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A Muscle Relaxation Technique for Fibromyalgia; Learn to Relax Muscles for Pain Relief

July 9, 2009 by Lisa

I call this Active Release Signaling

This technique is helpful for relieving chronic tension in muscles and retraining muscles to stay in a relaxed state.

It should not be done during stretches. I’ve tried it and it is too much – it makes my muscles feel out of sorts all day.

Once you are good at it you can do it anytime, but in the beginning try it during your recovery period and anytime you are sitting.

I got this from the book Ageless Spine, Lasting Health: The Open Secret to Pain-Free Living and Comfortable Aging by Kathleen Porter.

She asserts that all pain we experience in our bodies is because we don’t stand and sit in ways that allow the spine to stack naturally on top of itself. Instead, we hunch forwards or sideways or backwards and cause our muscles to do the job our spine is supposed to do. When our muscles are always contracting to hold us upright, they get real tired real quick.

She has a lot of great exercises and techniques in the book but the one that helped me the most is this one that I call Active Release Signaling. She advises doing it with stomach muscles, but now I do it with many muscles – especially stomach, hips, and neck.

So, all it means is you sit correctly on your sit bones, and signal to your stomach to release. Tell your stomach muscles to relax. Physically send them the signal to relax with your brain. They will and when you take your attention away they may tense back up again. All this means is they are more used to being tense than relaxed and you just need to tell them again.

After a few days of practice my stomach muscles became chronically relaxed which let me feel that my hips were always tensed. So I started actively releasing them.

Another spot that was chronically tense on me is my neck just under both ears and my jaw muscles.

Actively Releasing these muscles allows nutrients and oxygen to flow more freely to the muscles, and stress chemical to clear more easily, and it lets your muscles rest often. Which eventually does wonders for your energy levels.

Eventually, it would be a good idea to try to start active release signaling while you are doing everything.

Sitting on the couch watching TV? Check in with your body. Is anything tight? Relax it. Keep checking in and keep relaxing.

Writing a letter? Check in with your shoulder and arm and armpit and side and hips. Back off as much tension as possible while still being able to write and try to keep that relaxed posture.

Washing dishes? Driving? Typing? Just imagine how good you will feel when you have learned to do all these activities with as little tension as possible.

I’ve actually started to practice relaxation during long drives, so that it becomes an opportunity to heal my body.

This is one of the many techniques I used to completely heal my body of fibromyalgia. To Learn all my techniques and start your own healing, get my book here.