Our “Learn to relax” weekly theme takes place on the following breaks in 2008
Increased stress is one of the dominant features of our lives in the modern world, and can appear from just about any source. Work, home life, relationships, children, finances – all these are areas that can cause stress and make us wish we could step back from it all, relax a little and feel more able to face our future challenges.
Our Learn to Relax theme is, in effect, a course in stress management. We will look at the causes of stress and discuss a range of strategies to cope better with it. These will include physical remedies 
such as techniques from yoga and meditation as well as approaches that focus more on our inner lives.
Stress builds up in the body (muscle tension, shallow breathing, etc) and so it makes sense that our first steps towards relaxation should be to use physical methods to bring our body and mind back into balance. Relaxation is a holistic process so when we nourish our physical self, we also nourish our mental self too.
So we will look at various techniques from yoga and we will learn the basics of meditation. Through practicing these, people are able to learn how
to rapidly relax the body and calm the mind. We will teach you a number of basic breathing and meditation techniques that you will be able to use back home to grab a moment to yourself and relax. These will include practical issues like how best to sit, how to breathe properly, what to focus on, coping with distractions, and so on. Each class will include a short meditation (typically 10-15 minutes) and you will be given a wide range of little meditation examples that you can do for yourself anytime.
We will also look at our inner lives as full relaxation comes from being at peace with ourselves and our emotions. The psychological aspects of relaxation are just as crucial a
s being able to release tension from the physical body. So we will look at what we can do to help maintain a balance perspective on life and a healthy belief in ourselves.
Our emphasis is on practical skills that you can take away and develop further yourselves back home, banishing the build up of stress forever.
