Lying awake in bed with an active nervous system prevents the natural vasodilation required for sleep onset. In autogenic training research by Dr. F. Stetter and S. Kupper (2002), verbal suggestions of somatic heaviness and warmth downregulate sympathetic arousal and reduce sleep onset latency. Supported by Edmund Jacobson’s progressive relaxation principles, the Heavy Body Relaxation Scan Tool leads practitioners through eight sequential bodily regions, allowing limbs and torso to sink heavily into the mattress and releasing somatic hyper-arousal.
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