Muscle Relaxation Exercises

AbstractThe paper summarizes a single-system design aimed at improving the participant's score on the Clinical Assessment of Anxiety through the intervention of meditative breathing. A baseline of three weeks was measured followed by four weeks of treatment phase. During the treatment phase, the participant completed meditative breathing exercise three times daily for five days each week. The participant completed the Clinical Assessment of Anxiety each Friday of the treatment phase. The results indicated improvement in the scores, however the participant's score never got below the clinical cutting score of 30.

Relaxation is a technique often used by sports performers to calm themselves-thereby decreasing anxiety and controlling arousal. It can increase the sense of control, reduce anxiety, and help the performer to feel calm and comfortable. Involves a decrease in: - breathing rate - heart rate - muscle activity - oxygen consumption. One of the most powerful tools a psychologist can use is actually nothing new, said Herbert Benson, MD, at APA's Annual Convention. In fact, it's an approach that's been around for millennia, yet its full potential remains untapped. Benson was referring to the relaxation response, a physical state of deep rest that changes a person's physical and emotional responses to stress. It is important to use relaxation techniques to decrease the physical and mental symptoms of nervousness, and alternative to motivational methods to not over arouse the athlete. In addition, relaxation is important for improving performance to control arousal, allow athletes to reproduce in competition what has been learnt during training, increase the athletes concentration, mentally prepares the athlete, and allows the athlete to remain calm in stressful situations.

To experience any form of anxiety, such as interviews, a drive in traffic, or even a first date is a natural- human experience. For instance, one begins to undergo a feeling of failure regarding specific class. Nevertheless, sometimes, the emotion, keeps us motivated and school work-orientated. Yet, now and then, anxiety can take a hold on one when intense fear and distress becomes too overwhelming; it can prevent one from doing everyday thing. As a result, anxiety disorder can be the cause (B. T. Anxiety Disorders, 2016). According to National Alliance of Mental Illness, known as NAMI (2016), anxiety disorders are a common mental health concern in the United States. Roughly, forty million adults in the United States, and eight percent of children and teenagers face some sort of a negative impact of an anxiety disorder. Consequently, people develop symptoms of anxiety disorder before the age twenty-one.

Science with all its marvels and wonders continues to press forward making extraordinary breakthroughs. Psychology plays a key role in many of sciences steps forward, each branch of psychology focusing on a specific techniques and theories. In the document the center of attention is surrounding the application of clinical psychology, this branch of psychology is unique as it all realms of an individual’s issue. Specifically speaking, anxiety is the psychological disorder that is under review through the processes of a clinical

Anxiety, also known as generalized anxiety disorder, is categorized by Mayo Clinic as “ongoing anxiety and worry that are difficult to control and interfere with day-to-day activities”(“Generalized”). According to Mayo Clinics article Generalized Anxiety Disorder that not only adults but also children and adolescent who have this disorder that “Your anxiety, worry or physical symptoms cause you significant distress in social, work or other areas of your life.” Everyone experiences anxiety at one point in their life it; however, becomes a disorder once it starts to interfere with the everyday life of that person. The symptoms of anxiety in adults are persistent worrying over normally insignificant details in life, overthinking, having difficulty

Anxiety is a psychological disorder that affects many people, both mentally and physically. There are many different types of people who live with this disorder, from the young adults to the older generations and from female to male. There are various ways that the disorder may transform the life of the individual who go through the everyday effects of anxiety. A recent study from the Anxiety and Depression Association of America shows that “Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S, affecting 40 million adults in the United States age 18 and older, or 18% of the population.”(ADAA), with it being the most common disorder, it is also the most expensive disorder since people need a lot of help. People think of anxiety as just the usual small form of anxiety like when you drive and get nervous but it can be a lot more than extreme for some people. There are many different forms of anxiety that people can experience, for example social anxiety and various phobias. People have been researching ways to assist people with anxiety and attempt to help find the best methods to help them cope. Studies have been done on how anxiety runs in different cultural groups in america, these studies and more have shown that anxiety and depression usually go together.

The Symptoms-Distress Checklist was used to identify the participants’ stress levels as well as any depressive symptoms. And lastly, a math exam was crafted to assess if the students’ test anxiety would be reduced. After Ankisola, Esther F., & Nwajei, Augustina D. (2013) had given out the measurements (excluding the math exam) for students to take, they only identified 72 participants to partake in the last phase of their study due to their high test anxiety levels. In the last phase, the researchers wanted to implement cognitive restructuring or deep breathing exercises. The participants were then separated into three groups. The first section of participants were in the control group, where they didn’t receive anything to help reduce their anxiety. Group two was given the deep breathing exercises and to do at least ten minute exercises 8 times. The last group was given cognitive restructuring, which had to be done 6 times for twenty minutes, and deep breathing exercises which was done the same as group two. Afterwards, all participants had to take the math exam under the same

The American Journal of Health-System Pharmacy finds that approximately 5-15% of the world population are affected by irritable bowel syndrome (IBS). What is irritable bowel syndrome? It is interpreted as a disorder of the gastrointestinal system that spawns changes in bowel function (chronic diarrhea, constipation, or abdominal pain) (Roberts, 2013). Severity depends upon the cause; food intolerances worsen the clinical presentations (Roberts, 2013). Those who are affected by IBS present with manifestations such as anorexia, abdominal bloating, and nausea with meals or passing stool. The disease is speculated to be a psychosomatic disorder that is aroused by stress, but is identified as an

This subscale is comprised of four Likert-scale items assessing current symptoms (e.g., feeling tense or anxious, feeling irritable or easily angered, feeling intense fear that seems out of place, and experiencing shortness of breath or rapid heartbeat). The anxiety subscale has an internal consistency of .80 and a 3-4 week test-retest stability of .80 (Sperry et al., 1996). T-scores were computed using standard scoring protocol for the anxiety subscale. In this sub-sample, the Cronbach's alpha for the anxiety subscale was .61 for men and .73 for women. Men's t-scores ranged from 33.36 to 61.40 (mean = 39.72, SD = 5.53), and women's t-scores ranged from 33.36 to 70.75 (mean = 39.81, SD = 5.90). Information regarding clinical cut-offs or norms for general and clinical populations on the anxiety subscale are

The participants of this study were Iranian University students all in their early 20’s. To qualify for this study participants had to have scored an 18 or higher on the depression subscale and a 16 or higher on the anxiety

In dealing with individuals that have taken The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), there might be a need for assistance and treatment for anxiety in their lives. Getting the individual to learn about anxiety to overcome anxiety will be essential to understanding the problem. The education aspect is significant in this situation, in assisting individuals dealing with anxiety, there are options for treatment. The first one Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is shown to be useful in the treatment of such things like panic disorder, phobias, and social anxiety disorder; Cognitive behavioral therapy reports negative patterns and distortions in the way we look at the world and ourselves. This treatment will be able to assist the individual in saying such negative ways we view ourselves. The second form of therapy in dealing with anxiety is learning relaxation skills,

Being involved in fitness and working with athletes it is important to help athletes understand how to relax and control their muscles. As a athletic trainer for a women’s high basketball team I am going to focus on relaxation of the muscle before an game. This is because as high school basketball players they can face many stressors throughout the day, which can cause tense muscles. If my players’ muscles are tight and tense this can results in poor performance and also increase the risk of injury in my athletes. To focus on relaxation of muscles is the Progressive Relaxation Muscle method.

All of the subjects completed the Fear Questionnaire (FQ) at the beginning of the study and at each session. Other methods used were such as Panic Disorder Severity Scale (PDSS), the Chambless Agoraphobic Cognitions (CAS) scale, and Panic, Phobia and Generalized Anxiety scale. More scales were used as well, also at the start of the study the therapist and subjects each completed the Expectancies Rating Scale (ERS), this rated the possibility of improvement from

Also the retest-reliability of the Interaction Anxiousness Scale (IAS; Leary, 1983) is .80. “The correlation coefficient of the IAS and Social Avoidance and Distress Scale (SAD; Peng et al., 2004) is 0.66, whereas it is 0.29 for the Self-rating Anxiety Scale.” Although the IAS was very valid, it did not cover all factors of social anxiety of the Tibetan, Han, and Muslim college students in Qinghai Province. Another limitation was the stratified random sampling that they used in their study. Representations of this study are unclear because of this method of sampling is random and simple. This sampling method should be paired with other sampling methods to make this study more effective and representations more clear. A further limitation was time and capacity therefore limiting the researchers. They did not consider situational factors effect anxiety in their studies on the students. Furthermore they only studied students of Tibetan, Han, and Muslim ethnicity so the result may not be generalized to other

INTRODUCTION: Even though stress negatively affects physical and mental abilities. Stress is the cause of tensions, overwork and increasing demands. Generally, the Anxiety is a part of our life. We live with it, manage it, or more all stress over it. Our lifestyle, the region in which we live, the economy, and our occupations can result in a lot of anxiety. Not everybody manages the same level of anxiety and there are a few elements that can affect our lives and reason us to have higher or lower anxiety levels. (Feldman, 2009)