Progressive muscle relaxation for children and teenagers

The Ltd. Graduate psychologist Anneke Nielson and the chief physician of the Kiel Pain Clinic Prof. Dr. med. Dipl.-Psych. Hartmut Göbel have developed a new, contemporary version of progressive muscle relaxation for the treatment of children and adolescents.

The CD also contains a thought journey for relaxation. This method is favored among classic relaxation training for headaches, especially migraines, as it is the easiest to learn and has also proven to be the most effective.

The procedure is based on an active perception of tension and relaxation in the muscles and enables you to actively bring about the deepest possible relaxation in the body, but also in your experience.

The CD provides a form of classic relaxation training specifically designed for use by children and young people. The procedure was extensively clinically tested with the participation of children and young people at the Kiel Pain Clinic.

For children: How the procedure works

“Progressive muscle relaxation” is a word that sounds very complicated at first, but behind it there is a really simple method: “Progressive” means something like “progressive” and “muscle relaxation” is another word for “muscle relaxation”, that is, it So it’s about “progressive muscle relaxation”.

With this type of relaxation, individual important muscle parts of the body are gradually relaxed. This is done by first tensing these exact muscles for a brief moment and then letting them relax completely.

You will notice for yourself that the tension in the muscles happens very quickly, but the relaxation phase until the muscles have become completely relaxed again takes longer, namely six to seven times as long! This is because all muscle fibers first have to loosen and loosen up again.

A total of six muscle groups are first tensed one after the other and then relaxed again. I want to briefly explain to you what exercises these are so that you can try out how the individual exercises work.

First comes the arm exercise : you tense the muscles in your arms by lifting both arms, bending them and clenching your hands into fists. You can imagine that you have a wet sponge in each of your hands and are squeezing it out. You will notice how both arms are really tense.

Then comes the forehead exercise : you tense your forehead and the upper part of your cheeks by knitting your eyebrows together as if you are annoyed and at the same time wrinkling your nose as if something smells bad. Do you notice how this exercise brings tension to your face?

Third is the lower part of your face : clench your teeth tightly and at the same time pull the corners of your mouth very wide towards both ears, like a broadly grinning smiley.

After the two facial exercises comes the shoulder exercise : During this exercise, please pull your shoulders very high and your head at the same time, as if you wanted to say “I have no idea”!

The so-called core exercise , ie the exercise that affects the muscles of your upper body, goes like this: You take a deep breath and pull in your stomach very tightly. A bit like trying to close pants that are way too tight.

Finally comes the leg exercise : you press your heels firmly into the ground and at the same time pull your toes up towards your face. As if you were trying to slow down with your feet while tobogganing on a sled.

That was all six exercises. You see, it's not difficult at all.

You can listen to audio samples here: