All About Relaxation

The book opens its foreword with Leonardo da Vinci's advice that 'it is very good to leave your work often and relax', and calls stress 'the epidemic of modern times'. The first two chapters explain the stress response — the fight-or-flight mechanism, the sympathetic nervous system, the rise in heart rate, breathing and muscle tension — in clear, simple language. Everyday examples such as 'you're heading to the mall and suddenly remember a meeting in ten minutes' are well chosen.

The trouble starts with the statistics. The book lists figures such as '60–80% of workplace accidents are caused by stress', '40% of employees lose their jobs because of stress' and 'replacing an executive costs between 2 and 13 million dollars', but never gives a source for any of them. Some seem to come from old American sources, others look plainly exaggerated. The reader should take away only the message that stress is very dangerous, not the numbers.

Chapter three, «The Art of Relaxation», is the best part of the book. It stresses that relaxation is not just staying away from work but also requires self-awareness, reflection and facing one's problems. The author makes an interesting observation: some people try to carry their everyday productivity into their holidays, making the holiday more stressful than work. The four simple methods against stress — a 'stress inoculation' (planning a difficult situation in advance and imagining yourself staying calm), deep breathing, talking things through and scheduling breaks during the day — are practical and useful.

The 'I am calm' breathing exercise is given step by step: sit comfortably, tell yourself you are taking 5, 10 or 20 minutes, close your eyes, repeat the word as you breathe, and finally stretch slowly and open your eyes 'like the morning sun filling the room'. Instructions like these are the book's most valuable content and can genuinely be used.

Chapter four explains the difference between stress management and relaxation and devotes much of its space to teenagers: 11 sources of adolescent stress (school, bodily changes, trouble with friends, parents' divorce, family money problems and so on), four tips for parents and eight techniques for young people — including an assertiveness example along the lines of 'I get angry when you shout at me; please stop shouting'. This section is clear and useful, but it also contains out-of-place phrases, such as supporting 'the national fight against terrorism', clearly carried over from another context.

The book's overall problem is its lack of structure: there is a lot of repetition between chapters, the fight-or-flight mechanism is explained at least four times, and later chapters introduce concepts with no scientific basis (a 'moving centre', the 'Cook's Hookup' energy technique). Some sentences in the Turkish translation are muddled as well. Still, a few of the breathing and relaxation exercises can help on a stressful day — just read the book for those exercises, not for the 'science'.

• Short chapters, illustrations and step-by-step exercise instructions
• Lists and bullet-point advice in every chapter
• A separate section for teenagers and parents
• Simple, conversational style