try bringing awareness to tension in the body

When we are tense, stressed, under pressure, this is not just a mental phenomenon: that tension is reflected in our physical body, by stressed muscles. And in this little thing to try, I am suggesting that we bring awareness to this. If we bring enough awareness to a tense muscle, it can relax. And with the relaxation of the muscle, our associated mental tension will also relax.

And relaxation is a critical part of spiritual practice. In fact, our ego – our sense of ourself as a separate entity, a separate being – is a sort of tension. It's a subtle mental tension. And so, by practising relaxation techniques, we slowly, slowly undermine the ego.

So how to go about this relaxation method? Firstly, make some time, even if it's only a few minutes, find somewhere quiet if possible. And lie down; or sit in a relaxed posture, where you don't need any muscle tension to maintain your body posture. Then close your eyes. Take a few slow, deep breaths. And slowly, with your awareness, scan through your body, looking for any tension, any tense muscles.

You might want to start at your feet and work upwards; or perhaps from the top of your head and work downwards. It doesn't matter. The aim is to cover the whole body, slowly moving your awareness through the body, looking for muscle tension.

A lot of these tensions are chronic. That is, the tension is there all the time, day and night. The muscle is never fully relaxed. And when something is there all the time, we tend to lose touch with it. We don't notice it anymore. So, this is why bringing a lot of careful awareness, attention, to the body parts is sometimes needed even to notice tension.

There are some spots which are more commonly holding this sort of chronic tension. I often notice this sort of tension in the cheeks of my face or the jaw muscles. Sometimes this is associated with anger – held anger – anger that's held back, suppressed, not given expression. Other common parts are shoulders: we stress our shoulders. Or the lower back, perhaps.

Some of these tensions may be due to bad posture. If you are used to carrying a shoulder bag on one shoulder, a heavy handbag, the body has to lean and twist slightly in order to balance itself with that weight. And this tends to lead to back muscles on one side of the body having to stress a lot. If this is your situation, try switching the bag from side to side, so that it's at least not always the same side that is getting stressed.

So coming back to our exercise, when you find a place where the muscles are tense, then keep your awareness on that place in your body, and breathe slowly and deeply. Imagine the breath going into those muscles. And as you breathe out, imagine the muscle relaxing. Just visualise it.

The mind and the body are not nearly as separate as we often think. The mind can influence the body very strongly. That's how a lot of these tensions have come about. But it means the mind is also capable of releasing those tensions. So when you find a spot of tense muscles, just spend a few minutes like this, breathing in and out slowly, into the area of tension. And with luck, you'll notice that the tension begins to melt away.

When you feel the muscles have relaxed enough, simply continue on, scanning through the body, looking for other areas of tension, until you've covered your whole body. If you practice this often enough, you will become better at it, more easily able to notice the tensions in your body, and more effective at releasing those tensions. Once you get good at it, you can use this method at any time of day, when you're out and about. Just whenever you notice a tension in your body, take a moment, close your eyes, breathe slowly, bringing your full awareness to that tense area, and imagining it to be relaxing. Especially with the out breath, imagine the tension being released with the breath.

So give it a try. Try bringing awareness to tension in your body.