our favorite sport, or having an exciting conversation. In fact, research suggests that “good stress” (also called eustress)—that is, sympathetic activation in response to a favorable experience—is actually good for you. Chronic activation of this system, however, is where we start to get into trouble. When the sympathetic nervous system is active, our bodies release stress hormones that increase our heart rate and blood pressure and generally prepare our bodies to respond to a threat. When these hormones accumulate, they can cause damage to our bodies at a cellular level (McEwen, 2008). 

Parasympathetic activation performs the opposite function. It slows our heart rate, lowers our blood pressure, reduces muscle tone, slows our breathing, and prepares our bodies for rest and rejuvenation. In other words, the parasympathetic nervous system helps us relax. Luckily, there are a number of ways we can activate our parasympathetic nervous systems and help our bodies recover from the damages of our stressful lives.

Techniques for Relaxation

There are many different methods of relaxation and not all of them will work great for everyone, so if you are having trouble calming your body and your mind, it might help to try a couple of different methods to see which works best for you. Here are a few examples from the Student Wellbeing Team at Cardiff University:

Video: Relaxation Techniques

Let’s dig a little deeper into some of these techniques.

Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) is a technique that helps us learn what it feels like when our muscles are tense versus when they are relaxed so that we can notice the tension when we are stressed out and willfully release it (Cawthorn & Mackereth, 2010). 

In general, the steps to PMR are the following:
  1. Minimize distractions and interruptions (i.e. turn off your cell phone and find a quiet place).
  2. Lie down and make yourself as comfortable as possible.
  3. Begin with 1 muscle group, such as your feet.  Inhale as you tighten the muscles in your feet and hold for 6-10 seconds then relax and exhale for 6-10 seconds. Be sure not to squeeze so hard that you cause cramping or discomfort.
  4. Repeat this step once more before moving on to another muscle group (such as the calves).
  5. Repeat steps 3 and 4 as you work your way up your body through different muscle groups (feet, calves, thighs, abdomen, hands, arms, back, then face).

​If you’d like to be guided through a PMR exercise, you can check out this video:

​Video: Guided Progressive Muscle Relaxation

Relaxation Meditation

Meditation has been used as a relaxation tool for centuries and the current body of research supporting the positive benefits of meditation is immense. Some of the observed effects of meditation include slower heart rate, muscle relaxation, increased cerebral blood flow, increased production of melatonin, and greater activation of brain regions associated with non-verbal, intuitive, and spatial processing (Perez-De-Albeniz & Holmes, 2000). There are many kinds of meditation including mindfulness meditation​, loving-kindness meditation, movement meditation, breath awareness, and body scan. Different people will benefit differently from each kind of meditation, so it might be helpful to try out more than one kind to see what works best for you.

Meditation and Trauma
The benefits of meditation are well-documented and difficult to dispute, but recent research suggests that meditation, especially mindfulness meditation, might not be for everyone. For people with post-traumatic stress disorder, diving right into meditation could do more harm than good. The hypothesis is that meditating could overwhelm some trauma survivors by creating “too strong a window of awareness” before they’re ready (Burrows, 2016). This isn’t to say that if you have trauma you shouldn’t meditate, only that it is best to approach meditation carefully, be aware of how your body is responding, and take a break as soon as you need to.

Relaxation and Massage

Massage is often viewed as a particularly indulgent luxury, but studies show it’s a highly effective therapeutic technique. For example, massage has been associated with reductions in pain and anxiety, and improvements in mood, relaxation, and sleep in patient populations (Dreyer et al., 2015; Jane et al., 2011).

As someone who chronically carries tension in their neck and shoulders, I’ve noticed that one of my major barriers to relaxation is the pain caused by this muscle tension. Relaxing makes the pain more noticeable, so I’m compelled to stay busy to distract myself from it. Massages provide the relief I need to allow myself to genuinely let go of distractions and relax. 
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There are many forms of massage therapy, and each form is suited for different needs. For example, if your goal is simply relaxation, a Swedish massage might be best for you. Whereas if you are in need of pain relief, a deep-tissue massage could be the way to go. Before scheduling a massage session, it might be helpful to check out what your options are and discuss what type of massage will best meet your needs with your massage therapist. 

Relaxation and Yoga

Yoga is another highly effective relaxation technique that has been in practice for centuries. It’s been described as a “skillful quietening of a distracted and ruminative mind (De Benedittis, 2015). Yoga is sometimes used as exercise, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. Often, yoga functions more as a moving meditation, giving your mind a specific focus to help quiet the internal chatter as you become absorbed in synchronizing your movements with your breath.

Research has shown that yoga can help reduce pulse rate, and blood pressure, both of which are important physiological changes for relaxation (Jain et al., 2010). Yoga has also been shown to reduce other physiological symptoms of stress such as inflammation and the production of stress hormones (Ross & Thomas, 2010).

Essential Oils for Relaxation

Essential oils have been in use for medicinal purposes since the middle-ages. These oils are extracted from aromatic plants which get their scent from complex chemical compounds that form odorants. When you inhale, these odorants bind to receptors in your nose which then send signals to your brain that are translated into the characteristic pleasant scent of the oils (Bakkali et al., 2008).
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The precise biological mechanisms by which aromatherapy works aren’t entirely clear just yet. One hypothesis is that the odorant compounds released from the oils bind to receptors in your nose and then diffuse into your bloodstream where they can begin to affect different aspects of your nervous system. Another hypothesis is simply that we learn to associate smells with particular emotional experiences (Herz, 2009). Regardless of how aromatherapy works, there is good evidence to suggest that it is a simple and effective strategy for reducing psychological stress (Liu et al., 2013).

Relaxation essential oils list

Relaxation Music and Sounds

Listening to music is also well-documented as a helpful therapeutic technique for reducing stress. For example, listening to music has been shown to affect aspects of your physiology such as lowering your heart rate, reducing blood pressure, and limiting stress hormone levels (de Witte et al., 2022).

The neural mechanisms by which music improves mood, relaxation, and well-being are not well understood. One possibility involves the synchronization of our bodies and our brain activity with musical qualities such as rhythm and tempo (Kim et al., 2018). For example, you’ve probably noticed yourself involuntarily tapping your foot to the beat when listening to a song. This phenomenon is known as “entrainment” and is essentially the rhythm of the music influencing the rhythmic activity within your motor system.

In the case of stress, it is hypothesized that during music listening, the activity of your autonomic nervous system (the branch of the nervous system that contains the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems) is entrained to the rhythm of the music. Music therapists can help their patients achieve a slow and steady heart rate and respiratory rate by playing music with a slow tempo (Kim et al., 2018).

When using music to facilitate relaxation, the best kind of music to listen to is the kind that feels the best to you. Not everyone responds to music in the same way, so it is good to explore what gives you the greatest sense of calm. For example, some people enjoy unstructured, atmospheric soundscapes while others (myself included) find unstructured music irritating or even distressing.
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Below are a couple of examples of music for relaxation. The first is an example of unstructured relaxing music and the second is an example of structured relaxing music.

Video: Beautiful Relaxing Music for Stress Relief

Video: Relaxing Guitar Music

Relaxation Music for Kids

Music listening is also a great way to help children calm down and unwind. Complicated soundscapes may not feel as soothing for kids as they can feel for adults, so it might be helpful to instead use slow tempo, soft music that is less complex than typical relaxation music for adults.
​
Here is a great example of relaxation music for kids:

Video: Relaxing Music For Children

Relaxation Videos

Research has shown that viewing images of nature can have a positive impact on stress and well-being. For example, one study showed that patients who were given images of nature reported less pain than those who were not (Vincent et al., 2010). Additional research points specifically to an increase in parasympathetic activity following viewing scenes of green spaces (van den Berg et al., 2015). Below are a few videos of calming, natural scenes that you might enjoy independently or in combination with other relaxation methods.

Video: Nature Morning 4K - Relaxation Film - Meditation Relaxing Music

​Video: The Coral Reef: 10 Hours of Relaxing Oceanscapes | BBC Earth

Quotes on Relaxation

  • “The point of gathering stillness is not to enrich the sanctuary or the mountain top, but to bring that calm into the motion, the commotion, of the world” - Pico Iyre
  • “It takes courage to say yes to rest and play in a culture where exhaustion is seen as a status symbol.” – Brene Brown
  • “To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts
  • “If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it” – Toni Morrison

Articles Related to Relaxation

​Want to learn more? Check out these articles:​​​

Books Related to Relaxation​

If you’d like to keep learning more, here are a few books that you might be interested in.

Final Thoughts on Relaxation

In today’s fast-paced and often stressful world, taking time to relax is more important than ever. Without allowing our parasympathetic nervous system to take over for a little bit and give our bodies a break from the damaging effects of prolonged stress, we can end up exhausted, depressed, and even physically ill. There are many effective techniques for unwinding and reducing stress that can be simple to incorporate into our daily lives such as listening to calming music and using calming essential oils like lavender. Regardless of the relaxation method you choose, it is important to use it regularly, especially if you have many stressors in your life. Remember, relaxing isn’t extravagant, it’s essential.

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