We all need to relax. If only it were as easy as it sounds! Now, with this beautifully illustrated and practical volume, anyone can learn to let go. Offering almost 30 ingenious and easy-to-do exercises tailor-made for busy people, plus original illustrations to aid visualization and a friendly text that's low on jargon, Learn to Relax presents effective ways to ease tension at work, at home, or on the road. Stress counselor Mike George suggests simple techniques for breathing, massage, anxiety control, time management, sleep enrichment, detachment, and meditation, all designed to calm the mind. Drawn from both Eastern and Western traditions, this book's easy yet highly effective strategies reveal how we can put problems in perspective, deepen self-awareness, and celebrate the positive in life. Practical and inspirational in the style of Teach Yourself to Dream, Learn to Relax is the only accessible illustrated relaxation book on the market -- and an indispensable guide for anyone who wants to rediscover the essential art of relaxation.

Zen teacher Thich Nhat Hanh shares relaxing meditations and mindfulness techniques in this pocket-sized guide about the importance of taking the time to stop, relax, and recharge. How to Relax is part of The Mindfulness Essentials series of how-to titles by Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh, introducing beginners and reminding seasoned practitioners of the essentials of mindfulness practice. Pocket-sized, with original two color illustrations by celebrated artist Jason DeAntonis, How to Relax shows how critical it is to regularly interrupt the hub-bub and routine of our lives to stop, relax mindfully, and recharge. Thich Nhat Hanh says that when we relax, we “become calm water, and we will reflect reality as it is. If we’re not calm, the image we reflect will be distorted. When the image is distorted by our minds, it’s not the reality, and it causes lots of suffering.” Relaxation is essential for accessing the tranquility and joy that lead to increased personal well-being. With sections on healing, relief from nonstop thinking, transforming unpleasant sounds, solitude, being peace, and more, How to Relax includes meditations you can do to help you achieve the benefits of relaxation no matter where you are. Scientific studies indicate that meditation contributes tremendously to well-being, general health, and longevity. How to Relax is a unique gift for those who want a simple guide to achieving deep relaxation, controlling stress, and renewing mental freshness and clarity, appropriate for those practicing in any spiritual tradition, whether seasoned practitioners or new to meditations.

This book is open access under a CC BY license. This interdisciplinary book contains 22 essays and interventions on rest and restlessness, silence and noise, relaxation and work. It draws together approaches from artists, literary scholars, psychologists, activists, historians, geographers and sociologists who challenge assumptions about how rest operates across mind, bodies, and practices. Rest’s presence or absence affects everyone. Nevertheless, defining rest is problematic: both its meaning and what it feels like are affected by many socio-political, economic and cultural factors. The authors open up unexplored corners and experimental pathways into this complex topic, with contributions ranging from investigations of daydreaming and mindwandering, through histories of therapeutic relaxation and laziness, and creative-critical pieces on lullabies and the Sabbath, to experimental methods to measure aircraft noise and track somatic vigilance in urban space. The essays are grouped by scale of enquiry, into mind, body and practice, allowing readers to draw new connections across apparently distinct phenomena. The book will be of interest to students and scholars across a range of disciplines in the social sciences, life sciences, arts and humanities.

Close your eyes, take a deep breath and unwind... Reaching complete relaxation in the midst of our busy lives might seem hard to achieve, but it’s easier than you think: a few simple methods and techniques can make all the difference. Bursting with tips, calming statements and activities, How to Relax will provide you with everything you need to channel your inner peace and help you feel content.

Tina the beaver and her family constantly rush off in different directions, until a storm keeps them snowbound at home.

From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman's efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong? My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.