Autogenic Training – What is it?

The Power of the Mind for a Mind at Peace, Emotional Balance,

Physical Health and Spiritual Consciousness.

Autogenic training (AT) is a technique that teaches your body to respond to your silently spoken verbal commands. These commands “tell” your body to relax and control your breathing, blood pressure, heart rate, and body temperature. The goal of AT is to achieve deep relaxation and reduce stress. After you learn the technique, you can use it whenever and wherever you may need it. Alternatively, AT can be practised regularly to allow you to enjoy the benefits of deep relaxation and prevent the effects of chronic stress.

Autogenic Training (AT), also called: ‘western meditation or yoga of the mind,’ was developed by German neurologist and psychiatrist Dr. Johannes Heinrich Schultz; who first published about it in 1932.

With its holistic integrative approach, AT enhances spiritual awareness in order to raise individual and collective consciousness; which makes AT more than just a relaxation technique. By entering a state of deep relaxation, we access an altered level of consciousness and initiate a process of self-healing and awareness.

Autogenic Training involves a daily practice of mini sessions: 3 minutes, 3 times a day, and consists of six standard exercises that make the body feel warm, heavy, and relaxed.

The technique can be used to alleviate many stress-induced psychosomatic disorders. It is a method for influencing one’s autonomic nervous system. It restores the balance between the activity of the sympathetic (fight, flight or freeze) and the parasympathetic (rest and digest) branches of the autonomic nervous system. This has important health benefits, as the parasympathetic activity promotes digestion, lowers blood pressure, slows the heart rate, and promotes the functions of the physical as well the emotional or spiritual immune system.

Autogenic Training has been subject to clinical evaluation from its early days in Germany, and from the early 1980s worldwide. In 2002, a meta-analysis of 60 studies was published in The Applied Psycho-physiology and Biofeedback Journal, and found a significant positive impact on the quality of life of patients involved in the study.

In Japan, four researchers from the Tokyo Psychology and Counselling Service Centre formulated a measure for reporting the clinical effectiveness of autogenic training. AT has an established position in mainstream health systems for self-healing, it is available in the UK National Health Service and in Germany in nearly every Community Service Centre.

 

Benefits of Autogenic Training     

  • Reduction of stress symptoms: sleep disorders, nervousness, exhaustion, emotional imbalance, physical tension;
  • Pain management, chronic and acute: initiation of a profound self-healing process, understanding body symbolism;
  • Synchronising both brain hemispheres: connecting logical thinking and intuition for spiritual growth;
  • Enhancement of self-awareness and abilities: concentration, imagination, memory, self-determination, independence, self -perception and social- perception;
  • Mindfulness for self and relationship behaviour.