Future chapter by Adam Khan, author of Self-Help Stuff That Works

WORK AND RELAXATION make music together. They are the up and the down, the yin and the yang, the rhythm of a good life.

Relaxation is good for you. Over the past 30 years, a tremendous amount of research has been done on relaxation and meditation, and the findings are truly amazing. Relaxation can lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, help prevent heart disease, relieve or even prevent headaches, reduce pain, help control hypertension, help you sleep better and cure insomnia, alleviate panic attacks, improve your ability to come up with creative solutions to problems, increase your memory and ability to learn, improve your energy level, improve your self-esteem, reduce depression, improve your relationships and your health, and make you feel better in general.

But the kind of relaxation these folks studied was not what most of us mean when we say, "Yeah, I had a relaxing weekend." They were studying a more concentrated, more profound form of relaxation, and you cannot get it watching TV. The relaxation that produces those results requires you to relax your mind as well as your body.

One of the major players in that research is a medical doctor named Herbert Benson. He coined the term "relaxation response," which is what he calls the physical changes that take place when people meditate or relax profoundly. It's the antidote and flip-side of the "fight-or-flight response" the adrenaline-pumping reaction we get to dangerous, threatening or stressful situations.

Benson's first experiments were on practitioners of TM (Transcendental Meditation), a form of "mantra" meditation. A mantra is a word or phrase repeated over and over to oneself. If this is done with a passive, non-forcing attitude, it changes your body. Heartbeat and metabolism slow down, the level of blood-lactate goes down, and the electrical pulsing of your brain slows down and becomes more rhythmical.

Benson found you can repeat other words besides the Indian mantra given to students of TM and it still produces the same changes. Some forms of Yogic and Zen meditation also produce the same changes. So do Autogenic Training and Progressive Relaxation.

And when you relax like that for twenty minutes once or twice a day, all kinds of good things happen to your body. It's extremely healthy and it feels good. It's psychologically healthy. It's the antidote to stress. People who relax like that have a less intense reaction to stressful situations, and they recover from them faster than people who don't. In other words, instead of a person's heartbeat going from 70 to 120 beats per minute during an argument and returning to 70 in an hour, it might go from 70 to only 100 beats per minute, and return to 70 in a half hour. That kind of change is healthy for your body and good for your relationships and gosh darn it, it's just more fun! Stress is unpleasant. Stress is dysphoria.

When blood-lactate levels drop during relaxation, it stays down afterwards. This is one reason you feel so good afterwards. Blood-lactate has something to do with anxiety. When you measure the blood-lactate level of someone who feels anxious, you'll find a lot of it. When you give someone a shot of lactate intravenously, they suddenly feel anxious.

I could go on and on the amount of research on this subject is extensive but I'm going to give you a technique you can use to produce the relaxation response for yourself. It works very well, and it's all you need. But keep in mind there are hundreds of ways to produce the relaxation response, and if you don't like this one, there are plenty more to choose from. This one is basic, however, and will produce the relaxation response we're looking for. Here it is:

How to Relax

1. Get into a comfortable position and close your eyes. Take a few deep breaths. Relax.
2. Repeat some word or short phrase over and over to yourself.
3. When you notice yourself thinking about something else, gently start repeating your word or phrase again.
4. When you think your time is up, open your eyes and look at the clock. If you aren't done yet, close your eyes and keep repeating.

Repeat your word or phrase fast or slow whatever is best for you. You can repeat it to the rhythm of your breath or not whatever you like.

The most important part of the process is Step 3. Biofeedback research has confirmed peoples' personal experience: Trying ruins it. People in biofeedback training who try to lower their blood pressure are the only ones who can't do it. When you try to concentrate or try to relax, you won't be able to. You need a passive, let-it-happen kind of attitude about it.

Your mind will often wander from your repeated word or phrase. No need to get bothered by that. Just bring your mind back to it. Over and over again. It's the process of doing this that's good for you not some end state or goal you reach. Drifting off and noticing it and bringing your mind back to your repeated phrase is the process. And it's this process that gives you all the benefits.