Autogenic training is a skill that helps you tune into the necessary wave. We can say that this is the ability thanks to which you can concentrate on the desired object. This skill is very important for people in those professions when maximum concentration is needed: for pilots, athletes, artists, doctors before complex operations.
Using this method, you will receive a state of complete relaxation without the help of a psychologist, which in turn will help you survive a difficult or very crucial moment in life. In addition, it will be easier for you to restore strength, relieve stress or tension, relax without taking pills, stop the pain, or eliminate the feeling of excitement before the exam.
From a scientific point of view, autogenic training is an active psychogenic, psychotherapeutic, psychoprophylactic method. Its focus is to restore equilibrium in the system of self-regulating homeostatic mechanisms.
The basis of this direction are the elements of autodidactics or self-education, self-hypnosis and muscle relaxation. It is also one of the components of hypnotherapy. Autogenic training has one of the differences from hypnosis in that the patient is actively involved and involved in the treatment process. In the case of hypnosis, he is given a passive role.
The German doctor Johann Schulz for the first time in 1932 suggested using this method as a therapeutic. In Russia, they became interested in them only at the end of the 1950s.
The therapeutic effect is achieved by controlling the recovery reactions. As a result, the tone in the parasympathetic department of the nervous system increases, which regulates the activity of all internal organs and is responsible for the metabolism that occurs in the body. Autogenic training helps neutralize the stress response of the individual.
Some scientists come to the conclusion that this technique weakens the activity of the hypothalamic and limbic regions of the brain. According to the classification of I. Schulz, there are two divisions. This is the “lowest” and “highest” degree of autogenic training. In the first case, this is a set of exercises aimed at self-hypnosis and relaxation. In the second, the patient is injected into a trance of varying depth and intensity. The highest level of autogenic training in Russia was first developed and described by M. Scheuifet in 2003.
Autogenic training, corresponding to the first, “lower” classification, includes six stages, which are practiced alternately:
- exercises that work to relax muscle tone - or "heaviness";
- which act in a special way, expanding the vessels of the skin - “heat”;
- normalizing the heartbeat - “pulse”;
- develop a uniform and spontaneous breathing system - "breathing";
- normalization of blood circulation in the internal organs - "solar plexus";
- the cessation or weakening of headaches is a "cool forehead."
“Switching” is the basic concept introduced by I. Schulz into lower-level exercises. Autogenic training using this exercise reduces the activity of the cerebral cortex. This condition is close to doubt - the first stage of hypnotic sleep.
There are five categories of such training:
- based on an indifferent attitude to the irritating factor - neutralizing (relief of allergic reactions, with diffuse spasm of the esophagus and other problems);
- activates the ongoing hidden processes of a mental nature (helps with enuresis, etc.);
- relieves addiction - withdrawal-directed;
- paradoxical;
- the softest - supporting, stimulates the development of only positive qualities of the patient.
These workouts are indicated for neurasthenia, neurosis, psychosomatic diseases, functional disorders. They also provide a good result in the treatment of bronchial asthma, angina pectoris, constipation, and gastric ulcer.
Positive results with compulsive syndrome, delirium, vegetative crises, somatic seizures were not observed.