As I have mentioned relaxing as a strategy to combat anxiety and performance catastrophies, it only seemed appropriate that I gave you a few more pointers, as to how to go about training yourself to be able to relax. Like most skills, relaxation doesn’t neccessarily come naturally, as such you need to practice using it to be able to rely on it when your in those stressful situations.
Firstly it is important to realise that there are numerous ways that you can try to relax, and one will be more effective than others for different people. The more popular ways are controlled breathing, Breathing-mantra, progressive muscle relaxation, transcendental meditation. Whatever relaxation technique you choose, you should aim to practice it at home to start with, and spend 15 to 20 minutes relaxing.
After a few session, once you feel you have started to get the hang of the protocol, try to reduce the length of time it takes to reach a relaxed state, and with it the overall length of the session. What you are trying to eventually achieve through practice is the ability to reach a more relaxed state in a 10 to 20 seconds. Allowing you to relax before leading a route or even when on a route, as your about to embark on the crux section.
There are some more links here:
Progressive Muscle relaxation -MP3 audio
Progressive Muscle relaxation – Video