How to combat stress with Autogenic Training
Written by:All of us, sometimes, suffer from small stress related to stress: difficulty in getting to sleep, gastritis, headaches or states of anxiety affect the quality of our life. Prof. Gaia de Campora, an expert in Psychology in Turin, explains what autogenic training is and how this practice can help to deal with everyday stress
What is autogenic training?
Autogenous training is a simple but effective technique that allows you to reach in full autonomy - in an autogenous way - a state of relaxation and passive concentration. In short, it is a small workout that, if done consistently by dedicating a few minutes a day, allows us to take care of ourselves, letting go of those thoughts that often ruminate or those anxieties and worries that often accompany us throughout the day.
What are the advantages of autogenic training?
Autogenous training is often used by athletes, to increase the ability to concentrate and enhance their sense of effectiveness according to the objective, and by whom - and this is the case that concerns us all a bit - suffers from minor illnesses to stress. For example, difficulty in falling asleep, frequent nocturnal awakenings, gastritis, headaches, bruxism, more or less intense states of anxiety and all that we could generically describe as "psychosomatic origin".
What are the exercises of autogenic training?
Autogenic training includes basic exercises, the fundamentals, and complementary exercises. In general, all exercises serve to reconnect body sensations, such as heaviness and warmth, with our moods and the emotions we experience, to guide the person towards a sense of completeness and relaxation. The exercises are designed to accompany the person towards a gradual but growing ability to relax. In fact, this is often the most complicated part, overcoming the initial moment when we still have no confidence in the training and, just as we try to do the exercises and "detach" from everything else, we start thinking about the work deadline, bill to pay, traffic to go home ...
It is physiological that this is so, but it is essential to keep in mind that with Autogenic Training there is no performance to be achieved or a particular result to be pursued, it is rather the constancy in doing it, dedicating this space that, over time, will help us to conquer a deep relaxation and overcome the stresses caused by stress.