There was a time when I was the director of an entire mental health system in a county in New York State, and was a very miserable human being. Although I had a wonderful wife, two beautiful children, and a great job, I was depressed, anxious, and had vague thoughts of not wanting to live anymore. It was during this time that I found a book called The Relaxation Response by Herbert Benson, MD, a world-famous thoracic surgeon and professor at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Benson discovered what he called the relaxation response which he said was a natural part of the functioning of the human brain. In his book was a simple relaxation technique that he used as a part of his famous study about the effects of relaxation on stress and high blood pressure.

I used his technique and found that it significantly improved my emotional state, but also realized that its effects were temporary and had to be constantly re-enforced by using the technique for twenty minutes, twice a day. Even though the benefits were worth the forty minutes a day, I discovered a way, I call alpha training, to permanently re-establish the relaxation response in the brain. After that is done, it again becomes a natural and automatic response to unnecessary stress, needing only an occasional reinforcement to maintain its efficacy. Once this is accomplished, we move into a permanent alpha state or waking meditative state that we take with us into our everyday life where we need it the most.

WARNING: What you will read about is very simple, but there is the possibility that you may discount it, because we are conditioned to complexity, not simplicity. It was Albert Einstein who said, "If the answer is simple, God is speaking."

Follow these simple instructions to train your brain to automatically initiate a natural calming response any time, anywhere. It may take a while for you to overcome the years of environmental assault on your nervous system, but, however long it takes, it will be worth it. Stay with it, and you will be rewarded.

1) Find a time and a place where you won’t be disturbed. This is essential in the beginning, but once your nervous system is retrained, you’ll be able to do this just about anywhere, anytime. (Turn off all phones and do your best to eliminate other disturbances.)

2) Put yourself in any comfortable position, except your normal sleep position, otherwise your brain will put you to sleep; and, this is not sleep.

3) Close your eyes and put your thumb and first two fingers together separately on each hand. (This specific part of the technique may also be used with other form of meditation or relaxation, in addition to this one and is what makes this method unique.)

4) Take three deep breaths letting them out slowly.

5) Count slowly backwards from 20 to 1, focusing on each number.

6) Introduce into your mind the word TELOG, or any other neutral word or phrase you choose. If you become aware of thoughts, simply turn your attention to your word again as if you were watching a bird moving around in a tree. Twenty minutes is equivalent to 1 1/2 hours of sleep.

7) Twenty minutes, twice a day until the desired result is attained is a must to overcome the constant negative programming we are subjected to daily, but dramatic, positive results will be noticed within seven days.

*Most importantly, and this is what makes this technique unique and very powerful, during the day when you recognize that you are tense, simply repeat the three fingers and the word a few times and then go on with whatever you were doing. This takes only a few seconds, but the more you do it, the more you are retraining your brain to recognize unnecessary tension and initiate the calming response. Eventually, after you’ve done this often enough to change the neuron pathways, your brain will do it automatically with only an occasional reinforcement by using the full technique. This training of the brain to establish a permanent calmness moves us beyond meditation by making it possible to be in the alpha or "waking" meditative state in the midst of our everyday life when we need it the most.

The “relaxation response” was discovered by Dr. Herbert Benson. Alpha training, or the association of the physical and mental signals with a relaxed state of mind to create the conditioned response of the calming effect was discovered by Stephen Scalese.

©2003-2009 Stephen G. Scalese