Relaxation, an awakening tool for children and adolescents

In its role of awakening, relaxation concerns all children and young people. It promotes presence in oneself, calm, self-control, concentration, self-knowledge and communication.

In its aid or therapy function, it can treat insomnia and night terrors, tics, stuttering, aggression, etc.

Be good about yourself

It is a technique of self-knowledge, which involves a lived and felt experience and a named awareness. Relaxation promotes the integration of knowledge (in the broad sense). It integrates the four dimensions: physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual.

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Physical: Sensations (heat, coldness, heaviness, lightness), breath, lateralization, balance, limits of the body in space, vibration, voice etc …
For example : “Relaxation allowed me to regain balance on my bike”- Laurent 15 years old

Affective: It is the domain of feelings and emotions, the meeting with fears and anxieties in a de-dramatizing context (the alpha state), the connection with inner riches: joy, peace, calm.
For example : “After two sessions, I dared to tell a friend not to sit next to me“. – Sophie 13 years old

Intellectual and mental: Relaxation promotes a step back, the ability to develop, associate and develop creativity, to make choices.
For example : “I focus better while having the right to dreamr “. – Delphine 17 years old

Spiritual: Relaxation takes into account the person in his humanity, his being, his individual history and his relationship to the universe
For example: Isabelle accepts better the death of her mother because she can situate it in the sense of their story to each.

Making sense of your life

Evolutionary relaxation allows everyone to evolve in the best conditions. It does not aim to make the child or adolescent more calm and silent (teach him to keep quiet), but to allow him to be more present in what is happening in him and knowing his needs, to develop your ability to choose.

More specifically, relaxation aims to:

  • learn to focus,
  • know the alpha state and know how to use it,
  • feel your body in a different approach to sport or illness
  • to face crisis situations and difficulties more serenely
  • dare to be yourself.

More concretely, the child or adolescent formulates his request as follows: “I come to do relaxation: to sleep better, or to be no longer afraid of exams, or to dare to speak in front of others, to feel distressed about family conflicts, to calm down, to be better in my jeans“.
He reappropriates his body as a living reality and not as a bulky object or source of ills. He assesses himself with his own criteria and restructures his image of himself. This is particularly true for the adolescent to whom Evolutionary Relaxation provides answers during his search for identity.
Faced with the “pubertal explosion”, it offers landmarks, a container, axes and roots (work on rooting).
Young people invest a lot of experimentation. Evolutionary Relaxation offers spaces for inner experiences as strong and less dangerous than drugs, alcohol or speed.
If Schulz speaks of relaxation as a means of “disconnection” from the outside, I would also qualify it as a means of “reconnection” with oneself, with the inside, then the others.

A playful approach

The means used (alpha relaxation, body postures, breathing, sensory and graphic approach, massage) are the same as for adults. Only the vocabulary is specific as well as the more or less fun form depending on age. Of course, the fun dimension adapts to everyone, but sometimes with adolescents, you have to “be serious”.

A path to autonomy

Through evolutionary relaxation, children and adolescents acquire the capacity to give themselves well-being, to better manage their sensitivity, to transform difficult situations, to develop their confidence and their creative potential.
Becoming capable of living better with separations of all kinds, he progresses towards autonomy. With relaxation, everyone can regain their own power.
Evolutionary relaxation facilitates change, and, by transforming or transforming the world.

Author: Geneviève MANENT, Sophrologist.