FAQ

How can BrelaxTM help reduce High Blood Pressure? TM How can Brelax help improve cardiac fitness? TM How can Brelax help improve sexual functioning? What is the difference between physical activity and BrelaxTM? How long time is it necessary to practice BrelaxTM?

Q: How can Brelax

TM

help reduce High Blood Pressure?

A: Under ordinary circumstances, our blood pressure is normal with

a suitably fluctuating pressure on the blood vessels, which allows the blood to circulate freely all the way from the heart throughout the body and back to the heart. However, when we sense some danger (real or imagined) from the outside, our normal physiological processes change instantly: our automatic alert mechanism prepares for either fighting or fleeing from the enemy by instant systematic mobilization; this increases the pressure on our blood vessels and raises the blood pressure values above normal levels. Ideally, the state of mobilization should switch back automatically to normal physiological functioning, including regular blood pressure, once the danger has passed. Unfortunately, however,our organism lacks any automatic relaxation mechanism to create such normalization; Thus, the blood pressure very often remains elevated in a state of hyper (= over) tension, which often becomes chronic unless we release our nervous tension by our own conscious intervention.

Brelax does just that: it provides the necessary all clear signal by consciously slowing down your breathing and relax our tensions; this gives the impetus to reserve the state of and recreate our normal psycho-physiological functioning, including normal blood pressure values.

Q: How can Brelax

TM

help improve cardiac fitness?

A: I often come across much skepticism about the fact that such
simple practice as Brelax, with focus on correct breathing, can help such a serious, life-threatening illness as coronary heart disease. To understand how this is possible, we first of all state that Coronary

Heart Disease ultimately boils down to deficient oxygen supply to the heart
It is therefore directly linked with the quality of your breathing. Consequently, deep breathing, which increases the intake of oxygen, is good for your heart, as opposed to superficial breathing sadly, the most common breathing style among adult westerners which diminishes the intake of oxygen and is therefore bad for your heart. Regrettably, this straightforward, widely agreed-upon linkage seldom receives the attention that it deserves. This is all the more astonishing in view of the fact that the linkage between efficient lung-ventilation, oxygen supply, and the hearts working capacity is clearly observable, accurately measurable and therefore strictly scientific. Given that air is abundantly available everywhere around us and oxygen normally amply available in the air it is safe to assume that in the case of Coronary Heart Disease, there is a substantial amount of oxygen that goes wasted on the way between the air outside, and our heart inside.

Never mind how the oxygen goes wasted, or how complex the functioning of our cardio-respiratory system is: what matters in practice is that we can easily compensate for the loss by training ourselves to breathe slowly and deeply which explains how Brelax training helped to rehabilitate Coronary Heart Disease in our study with patients after heart attack.

Q: How can Brelax

TM

help improve sexual functioning?

A: Diminished sexual function has been steadily on the rise in

modern Western societies. Since the problem prevails mainly among human adults who live in highly stressful conditions, it is safe to assume that, in the absence of other related disease/s, sexual dysfunction is basically a stress disorder; that assumption is reinforced by the fact that it can very often be counteracted or alleviated by effective stress management. In situations of stress, as in the case of Hypertension, our personal safety, even our very survival, appears to be threatened; this activates automatically our alert mechanism, which then creates a state of physical and mental emergency, known as the Fight-orFlight response. The role of this response is to prepare our whole psycho-somatic (mental-physical) system for confrontation with whatever the threat may be; as a result extra blood supply is rushed mainly to the principle participants in coping with unfriendly elements, namely the skeletal muscles in our legs and arms. This must, of course, occur on account of all the less important systems for our immediate survival, for example: our digestive- and endocrine system, as well as our reproductive system. Stress prevents normal sexual functioning when it causes mental distress, which upsets the proper blood flow to our sex organs.

The state of emergency is, by definition, an event intended as something temporary, which means that after we feel safe again in our environment, we may go back to our organism's normal psychophysiological processes. The problem is that our defense system is a one-way mechanism. This means that it lacks the means with which to recognize safety in the same way that it can sense danger. Our alarm reactor can turn itself on automatically because it is geared to sense signals of danger, but it cannot turn itself off in the same way, because it lacks the means with which to recognize safety. Hence, in order to return to our normal physical-mental condition, we have to assess our sense of safety on the conscious level. In other words, in order to allow proper blood flow to our sex organs Have to create a sense of safety voluntarily, that is how effective Stress Management can help to regain normal or improved sexual functioning.

Q: What is the difference between physical activity

and BrelaxTM?

A: With physical activities, the exercises are focusing on developing

the physical parts of the body, as the name denotes. The aim of such activities is to stay or become physically fit. These activities tend to focus on strengthening the muscles of the body, without taking into account mental functioning. This means that you can program your body to perform the exercises automatically, and at the same time, talking with other people around, or engaging in any other mental activity. Many physical fitness clubs put television screens in front of their treadmills and various sport equipments as a bonus for their clubmembers to divert their minds as they watch the news or other programs, while their muscles are working for them.

By contrast, all Brelax programs are holistic practices in which both body and mind are engaged. The Brelax exercises are coordinated with conscious, controlled breathing. Here, exercising the muscles is not the aim, but the means by which the whole system is engaged in regenerating its energy resources as it balances the nervous system. The Brelax programs help you maintain or recuperate a smoothly coordinated functioning of the organism as a whole.

Q: How long time is it necessary to practice Brelax

TM?

A: As long as you are exposed to stress and likely to build up tensions

in your organism, you should practice the Brelax program on an ongoing and consistent basis. I like to compare Brelaxing with taking a shower, which is basically also a process of purification, since one of the most important tasks of proper breathing is to help eliminate wastes from our system. Hence, if you are a chimney-sweeper you have reason to shower more often than you would if you worked as a cashier at a skating rink; but then again, some chimney sweeps like to spend their holidays on ice, while cashiers I think you got the idea!