Stress Management and Anti-aging: The Practice of Relaxation

“The era of health is prevention! The era of self-management!” says the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare, advocating “Healthy Japan 21 (Second).” Modern society is an era of anxiety and stress, where stress accumulates unknowingly, people suffer from psychological troubles, interpersonal relationships and work do not go well, many people fall into psychosomatic diseases, and the number of people who are reclusive due to depression, school refusals, and work refusals is rapidly increasing. There were more than 30,000 suicides every year (90 per day) for 14 consecutive years. In this troubled era, there is a scientific and simple self-care method that can eliminate stress and recover vitality, the mental fitness method by autogenic training, and the author strongly feels its necessity. By acquiring this self-care method, everyday life will be full of vitality, it will become a powerful ally in living and a great asset. It is one of the secrets of being active for life and living a long and vibrant life. Autogenic training was publicly introduced by Dr. Schultz, a German psychiatrist, in 1932.It was introduced in Japan in the 1950s by Dr. Gotsaku Naruse, a professor at Kyushu University, under the name “Autogenic Training.” In 1961, Dr. Torujiro Ikemi opened the first psychosomatic medicine clinic in Japan and popularized autogenic training. Autogenic training is a method for removing the tension of the whole body by self-suggestion, etc., and to make it an ideal physical and mental state, the “head cold feet hot” state. The author has devised this autogenic training to make it easier to experience, and as a “mental fitness method,” he is in charge of stress management and mental health care lectures and training in government offices, companies, medical institutions, and educational institutions more than 200 times a year, contributing to “Healthy Japan 21” ( http://www.mental-fitness.jp/ ). The mental fitness training program devised by the author is implemented in the following four steps. (1) Relax the whole body and remove the power from the body. Utilize the relaxing song “Relaxia” (composed by H. YOSHIKO) and the muscle relaxation method “TORETA” exercise. (2) Practice focusing on one point. (3) Become good at abdominal breathing. (4) With the mental fitness method based on autogenic training theory, both body and mind become smiling, and more positive and vibrant.