# Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) If you’ve ever been told something along the lines of, “You’re holding a lot of tension; just relax!”, you know how utterly unhelpful that advice can be. When we’re feeling tense, it can be hard to simply release that tension. Paradoxically, if you further tense and activate your muscles *immediately* before releasing them, you can achieve deeper muscle relaxation. PMR utilizes this phenomenon to walk us through tensing then releasing our muscles to increase relaxation and reduce anxiety. If you’re familiar with PMR, you might know that tensing and releasing every muscle in your body can take quite a bit of time. To keep things practical and easy to fit into our workdays, we’ll only target five muscle groups: shoulders, face, back, arms, and legs. *** ### Let's Practice! First, let’s **sit comfortably** in our chairs. If possible, place your feet flat on the ground. Now let’s tense and release our **shoulders**. To create tension in our shoulders, bring your shoulders up to your ears. Hold the tension for 3-4 seconds, then drop your shoulders, releasing the tension completely. Do this twice.
Carol demonstrating shoulder tension.

Carol tensing her shoulders.

Now let’s tense and release our **faces**. To create tension in our faces, we’ll close our eyes tight, and scrunch up our faces and lips. Hold the tension for 3-4 seconds, then release the tension completely. Do this twice.
Carol demonstrating facial tension.

Carol scrunching her face.

Now let’s tense and release our **backs**. Arch your back and bring your shoulder blades toward one another. Hold the tension for 3-4 seconds, then drop the position, releasing the tension completely. Do this twice.
Kristen arching her back and bringing her shoulder blades toward each other.

Kristen tensing her back.

Finally, we’ll do our **arms** and **legs**. Extend your legs out in front of you and squeeze those glutes together. At the same time, extend your arms out in front of you and stretch them forward. Hold the tension for 3-4 seconds, then drop the position, releasing the tension completely. Do this twice.
Kristen extended her arms and legs out in front of her while sitting in a chair.

Kristen battling chronic inflexibility to extend her arms and legs.

Go ahead and practice the **Progressive Muscle Relaxation skill** now (or when you can) so that you know what to do in the future. Practicing skills before you need them is important, since it can be really hard to learn new skills during an anxiety spiral! Over the next few days, try using the Progressive Muscle Relaxation skill when your anxiety is high, then use your notebook or text editor to reflect on any changes you experience in your body or with your anxiety. What changes did you notice after trying the Progressive Muscle Relaxation skill? How did it feel? Were you surprised by where you were or weren’t holding tension before trying the skill? --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. Perform an HTTP GET request on the current page URL with the `ask` query parameter: ``` GET https://developer-success-lab.gitbook.io/code-review-anxiety-workbook-1/part-two-managing-code-review-anxiety/step-2-reduce-physiological-arousal/progressive-muscle-relaxation-pmr.md?ask= ``` The question should be specific, self-contained, and written in natural language. The response will contain a direct answer to the question and relevant excerpts and sources from the documentation. Use this mechanism when the answer is not explicitly present in the current page, you need clarification or additional context, or you want to retrieve related documentation sections.