John R. Cook, Ph.D., R.Psych.

The Deep Muscle Relaxation Training Program is a four-week home study program designed to teach you relaxation by recall - how to relax the major muscle groups of your body, simply by thinking about them. It does this by first teaching you how to breathe from your abdomen and lower rib cage using diaphragmatic breathing, and how to produce and release tension from 16, 8 and 4 major muscle groups using progressive relaxation.

The program offers a choice of formats: CDs or audio cassette tapes. A transcript is included to assist with practising the procedures at least part of the time without the recordings. The CDs have the advantage of being divided into three tracks for ease of moving through the script. The first track is the preamble, breathing and limbering up. The second track is the deep muscle relaxation, and the third track is a body scan and return.

The recordings feature a soothing male voice set against a background of relaxing ambient sounds. These sounds continue long after the spoken script has ended, to provide additional time for you to rest.

The script for week one is a 16 muscle group procedure in a rain forest setting with airy, delicate swells.

Week two is an 8 muscle group procedure with the sounds of the ocean accompanied by faint bell chimes.

Week three has 4 muscle groups with electronic piano, string swells and atmospheric effects.

Week four makes use of recall and is set against a soft electric piano with guitar phrasing and atmospheric effects.