Relaxation Techniques for Anxiety
When I first started my clinical training as a psychologist, some of the first techniques I learned were relaxation exercises. These are concrete, specific behaviors that clients can use to reduce the symptoms of anxiety. Relaxation exercises often target physical symptoms of anxiety such as hyperventilating and muscle tension but can also help with emotional symptoms such as panic and nervousness. One interesting debate has been whether to use relaxation exercises for anxiety or whether they can be counterproductive.
Let’s start with a few examples of relaxation exercises. The most common technique is probably diaphragm breathing, also called belly breathing or deep breathing. Diaphragm breathing has clients breathe using more of their diaphragm, the big muscle that helps the lungs move air in and out of the body. One version of this technique has clients put a hand on their chest and the other on their stomach and try to breathe so that the hand on the chest does not move (or moves minimally) and the hand on the stomach moves more. Diaphragm breathing helps prevent hyperventilating and the other symptoms that go with it such as dizziness. Another technique, one that was a mainstay of my training, is progressive muscle relaxation or PMR. PMR has the client progressively tense and relax different muscle groups until all their muscles are relaxed. Depending on how the muscles are grouped, PMR can take 10 to 30 minutes. Clients will often use a recording to guide them through the muscle groups. Other relaxation techniques include imagery and even some forms of meditation.
Image by Melk Hagelslag from Pixabay
Initially, it can seem like relaxation techniques should be great for anxiety because they reduce anxiety. Reducing anxiety, though, might not always be helpful. I’ve written before about how anxiety is a normal part of life and trying to reduce normal levels of anxiety can be counterproductive. If relaxation techniques are being used to avoid anxiety instead of facing it, then they can be unhelpful. Another situation in which relaxation exercises might not help is during exposure therapy. In exposure therapy, a client gradually faces situations that cause anxiety so they can gain experience showing that they are able to cope with the situation and the anxiety. If relaxation exercises are used too much in exposure therapy to the point that the client does not feel anxiety, then it can cancel out the exposure exercise. Situations with mild to moderate levels of anxiety might not need relaxation exercises.
Relaxation exercises still have many uses. For someone experiencing a high level of anxiety, these techniques can help reduce the anxiety to a more manageable level. For people trying exposure therapy but who have a high level of anxiety even for beginning levels of exposure, relaxation techniques can be extremely helpful so they can get started on facing those feared situations. The key is not necessarily using a specific technique but rather finding one that works for you.
As with any specific therapy technique including relaxation exercises, always check with your mental health provider first. You might have to try several different techniques before you find one that works for you. And you might have to try using relaxation exercises in several different situations before figuring out when it helps you and when it does not help.
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Cisco to Acquire Isovalent to Define the Future of Multicloud Networking and Security
News Summary:
SAN JOSE, Calif., Dec. 21, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) today announced the intent to acquire Isovalent, a leader in open source cloud native networking and security, to bolster its secure networking capabilities across public clouds.
The acquisition of Isovalent will build on the Cisco Security Cloud vision, an AI-driven, cloud delivered, integrated security platform for organizations of any shape and size. The Cisco Security Cloud enables customers to abstract security controls from multicloud infrastructure to provide advanced protection against emerging threats across any cloud, application or workload.
"Together with Isovalent, Cisco will build on the open source power of Cilium to create a truly unique multicloud security and networking capability to help customers simplify and accelerate their digital transformation journeys," said Jeetu Patel, executive vice president and general manager of Security and Collaboration at Cisco. "Imagine in today's distributed environment - of applications, virtual machines, containers and cloud assets - having security controls with total visibility, without hindering networking and application performance. The combination of Cisco and Isovalent will make this a reality."
Isovalent's team is a major contributor to the open source technology eBPF, and has led the development of Cilium, the leading cloud native solution for networking and security. eBPF provides unmatched visibility into the inner workings of the operating system - an ideal interface for building security systems that can protect a workload while it runs. Cilium provides IT and platform engineering teams with powerful networking capabilities and unparalleled visibility into the behavior and communication of cloud native applications, enabling seamless policy definition of software-defined networks. Isovalent has also recently introduced:
Cisco intends to continue offering and building on Isovalent's slate of innovations for customers, including Isovalent Enterprise.
"Cisco is committed to nurturing, investing in, and contributing to the eBPF and Cilium open source communities," said Stephen Augustus, Head of Open Source at Cisco. "Isovalent's team will join Cisco's deep bench of open source governance and technical leadership to solve complex cloud native, security, and networking challenges. Their knowledge will accelerate innovation across the business and help further strengthen the Cisco Security Cloud platform to meet the growing demands of our customers."
Isovalent holds leadership positions in the Cloud Native Computing Foundation and eBPF Foundation, in addition to upstream software contributions, and this acquisition strengthens Cisco's role in supporting the open source ecosystem. Together as leaders in networking and security, Cisco and Isovalent will build solutions powered by eBPF technology that aim to solve the challenge of protecting workloads no matter where they reside. Cisco is committed to Cilium and Tetragon as open source projects and intends to create an independent advisory board to help steer Cisco's contributions to these important efforts in a way that is aligned with the needs of the open source community.
The Isovalent team will join the Cisco Security Business Group once the acquisition closes, which is expected in the third quarter of fiscal year 2024.
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