Bathtubs are excellent tools for de-stressing your nervous system. Here’s how to turn your tub into a relaxation tank:

• The key to using baths to relax is to increase relaxing sensations and to decrease input-triggering activities and stimuli. The best way to separate yourself from the world’s normal stimulation is to lock the bathroom door, creating a physical and mental barrier from life’s normal pressures.
• Fill the bath with warm water. Heat sedates the mind by increasing blood flow to your muscles, which relaxes them so they send calm messages to your brain.
• Turn down the lights. Try using candles to produce soft, soothing illumination.
• As you decrease the stimulation from the light and sound, you will want to increase sensations  from relaxing scents. Today the science of aromatherapy – using scents to affect brain/body function – provides an easy way to calm down. Scents affect appetite, body temperature, hormone levels, metabolism, stress level, and sex drive.
• If it’s possible, use special anti-stress cassette or internet recordings with tranquility music and acoustic.

 THE QUITE  MIND TECHNIQUE

Approximate time requires 10 to 20 minutes

• Find a spot in your house, where you will be able to go at the same time each day to be alone fro ten to twenty minutes. You should be able to sit comfortably (suitable chair, or couch, or bedwith some pillow behind you). If it’s too hectic at home, you can find a spot outside(in the park, or backyard etc)
• It’s best to practice Quite Mind at the same time each day, because you will be “conditioning” your nervous system to quite down just by sitting in the same place at the same time. The best time is the first thing in the morning, right after your wake-up routine. Or if you have trouble sleeping, a bedtime session is a good way to calm down.
• Once you’ve found a spot, sit comfortably with your wrists resting on your knees, palms up. Close your eyes.
• Take a minute to scan your body for tension. start with a deep inhalation and then give a long sigh as you exhale. As the breath goes out of your body, feel your shoulders drop. Now focus your attention on your head, face, and neck. Are there any tight muscles to be released? If so, take a deep breath in, and as you breath out, imagine that your breath is flowing out of the tight spot; feel the muscles in and around the area relax. Continue scanning your body from the neck down. Focus on the shoulders, arms, chest, upper back, lower back, and belly. Then go down to the legs and feet. As you move through your body, find the tense spots, breathe through them, and let go of any tension. This “body scan” should take only a minute.
• Now focus on your breath. Notice how it flows into your body, hesitates a bit, and then flows back out. Your natural inclination will probably be to control your breath in some way. For example, you may try to breathe deeper. Don’t. Just watch the breath. Let it do whatever it wants. Some forms of meditation teach you to try to breathing deeper with each breath. But just watching the breath is more relaxing for beginners, as it doesn’t impose a “correct” way of breathing that they have to worry about. If it start to feel anxious, try to let that feeling go. If your anxiety builds, you can take a few deep breaths and stretch your arms up in the air, then go back to watching your breath.
• Assuming you don’t develop anxiety, as the breath flows out of your body, silently count “one” to yourself. Repeat this process for the next ten to twenty minutes. As you continue to breathe, you may notice, that your breathing gets slower and shallower. Don’t be concerned. As your mind quiets too, and it requires less oxygen.  If you do not have ten to twenty minutes, do the Quiet Mind for five. It gets easier with practice. Within two-three weeks you should start to notice that you are feeling more peaceful as your nervous system overload melts away.