The relaxing link our professor had us listen to was my first.  I did begin to feel the effects he mentioned. I really liked his analogy of the muscles and a sponge- it was very helpful.  I did not like when he said to try and lift my hands up. It felt out of context. I did not want to reverse the process  when he said to visualize the blood returning to my abdomen. A part of me was saying, "No, not yet!" I would also have liked time to send the blood to my feet.
      His voice was soothingly soft. His repeating about the heartbeat and breathing was very helpful too. The slow rythm of the background music also helped me focus while he spoke.   Overall, I enjoyed the exercise and am willing to do it again.

     I was talking about this class with a patient and they told me about a site NIH (National Institute of Health) has called. 'relaxrelax' . It has audio and visual options to choose from.  I have yet to check it out beyond the homepage, but it looks promising.

   Here is the link:
                       
http://www.nmcphc.med.navy.mil/healthy_living/relaxrelax/index.html


If you do listen to something from it, please share what you thought.

Thanks!