How to focus before you study

You can follow this order:

• Your scalp. Relax it as if it were not attached to your skull.
• Your eyes. Don’t tighten up your eyelids. Close them just as if you had a coin applied on each eye.
• Your jaw, lips and tongue. Avoid putting pressure on your teeth and gums; the tongue can continue to float gently without pressing against your teeth or the top of your mouth; the lips should be closed softly.
• The neck (especially the nape, the muscle that connects the neck with the back, where tension tends to build up). If the neck is free of tension, you can easily move your head. Shrug your shoulders to relax the trapezius muscles.
• Your back. This part relaxes easily if you lay with your shoulders and arms spread on the floor.
• Pectoral muscles. By exercising repeatedly several types of breathing, you will find it easy to relax the muscles of the chest.
• The abdomen. By contracting and relaxing the belly muscles a few times, you will eliminate the tension.
• The arms. First, close your fists and hold them tight. Then relax the fingers and the hand, and you will notice how the whole arm relaxes and falls on the side of the body.
• Legs and feet. Relax one leg, then the other, from the thigh to the tip of your toes. Do the same with your feet, moving your toes. Your heel and toes must not be under tension.

The mind has focused so far on different parts of the body, but once these have relaxed, it is its turn to relax, diving into imagination, visualizing enjoyable, pleasant scenes. For example, imagine a beautiful sunset over a green hill; lying on a beach with clear sand, feeling the gentle breeze and listening to the murmur of the waves; etc.) The images you contemplate must not contain people and must not be too vivid.

You can imagine that your whole body dissolves like a lump of sugar in a glass of water, or that your limbs are so heavy that they pull you in a quiet fall into the void.

With this basic relaxation, it will only take you ten minutes until you can raise up free of tension and ready to study.