Guided Imagery: A Step-by-Step Guide For Beginners

A Quick Guide

Are you considering guided imagery to help relieve your stress? Here’s all you need to know to get started. Stress has become a regular part of our lives. In today’s day and age, almost everyone is stressed. So it is important that we learn to manage these emotions on time. So what can you do about it? 

You can use guided imagery which is a stress management technique in which you visualize peaceful sceneries such as an empty beach or a beautiful meadow. This technique can help calm your mind and relax your body. This widespread technique is used for relaxation and stress management. You can either have your therapist help you with it. Or you can learn to do it yourself. 

What is Guided Imagery?

We can describe guided imagery as Focused Relaxation. As implied by the name, Focused relaxation makes you focus or concentrate on one thing at a time as it helps ground you. In Guided Imagery, the goal is to calm your mind and relax. You can do this by imagining a peaceful scenario. We can also call it guided meditation as it helps empty your mind and focus on the peaceful environment that you build in your imagination.

Guided imagery can help with the following:

• Regulate your breathing 
• Lower your blood pressure
• Reduce your heart rate

Benefits

Guided imagery can be very beneficial in various ways. It can help with the following:

• Maintaining good sleep hygiene
• Stress reduction
• Anxiety management
• Symptoms of depression
• Help quit smoking 
• Relieve pain 
• Mindfulness

How to use guided imagery properly?

Here are some of the steps you can follow to use this technique properly. This step-by-step guide will help you through this process:

1. Find a comfortable place and relax your body (for example: sitting or lying down)
2. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths.
3. Imagine some peaceful scenery such as a beach or a lake.
4. Imagine the details of the scenery like the sound of chirping birds and a light summer breeze.
5. Try to keep yourself at that moment for a while and savor the calm and peace as it descends onto your mind. In fact, you may stay in that moment as long as it takes you to become completely calm.
6. Lastly, gently come back to your present. Open your eyes and ground yourself in your current moment. You should keep in mind that you can return to this scene whenever you feel necessary.

Beginners tips

It is quite common for some people to find it hard to concentrate. If that is the case with you then here are some tips you can use to start guided imagery in an efficient way:

• Find a quiet place
• Play some relaxing sounds or music
• Make sure there are no interruptions such as a phone or any other electronic device
• Wear comfortable clothing
• Do a few breathing exercises
• If you are listening to an audio instruction then put your phone on “do not disturb” mode
• If you are having difficulty visualizing, look at a few videos of beautiful scenery to help guide your imagination

We hope you found this article useful in understanding more about guided imagery as well as its benefits, step-by-step guide, and beginner tips so you can get started right away. 

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