Relaxation for Busy Creatives
This work is about relaxation techniques; tried and tested by Creatives for Creatives. The beginning of this piece takes the perspective of performing artists, who have a direct working knowledge of the subject and use the information for all practical purposes.
Let us begin by suggesting to ourselves that we do not know how to relax; or perhaps do not care to. In the latter case, Science has taught the layman only too well about the negative repercussions of strong emotions on our musculature and glandular systems. In the case of not knowing how; the solution lies in finding our own way with help from those to whom relaxation is an indispensable tool in their particular occupation or profession.
Stories of stifled creative output or expression are legion; individuals become tensed and carry tension with them. This is overlooked, as most people are tuned outwardly to society’s expectation of their work; and rarely to the instrument of its production. They rush along to interviews or meetings, privately toil away in studios, painting or sculpting; but remain fatigued and carry a feeling of dissatisfaction or under achievement. Yet as the best creative talent will vouch; relaxation is the key to creativity. So we turn to the people whose ‘occupational disease’, as coined by Lee Strasberg is tension and who are thus trained to work without it; those artists of the Theatre & Film. Although they perform to heightened audience expectations; they also exercise a degree of freedom in their art; to disassociate with their own awareness of spectators, for fuller absorption in roles; with movement and expression flowing expediently.
Constantin Stanislavski and Lee Strasberg, two great exponents of method acting in Theatre & Film, were strong advocates of relaxation in their curriculum, with an emphasis on learning how constantly to relax; that is to grasp the ability to relax at will. It is to their techniques of relaxation we turn, to see if they cannot be generalised to our more common day to day creative needs.
Stanislavski in his work, ‘An Actor Prepares’, uses the expression ‘freeing our muscles’ synonymously with Relaxation. It is important to point out that muscle tension or ‘tonus’ is a natural physiological reflex responding to stretching; for example ballet dancers have low ‘tonus’ or tension; Stanislavski refers more than once to the need of freeing the muscles only from ‘superfluous’ stiffness or tension.
In the first step of this ‘freeing’ exercise, areas in the grip of tenseness are identified. We settle in a comfortable chair; while assuming the most likely position conducive to sleep; a state of repose without fidgeting. We abandon habitual poses of sitting adopted out of design for society; we slump, recline the head, let the arms dangle, spread the legs and breathe easy. Then through moving isolated group muscles, we make the connection with specific areas that are tight. The movements are made with no mental inhibition or restraint. The intended movement for example of the shoulder blades; by means of muscles ‘Latissimus Dorsi’ will automatically bring the specific unrelaxed area in focus. According to Stanislavski, in performing the movements, caution must be exercised so that only those muscles necessary are contracted. Here, only practice makes perfect.The next step is simply letting go. “A letting-go in each area of the body will allow you to become more responsive and to be sufficiently relaxed.......”, says Strasberg.
Strasberg talks about the unease or discomfort felt in some of the movements; e.g. on pushing the feet away from the face, using the ‘Tibialis’ leg muscles, it is common to feel tingling or ‘pins and needles’ which is just locked sensitivity finding release. Pertinently, Stanislavski describes the exercise of trying to relax on a soft bed, as exposing the most uncommon & exaggerated tenseness; whereby most of the spinal/back muscles, out of stiffness do not utilise the support of the mattress at all! Strasberg further notes that in workshops, on raising the arms of participants, checking for stiffness, they would immediately retract. His explanation is that muscles unconsciously hold patterns of tension from prolonged emotional issues. He cites the work of Wilhelm Reich, in saying that the back muscles in particular retain emotionally traumatic experiences since childhood. Nevertheless, as we have seen when muscles are trained to, as Strasberg puts it, ’move and let go’; practiced enough times, they eventually and effortlessly release stress at the first signs.
We can round off the expose of the method of Stanislavski and Strasberg with a key to releasing tension from the facial area. As we will see, this will help us enormously in interviews or in any circumstance where we need to express in order to persuade; as actors do in auditions and further in their roles.
The areas to work on are the sides of the temples, bridge of the nose, cheek muscles, eyebrow (including the eyelids) and in particular the nape of the neck & muscles reaching in to the mouth e.g. the tongue. These are specific areas where unnecessary energy builds up.
The ‘method’ is reiterated - flex muscles with slow movements in the area, feel the stiffness then let go by making a mental note to soften and release; the brain does the rest.
For the back of the neck, one rotates the head as far as the neck muscles permit without undue force and makes the effort to feel those joints & the skin that the muscles move in the area; for the sensory nerve endings there can relay the tension from the muscles to the brain. Then release. We may imagine the head to float like a balloon; on a string which can be thought to be our neck. The area of the mouth should be contorted or stretched in unaccustomed ways to break the tension built habitually from controlled speech, followed with the release of letting it droop or sag as Strasberg puts it ‘like when drunk or asleep’. Any heavy feeling around the throat is allowed to dissipate.
There are a vast number of methods in Relaxation. We focused on some practices, without direct reference to such experts as Mabel E. Todd, Lulu Sweigard and Josephine Rathbone et al; who directly or indirectly were involved in the study of Relaxation. Yet their work unanimously supports one simple technique that remains in the sphere of human routine, but extends benefits beyond it. It is the control or economy of effort and energy exercised in using the muscles. Whether it is the grip on our toothbrush or tea cup, the manner of communicating in gesture or speech, the pace of walking or the application of muscle to lifting, moving and reaching for objects; these actions that set patterns of behaviour, is one recurrent theme in the research of experts and highly recommended in our practice of Relaxation, whatever our chosen primary method.
We end with the beginning in mind; a simple yet powerful quote from Lee Strasberg; the man who mentored, inspired and furthered the creative talent of such actors as James Dean and Al Pacino; “The purpose of the relaxation exercise is to eliminate worry, fear .........”; “You relax in order to show you have control over yourself”. If we are able to relax, what more could we desire ? Only creativity beckons!
Written by Sudipto Mukherjee
Ex teacher and small-time banker, current self proclaimed hippy in Bristol