Hypnobirthing Relaxation Scripts, How do they work?
If you’ve heard of hypnobirthing, you might have come across ‘guided relaxations’ or ‘relaxation scripts’.
A large part of a hypnobirthing course, guided relaxations involve someone (either in real life or recorded as an MP3) talking you through the process of physically and emotionally relaxing. Some focus much more of physical relaxation, others on visualisation or unpicking particular fears or worries about birth.
Drawing from the long established practise of Hypnotherapy, the ‘magic’ of a Guided Relaxation lies with the language used within it.
We know that words and language cause involuntary physical responses in our body every day.
Don’t believe me? Think about what happens if someone says something funny to you.. you laugh! They say something that embarrasses you? You blush! That scares you? You hear rate might go up or you palsm become sweaty!
So guided relaxations use this to our advantage!
Using the power of language to cause the physical response of calm and relaxation- emotions you can only feel when in the parasympathetic part of the nervous system (ie. the state your body has to be in in order to give birth!).
Guided relaxations can be used during pregnancy to help unpick and reframe and unrealistic, fearful or negative ideas about birth and to practice accessing a deep state of relaxation. Some people use them in labour too as a trigger to help them deeply relax.
It’s probably easier if rather than trying to explain any further, I let you try one for yourself!