The Relaxation Response

Very helpful a must buy

I first read this book in the mid-80s as a part of a sports psychology program I was participating in. It was designed to help you relax in pressure situations. You learned how to center, relax, and focus on your breathing. It worked great and I used it to improve my performance.I rediscovered the book from a completely different angle recently while exploring Zen meditation resources. It came up with a number of other books while searching here on Amazon. It was so well rated, that I bought another copy and was reintroduced to the concepts as a much different person 40-years older!The concepts still ring true and work great. If you'd like to explore a Western take on an Eastern philosophy--take a look at The Relaxation Response.

"The Relaxation Response" might be the holy grail of self-actualization: A simple method, backed by science, without any jargon. Although Benson's method of relaxation comes from studying Transcendental Meditation (TM), the process laid out in the book is secular and can be done by anyone, regardless of religious affiliation or lackthereof. The only problem is that the Relxation Response is so simple, that most of the book doesn't feel necessary.Before we get into it, you should be aware that the entire Relaxation Response method is available online, for free. Benson himself explains it, step by step, in multiple YouTube videos and online articles; the book doesn't offer any "secret techniques" or addons to the relaxation response. It seems to me that the author wants the world to know about the Relaxation Response, with how easily available the technique is.The ease and accessiblity of the Relaxation Response, which consits of entering a "neutral" state of mind and silently repeating a word or phrase for fifteen or twenty minutes, is a double-edged sword. The method is described twice, in the intro and in a later chapter, and even the longform explanation takes about five pages. The rest of the book is a breakdown of stress, a discussion of how the Relaxation Response was studied, and a comparison of world religions and how they all, in one way or another, use the Relaxation Response. Even with all the padding, the book is barely 200 pages. In other words -- the method is great, but the book itself isn't very important.One wishes there were more books like The Relaxation Response. It's refreshing to read a "self-help" book that gives you an easy, actionable method, and does it without any mysticism or jargon. The book is realistic, and doesn't try to sell you a pie-in-the-sky. The book itself, however, doesn't feel necessary in the 2020s, considering the Relaxation Response method is available online, for free. If you've already learned the Relaxation Response, the book doesn't give you anything new.

This method really works for relaxing, improving focus. It's a method not based in religion, it is purely logical.I practiced it for 4 months while I was studying for a very difficult exam, and I passed in the exam. During the exam day, it seemed that the answers came to my mind easier, instead of the blanks that I used to have in this kind of exams. I guess the blanks were based on anxiety, and the relaxation method helped me get less anxious during the exam.Also, after practicing this method for a few months, I can get the relaxation response easier now. I don't practice daily anymore, but sometimes when I find myself in bed with difficulty to sleep, I start doing the method, and after a few minutes I forget about the difficulty and I sleep.The method is really simple. But the book is good as you understand the fundamentals of it, what it was based on.Thank you dr. Herbert Benson for your studies and for writing this book! It helped me for sure!

I read this as an assigned text for my graduate program. Compared to other works on the subject of meditation, this one didn’t enlighten me. The writing and references to women and society are dated and at times, offensive. The doctor who wrote the book says in his introduction that he didn’t even himself practice this technique he was researching until 20 years in (or something like that), which is incredible and feels a bit misleading. But, the difference, I suppose is that this book was written by a medical doctor who linked the effects of meditation to improved health, most notably hypertension. Any and all books on this subject are great if they find their way into people’s hands. This is just not my favorite of those texts.

For my daughter —- she will be happy to receive this Thank you

Extremely useful and easy to read.