Autegenic Training is not the term I hear often in the US these days. However in early 1980’s it was quite a popular practice in Europe. I am not sure about current practice, but at that time Autogenic Training was a tool officially used and prescribed by psychiatrists. Yes, this is how serious it is!
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How I got into Autogenic Training?
In my previous episode I was talking about my own life story, and about how I got to where I am right now. Today I would like to go back to the beginning and talk to you about my first official area of study, which was Autogenic Training. This was a foundation for many other things I have been learning. However, in reality Autogenic Training is just a contemporary adaptation of old meditation techniques developed in Yoga.
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As I mentioned last time, I got into Autogenic Training completely by accident. Or was it really an accident or was it a clever trick life played with me? I was not a healthy kid, and I was put in a hospital…again.. to try to find the origin of my headaches. My hospital bed was so uncomfortable, that I could not fall asleep. I tried to count, to change my position in bed, but it was not easy to fall asleep in almost a V-shape position.
Luckily for me, I was a really curious kid who loved reading all kinds of scientific books and magazines. As I was suffering in my hospital bed, I remembered that I read something about relaxation techniques to help people to fall asleep. I remembered enough about making hands and legs feel warm and heavy, and I tried that. And it worked! Yes, I felt warm and heavy in my whole body, and I fell asleep!
Next evening I tried it again, and it worked again! I was excited and ready to learn more…
Want to know more? Just listen to my podcast 😉 I will be adding another episodes with techniques I used in Autogenic Training.
You can listen to the Autogenic Training podcast here on the page or you can subscribe to it in iTunes
Or you can simply read my podcast notes below 🙂
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Make a wonderful day happen!
Peace!
Eugene
Autogenic Training Podcast Transcript
Hi everybody,
This is Eugene Sukhorukov from beautiful sunny San Diego, CA. Hope you are having a great time of the day or night or whatever time is right now in your corner of the World. Welcome back to my Healthy Positive Lifestyle podcast, and thanks for listening.
In my previous podcast I was talking about my own life story, and about how I got to where I am right now. Today I would like to go back to the beginning and talk to you about my first official area of study, which was Autogenic Training. This was a foundation for many other things I have been learning. However, in reality Autogenic Training is just a contemporary adaptation of old meditation techniques developed in Yoga.
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As I mentioned last time, I got into Autogenic Training completely by accident. Or was it really an accident or was it a clever trick life played with me? I was not a healthy kid, and I was put in a hospital…again.. to try to find the origin of my headaches. My hospital bed was so uncomfortable, that I could not fall asleep. I tried to count, to change my position in bed, but it was not easy to fall asleep in almost a V-shape position.
Luckily for me, I was a really curious kid who loved reading all kinds of scientific books and magazines. As I was suffering in my hospital bed, I remembered that I read something about relaxation techniques to help people to fall asleep. I remembered enough about making hands and legs feel warm and heavy, and I tried that. And it worked! Yes, I felt warm and heavy in my whole body, and I fell asleep!
Next evening I tried it again, and it worked again! I was excited and ready to learn more.
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I only spent in the hospitals a couple of days. After coming home I found those magazines where I read about the Autogenic Training. It was enough to get me started. There was a whole set of so called self-suggestion scripts,
words and phrases used to induce the state of relaxation. I memorized most of them and got busy practicing. Every time I was going to bed at night, I was spending 20-30 minutes going through memorized scripts, getting myself into warm and relaxed state. After that I was falling asleep.
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So, what is Autogenic Training?
The system itself was developed by German physician Dr. Johannes Schultz in the 1930’s. The system allows people to attain the state of peace and relaxation through the set of verbal formulas, visualization techniques and sensory imagery techniques. It is very easy practice, it does not require any specific equipment other than a comfortable place to sit or lay down, and it has no religious or philosophical foundation. The process is completely passive and indirect. Let me give you a couple of examples of mechanisms which became a foundation for the Autogenic Training approach.
First, lets think about lemon. Do you remember the color of the lemon? How about it smell? Now let’s remember how sour it can be. How many of you feel increased salivation in your mouth just thinking about the lemon? If you did, then you just experienced physiologic body response to the image you created in your mind. And if you didn’t, then it may take a bit longer than a few seconds I spent talking about the lemon.
Another example.. We often smile if we hear or see something good. But have you experienced the phenomenon called “contagious smile”? Imagine yourself walking in not such a great mood. And all of a sudden you see a child looking at you with a big smile. You smile back, and you may notice that your mood improved momentarily! There is even an exercise called “internal smile” or Buddha smile in some Schools. By imagining yourself smile you can improve your mood and keep yourself happy.
How is it related to Autogenic Training? There is a two way connection between our sensations and our state of mind. Physical and mental is interconnected. Why do you think we get tense in stress? Or why do you think massages, hot stones and other SPA related activities make us relaxed?
We can certainly try to meditate ourselves into relaxation by saying “I am relaxed.. I am very relaxed…” Have you tried? Have you tried to do it if you are not relaxed? Our mind will fight like a child, saying back “No, I am not relaxed. What are you talking about?”
Rather than directly fighting against our emotions, we take indirect approach. By using words, visualization and sensory imagery we create certain sensations in our body, which are particular to the state of relaxation. We don’t tell ourselves to relax. Remember, brain is like a child, it will fight you back if you try to argue with it. But just like a child, it can be easily distracted. And this is what we do. By creating certain sensations in our body, we just change the environment for our brain to operate in, and through bidirectional connection, these feelings put us into state of relaxation. Remember the inner smile phenomenon I mentioned above? Yes, the same mechanism.
Like I said, it is very simple and easy to do. However, this requires consistent practice. Of course, I have to remind you about your obligation to consult with your doctor prior to doing any kind of practice. On the other hand, if your doctor is not familiar with what we are talking about, how he or she can give you any recommendations? I just leave it up to you… but I don’t wanna take any responsibilities for any misuse of this information I am giving you.
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The best place for practice is some quiet spot with good air and not so bright light. You can sit on the couch, or nice comfortable chair, or recliner, or anything else that will be comfortable. There is even some position sitting on the bench.
The session starts with scanning your own body mentally. I alway imagine the scanner, since it is easier for me to visualize. I imagine a ring moving along my body from head to toes, like something from science fiction movie. Whatever image you can use, as long as it does the job. Mine certainly does.
Then I repeat certain scripts in my mind only.
Deep inhale – I am getting relaxed…
Exhale – …and calm…
My hands feel heavy and warm…
My arms feel heavy and warm…
My feet feel heavy and warm…
and so on. I repeat each statement at least 5-6 times during the session, or as needed to feel heavy and warm. I go to whole body, solar plexus, shoulders, neck.. But I keep my forehead cool, like I have a cold towel on my forehead.
When I was just starting placticing Autogenic Training, I was filling up the sink with very warm almost hot water, and I was keeping my hands in the water, trying to memorize the sensation.
Also, I used the warm shower to memorize the warm sensation in my body. Later, as I was practicing, I was bringing the memories up, and that tremendously helped me.
These days, if you search the internet, you will find tons of recorded protocols for Autogenic Training. When you get familiar with it, you can easily record your own, customize it to your needs, put some nice music with it, and practice.
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I hope this short overview was interesting to you.
What’s the next step? Well, I definitely did not stay into Autogenic Training forever. I found out that it has a very close relationships with Yoga meditation, and with positive affirmations as a way to reprogram yourself. So I took the next step..
In our future podcasts I will be talking about some things I got into as a result of my early training. Those things are Yoga and various types of meditation, Taoist meditation techniques and Chi Kung, Positive affirmations, NLP and several others. We’ll have just a sweet little talk about everything you need to know about Yoga in less than 10 minutes.
Of course, I am joking. I won’t even try to squeeze 5 thousand years of teaching into a short talk. But I will be talking about what I found in these systems for myself.
Until then, try some Autogenic Training on yourself if you haven’t tried it yet, see if you like it or maybe some of your friends may like it. But main thing, stay relaxed, smile and enjoy the moment.
Talk to you next time.
You can listen to the Autogenic Training podcast here on the page or you can subscribe to it in iTunes
Like us on FaceBook!
If you like this page, then please help me to promote PEACE and HARMONY. By clicking “Like” button you will join me in spreading PEACE and HARMONY around you!
Make a wonderful day happen!
Peace!
Eugene
