Bear Clan Systematic Muscle Relaxation Tools

Whether you call it relaxation, meditation or mindfulness, it’s clear that practicing this skill is incredibly helpful. It’s use is strongly associated with improved physical and mental health. The sound bar below will stream the Bear Clan systematic muscle relaxation sequence.

Future posts will provide some rationale and guidance for using this tool. For now, suffice it to say that the key to this potentially life-changing tool is practice. Only using this tool in weekly session work will produce little change. Inspiring clients to practice with this technique every day for 90 days in a row will literally change their brains.

Some people may prefer a version of the relaxation sequence that has background music. “Little Creek” by Carl Young quietly playing in the background may help you relax even more.

The buttons below will allow you to download a version of the muscle relaxation sequence to save on a phone or other device.

Download Voice Only Download Voice with Background Music

Resources

There’s advantages and disadvantages to using your own voice with your clients. On the one hand, it may condition your clients to feel more relaxed when with you. On the other hand, playing the recording during a session allows the therapist to quietly add encouraging or directive comments.

Typically, I’ll make very short encouraging comments, or say something like “really use your muscles” for clients who appear to only be going through the motions. If you want to read the sequence to your clients, you can download a print copy here.

Tracking is an incredibly powerful way to change behavior. Having a client track a 90-day period of daily systematic muscle relaxation practice will increase compliance and, if helpful, can lend itself to a simple reward contract.

In setting up reward contracts, try to make the first reward fairly easy to achieve. Especially with younger children a shorter initial reward period will work best. For example, perhaps there’s a reward after 3 days in a row, or one week in a row. Subsequent rewards can occur at 30 days, 60 days, and of course at 90 days. You can download a simple tracking sheet here.