I’ve read a couple of books by Dan Goleman, who is most famous for being the author of Emotional Intelligence, but this is the first time I’ve encountered one of his audio programs, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Relax: Six Techniques to Lower Your Stress is, as you might expect, about stress and how to relax. It offers six guided practices intended to help develop a sense of ease, relaxation, and wellbeing.

In the introduction, Goleman points out that there are many and varied symptoms of stress, including psychological tension, muscle tension, and nervous system arousal, and that not everyone experiences stress in the same way. Therefore, not every antidote to stress …

To keep our ancestors alive, the brain evolved strong tendencies toward fear, including an ongoing internal trickle of unease. This little whisper of worry keeps you scanning your inner and outer worlds for signs of trouble.

This background of unsettledness and watchfulness is so automatic that you can forget it’s there. So see if you can tune into a tension, guarding or bracing in your body. Or a vigilance about your environment or other people. Or a block against completely relaxing, letting down, letting go. Try to walk through an office or store that you know is safe without a molecule of wariness; it’s really hard. Or try to sit at home …

“Relax with your eyes closed…” is something people ought to try, according to a new study to be published in the journal Psychological Science that associates short periods of meditation with positive mood changes.

Titled “Frontal EEG Asymmetry Associated with Positive Emotion is Produced by Very Brief Meditation Training,” the study postulated that indicated brain activity changes after only five weeks of meditation.

Previous studies also examined the positive neurological effects of meditation in individuals, including a 2010 paper on meditation’s effect on attention span.

Jane Anderson, an undergraduate at University of Wisconsin-Stout, was inspired to carry out a new study after trying meditation for a month and noticing positive health changes.

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