Frequently Asked Questions

Why should relaxation be personalized?
1. Because sometimes, you only have 3 minutes to relax, and other times, you have 30 minutes.
---Or 10 minutes. Or 20. Or anything between 3 and 60 minutes.
2. Because sometimes, you want to fall asleep, and other times, you just want to de-stress in
---order to be more calm and focused. Or relieve migraine. Or some other pain. Or lower your
---blood pressure. Or prevent yourself from binging or smoking. Etc...
3. Because sometimes, you are sitting, and other times, you are lying down.
4. Because sometimes, your shoulders are tensed, and other times, it is your back. Or your hands.
---Or your abdomen. Or any other part of your body.
5. Because sometimes, you want to hear ocean waves in the background, and other times, the
---sounds of a forest. Or a stream. Or a summer night. Or a tropical rain. Or the silence.
6. Because sometimes, you prefer a female voice, and other times, a male one.
7. Because sometimes, you need to do some meditation, and other times, guided imagery with
---deep breathing. Or progressive muscle relaxation. Or autogenic training. Or body scan relaxation.
---Or a special combination of them all.
8. Because the way you want to relax here and now is different from the way you will want to relax in
---a few hours, days, weeks, months or years.
9. Because the way you relax is different from the way your spouse relaxes. Or your best friend. Or
---your sister. Or this famous golfer. Or this famous singer. Or this famous CEO. Or, basically,
---everybody else but you.
10. Because relaxation just doesn't make sense if it is not truly personalized.

Is sefRelax a revolutionary relaxation technique or method?
Absolutely not. SelfRelax is – just – a revolutionary way to “package” the best, well-known
relaxation techniques used by 99% of all relaxation practitioners in the world, and to deliver them
on demand to anybody. Deep breathing, meditation, mental imagery/visualization, progressive
muscle relaxation, body scan relaxation, autogenic training/self-hypnosis, all these techniques
derive from very ancient practices like Yoga and Chi Kung and have long been proven effective
by countless scientific/medical studies in the past 50 years for a variety of health and wellness
concerns.
What people need is not new relaxation techniques, it is much better and easier ways to use
those that already exist. SelfRelax is – just – the best and easiest way you can find.

Why should I close my eyes while relaxing?
Closing your eyes is actually the first thing you should do while trying to relax because it instantly
shuts off the greatest source of stimulation for your brain, which is sight. This is why no relaxation
system should need you to keep your eyes open.

What is the "personal relaxation profile"?
As written above, different relaxation techniques work better than others for different people and
different goals or concerns. For instance, you may prefer deep breathing and meditation when it
comes to falling asleep, but autogenic training and mental imagery when it comes to relieving
low back pain... So, in order for selfRelax to always create the most appropriate sessions for you,
it has to know your “personal relaxation profile”, i.e. which relaxation techniques work best for you
for each possible goal or concern you might have (sleep, stress, migraine, other pain, hypertension,
etc...). In practice, each technique is given a rating for each goal/concern between 0-Bad, 1-OK,
2-Good and 3-Excellent, that will be used by selfRelax’s cutomization algorithm to automatically
tailor your sessions to your own unique profile.

Do I have to be an expert in relaxation techniques to update my relaxation profile?
No, you don’t. In fact, you do not even need to update your relaxation profile yourself, because
selfRelax can gradually and automatically do it for you. When you create your selfRelax user
account, your relaxation profile is initialized with defaut, standard values. Then, as you use it,
selfRelax automatically auto-tunes itself after each session you do, based on the quick and
simple feedback you give after each session (0-Bad, 1-OK, 2-Good and 3-Excellent). Relaxation
techniques that are part of effective sessions have their ratings go up, while others have their
ratings go down. It is (almost) as simple as that.

Why does selfRelax get better and better the more I use it?
Because of the automatic auto-tuning feature described above. The more you use it, the better
selfRelax knows how you prefer and need to relax. So that each new session you do is a little
more appropriate and effective than the previous one.

What is the "pace control" feature?
How long would it take you right now to relax your hands and fingers? 3 seconds? 30 seconds?
3 minutes? Nobody knows but you. This is why prerecorded sessions on tapes or CDs always
go too fast or too slow. They do not follow your own pace, though it is the only one that matters.
With selfRelax, you can choose to control the pace of the session by setting the “pace control”
mode on. It will force the session to pause at certain key moments in order to let you take the
time you need to deepen and explore your feelings, sensations and mental images. Once you
have had enough time, you can resume the session by pressing the appropriate “control button”
(depending on the device you are using).

Can I use selfRelax anytime, anywhere?
Yes. SelfRelax is available 24/7 on any web-connected computer or handheld device having
at least 32 Mo of RAM and running the appropriate Adobe Flash Player (version 6 or up).
Wap and Java versions will be released shortly.