This relaxation for overcoming homework anxiety, written by Diana, uses the example of homework when learning a language, specifically when learning how a language works. This is why Diana uses it as an example, because, she, the writer, is doing language homework. This story deals with what happens inside an anxious student when he hears he has homework and how he can relax and do his homework. It is inspired by the writer doing Latin lessons online. It is written because she had anxiety over practicing relaxation for homework and her friends wanting to know why.
Five Breaths of Relaxation to begin overcoming homework anxiety
The teacher says: Are you ready, we are going to take five breaths of relaxation and say five affirmations about our breathing when we breathe out.
It breathes me.
My breathing is relaxing me.
I breathe.
My breathing is.
It breathes me, not I breathe, it breathes me.
VISUALIZATION for overcoming homework anxiety:
The teacher’s introduction:
Hello, I am a special teacher. I know about Latin and other languages, and I also know about relaxation. You come to me in your imagination because you are nervous when you do Latin homework. I come to you because I am like your friends who do not want to see you unhappy, who see you start to practice relaxation, get a bodily sensation that scares you while you are practicing and then you stop and then the relaxation can’t help you, so I see that you are nervous about relaxation the way you are nervous about homework for learning a language. I come to help you keep on practicing relaxation exercises.
The teacher’s speech for overcoming homework anxiety:
Now imagine you are in a class or a home study listening to an audio course and watching a video, and you hear the teacher of that course say, “There is a lot of homework in this class. It is a lot of listening homework. Your brain will pick it up naturally because I will teach you the language homework very slowly. The first part is about the grammar. The next part is the vocabulary which I will turn into a story. For this part, that I tell you about first, the grammar, is how the words in a language work to make sentences and tell stories. Even hearing the word “grammar” causes many people to feel scared, and they say to themselves, “This is too hard. I don’t want to do it. I want to put it off because when I think about it I get so exhausted.” That is homework anxiety. The reason you are exhausted is all your energy is used up with trying to deal with physical symptoms and worrying thoughts like, “This is too hard for me. The language lesson words are too big and I don’t understand them.” But I can make the big language words that are not vocabulary words into small words. You can relax and do this homework that I give. Your one vocabulary word is “relaxation paint.” The homework centres around two ways on how to tell a story about the relaxation paint.”
RELAXATION PAINT TO STAY AWAKE:
Now imagine that you have a jar that contains pure relaxation. It is a liquid substance, the consistency of thick paint. What colour would relaxation be?
Imagine that you also have a paint brush, that is very soft…the softest, silkiest brush…the tip is about as wide as your index finger. The bristles are soft. When pressure is applied, they bend, and as soon as the pressure is stopped, they return to their original position…soft and resilient.
Picture opening the jar of relaxation, and dipping the brush into this paint. Imagine painting relaxation onto the back of your left hand, starting at the wrist, and moving toward your knuckles. Imagine that relaxation is painted over the entire surface of the back of your left hand.
Continue painting this relaxation onto your skin…over the surface of each finger and your thumb. As soon as the relaxation is applied to your skin, feel the area relaxing…feeling calm, still, and heavy.
The relaxation paint is so pleasant. It may be warm…or cool…so deeply relaxing…calming down…
Imagine painting the palm of your left hand, and the front surfaces of your thumb and fingers.
Now imagine painting the back of your right hand, fingers, and thumb…smoothly applying relaxation to the entire back surface of your right hand.
Picture this relaxation being applied to the surface of the palm of your right hand…your fingers and thumb.
Feel how relaxed your hands feel…so warm…heavy…calm…it is such a pleasant feeling. Notice that the relaxation paint is absorbing into your hands…disappearing into the surface of your skin to fill your hands with relaxation…your hands do not look like any paint has been applied at all…the paint looks like it has disappeared but your hands are so fully relaxed…
Notice the disappearing effect of the relaxation paint. Imagine applying one streak of paint to your left forearm. Imagine looking at the paint, seeing its colour. The paint is thick, and smooth..sitting on the surface of your forearm. See the paint on your skin and feel it relaxing this area.
Notice that as your forearm relaxes, the paint is disappearing. It is as if it is absorbing into your skin…creating an even deeper, more complete feeling of relaxation. Soon there is nothing visible on your forearm at all. It is clean and dry and looks perfectly normal…and is so deeply relaxed.
Imagine painting relaxation to your right forearm as well…and observing as the relaxation absorbs, leaving no visible trace but a total feeling of relaxation.
Your hands and forearms are heavy and relaxed…and you can relax the rest of your body too.
Imagine applying the relaxation paint to any area that is tense and needs to relax. Perhaps your shoulders. Maybe the paint feels pleasant and cool on your skin…and perhaps it leaves your shoulders feeling warm and heavy…sinking into relaxation…down your arms…so fully relaxed all the way from your shoulders to your fingertips…
Imagine how good it would feel to relax your neck. Imagine what it would feel like if the relaxation was smoothed over the surface of your neck with the soft paint brush.
Imagine brushing the relaxation gently across your forehead…down your nose…over your cheeks…eyelids…lips…chin…
Imagine the relaxation being spread over the surface of your back…over your sides…chest and stomach…all the way to your hips…
Imagine relaxation on your upper legs…and your knees….your lower legs…and ankles…
Feel the pleasant relaxation paint being applied to the top of your feet…and then the bottom of your feet…
Feel your body relaxing from head to toe…so relaxed and still…so heavy…calm…relaxed…
Feel yourself calming down…sinking deeply into relaxation.
Notice if there are any areas that have not fully relaxed. Imagine applying the relaxation paint to these spots…feel the paint absorbing…and the area relaxing…sinking into warmth and relaxation…
The relaxation is inside your body now…filling you with a sense of peace and calm…relaxed inside and out…calming down…drifting…relaxing…overcoming homework anxiety…overcoming homework anxiety…
(Pause)
The relaxation flowing through your body also works to calm the mind…allowing you to focus intently with calm and clarity.
Complaining about the homework:
The teacher asks you, the student, “What are the big words you don’t understand?” You say, “They are in a book that isn’t the dictionary. It is called a language arts book or the name of a language you want to learn. There is something called a Case and something that has six names with it called words we don’t use anymore. The old forms are six, and they are in the audio as follows: nominative, vocative, accusative, ablative, dative, and genitive. This is how they are in audio. In the videos they are different.” The teacher says, “They are words for building a story. They are headings at the beginnings of charts. We don’t use them in stories, but they are story guide words. I show you how they go, the easy way.”
The teacher says, “We will do the video way first. I take some more relaxation paint and I’m going to paint on your arm all the way from your fingertips to your shoulder. In the videos we see the guide words as follows, nominative, vocative, genitive, dative, accusative, and ablative. I convert the guide words into simple words with their actions and tell you the story about the paint. With the videos we learn the whole story about the paint. With the audios we learn the story about the paint in pairs.”
THE WHOLE STORY ABOUT THE PAINT:
Naming: Relaxation paint is in a little jar and the paint feels warm and soft and very pleasant. I paint it on the fingertips of your left hand.
Calling: Oh, Relaxation Paint, help me. Make my student feel warm and heavy. I paint you on the middle parts of the fingers of the student’s left hand.
Possessing: This is your relaxation paint, oh Good Student. I paint it on the parts of your fingers closest to the palm of your hand.
Giving: I put the jar of relaxation paint in the palm of your left hand. I take the brush out and use the brush on the palm of your left hand.
Pointing: This is the relaxation paint. I paint it all over your left wrist and your left forearm.
Carrying: I paint your left arm from your elbow to your shoulder, and you carry the paint with your left elbow to your left shoulder.
The teacher touches the paint one more time to your arm, but this time all the way from your fingertips to your shoulder. She says, “When you hear the whole story, in the old way of guide words, it is said that everything has now been told about the one vocabulary word. The word is said to be declined. The paint relaxes your arm all the way to your fingers to your shoulder.”
THE STORY IN PAIRS ABOUT THE PAINT:
Naming: Relaxation paint is in a little jar and the paint feels warm and soft and very pleasant. I paint it on the fingertips of your right hand.
Calling: Oh, Relaxation Paint, help me. Make my student feel warm and heavy. I paint you on the middle parts of the fingers of the student’s right hand.
Pointing: This is the relaxation paint. I paint it all over your right wrist and your right forearm.
Carrying: I paint your right arm from your elbow to your shoulder so that you carry the paint from your arm to your shoulder and feel them relax.
Giving: I put the jar of relaxation paint in the palm of your right hand. I take the brush out and use the brush on the palm of your right hand.
Possessing: This is your relaxation paint, oh Good Student. I paint it on the parts of your fingers closest to the palm of your hand. You can hold a brush in the hand I just painted. You can feel the paint on the fingers of your right hand.
The teacher says: with the brush I Point to your fingers twice, then to your wrist and your arm and then to your palm and to the parts of your fingers closest to your palm. This is the story of the big words in pairs.
You say to the teacher:
Why do we learn in the audio of the story of the paint in pairs? I was so relaxed the first way, the whole story of the paint which is in the video, and then you relax me again with the story of the paint in pairs. Now I want you to do this for me whenever I get nervous and exhausted.
The teacher says:
The story of the pairs we learn because it has a very important ending. You can come to me and I can tell you these stories in this visualization, and I love to tell these stories about the paint because they are my favourite ones to tell. However, in our daily lives there are times we cannot listen to any visualization because we have to be totally awake. What do you do when you are in a place where you have to be too busy to visualize me or the relaxation paint? What do you do when you are so out of touch with your body that you forget there’s such a thing as relaxation paint and you do not think of it at all?
This visualization with me and the paint is very important to practice so you can be happier. The reason why we learn the story in pairs and that story ends with possessing is because you, the student, need to know that you own a jar of relaxation paint and that you need to use it long before you feel exhausted from having physical symptoms of stress and worry words in your imagination. The way you begin to learn to know when to use the relaxation paint is to practice day after day when you are calm. You listen to this story and my lecture about the story of the paint in pairs.
The audio is very important because listening to the story of the audio cancels out the worry words. When you get farther in your practicing, you know when to use the relaxation paint because you feel yourself breathing fast or having the first worry words in your head. Some students remain at the mercy of their symptoms because they do not understand in their hearts they have been given and do own a jar of relaxation paint and want someone to deliver them, but they are the ones to rescue themselves when the teachers can’t be there.
Some students are used to living with worry words because they can’t think of a time in their lives when they have not worried and they do not open their relaxation paint jars and use the paint. To them worrying is automatic and relaxation is not. Others give up using relaxation paint when they feel stress because they don’t think it helps them because they don’t feel the same effects of it while they are stressed as they were when they were calm and they had the paint applied to their arms.
However, in this last category you are as a student, afraid the teacher wants you to use her relaxation paint so she can praise you and won’t praise you unless you use the paint, afraid that she doesn’t like you, afraid that some other teacher was right when she wanted you to use relaxation exercises because there was something wrong with you because you worried too much, but this is the other side of what you see as a student. You see that whenever you get a physical feeling that scares you that the feeling transports you to your past and then you don’t use any paint. So to you, your lessons are about double words, about what the Latin word is for Paint and what that word is for relaxation and also what in the visualization is called relaxation paint. This is why you learn both the video and the audio story about the paint.
Why Teacher wants you to practice every day listening to this story and imagining it is because she knows that if you do this you will be a happy student. The teacher already likes you. She does not like to see you unhappy. She wants you to use what she knows makes students very happy, and the paint makes them happy, makes more students happy than does Latin. If Latin is fun for you, how much more fun will imagining relaxation paint be? Doing Latin can be your cue as writing notes was for me. Surely lots of fun.
The practice with the relaxation paint does not end anxiety symptoms all at once. When I learned of relaxation paint I used to have to write myself notes to practice or I would forget, but now I’ve practiced with the story of relaxation paint in pairs and as the whole story so long that it works for me to use it when I am stressed and I can relax at will, but I am the teacher. If you continue in the practice you will learn how it feels to relax, and that’s what the story of the paint in pairs means. It is too tempting to start doing something new, like breathing exercises, then getting a bad feeling like lightheadedness, then getting a panic attack about when you did the breathing exercise with someone who didn’t know any stories about relaxation, and then you stop trying.
My struggling student, you are a beginner in the ways of learning a language and are a beginner at learning when to relax, and sometimes beginners get scared and do not pick up their relaxation paints but wait for the teachers to paint the relaxation paints on their students instead. See, the teacher paint is regular thick, silky paint. The student paint is bubbly silky paint. Now you are going to use this new bubbly relaxation paint in this next lesson. This is the lesson that ends the homework session because you fall asleep.
Two stories about relaxation are more fun than one. Two ways to use the language guide words are neither right nor wrong. They can be used to tell the story about the paint in two different ways. No more worry story about the homework because I have told it to you the fun way. The homework is now easy.
We have one more lesson with the relaxation paint that ends this homework session. When you relax, each part of your body, that part will feel a little different, maybe warm, heavy, tingly or light and feathery, and your mind will have no worry thoughts and your imagination will be active in making up happy stories. This is how you know you are relaxing. When you cannot listen to this visualization story that we are in, such as when driving or at work, think the words, “Relaxation paint,” but those vocabulary words will do the most for you if you keep on listening to this story every day.
Now open this new jar of the paint and we hear it. The bubbles are from bubbly relaxation water that is in the paint but for the student paint there’s more water in that paint. I love the student paint. It feels the thickness of pudding. The teacher paint feels as the thickness of toppings for ice cream sundaes. Unlike pudding or sundae toppings the paint is not sticky. It is silky and smooth, both kinds of paint, the student paint and the teacher paint. I love the student paint because it calmed me when I was first learning the language, not Latin, but the language of relaxation that we learn to speak to ourselves. The student paint is so fun.
RELAXATION PAINT TO FALL ASLEEP
Now it’s time to relax…time to begin calming down. Concentrate first on your breathing. Count to see how long each breath takes. When you begin to breathe in, start counting silently in your mind, “one thousand one, one thousand two, one thousand three…” Continue to count as you inhale and exhale this breath, stopping when you finish the breath out.
Then start again at one, and count from the start of the next breath in, to the end of the breath out.
Keep counting like this, noticing how long each breath is.
(Pause)
You can stop counting now, and just breathe slowly. How many counts were your breaths? Did the length of your breaths change, or was each breath the same? Which part of the breath was longer…the inhale, or the exhale? Take note of what your breathing is like. Feel yourself calming down…calming down…calming down…
(Pause)
Now imagine that you have a jar that contains pure relaxation. It is a liquid substance, the consistency of thick paint. What colour would relaxation be?
Imagine that you also have a paint brush, that is very soft…the softest, silkiest brush…the tip is about as wide as your index finger. The bristles are soft. When pressure is applied, they bend, and as soon as the pressure is stopped, they return to their original position…soft and resilient.
Picture opening the jar of relaxation, and dipping the brush into this paint. Imagine painting relaxation onto the back of your left hand, starting at the wrist, and moving toward your knuckles. Imagine that relaxation is painted over the entire surface of the back of your left hand.
Continue painting this relaxation onto your skin…over the surface of each finger and your thumb. As soon as the relaxation is applied to your skin, feel the area relaxing…feeling calm, still, and heavy.
The relaxation paint is so pleasant. It may be warm…or cool…so deeply relaxing…calming down…
Imagine painting the palm of your left hand, and the front surfaces of your thumb and fingers.
Now imagine painting the back of your right hand, fingers, and thumb…smoothly applying relaxation to the entire back surface of your right hand.
Picture this relaxation being applied to the surface of the palm of your right hand…your fingers and thumb.
Feel how relaxed your hands feel…so warm…heavy…calm…it is such a pleasant feeling. Notice that the relaxation paint is absorbing into your hands…disappearing into the surface of your skin to fill your hands with relaxation…your hands do not look like any paint has been applied at all…the paint looks like it has disappeared but your hands are so fully relaxed…
Feel yourself calming down…calming down…calming down…
Notice the disappearing effect of the relaxation paint. Imagine applying one streak of paint to your left forearm. Imagine looking at the paint, seeing its colour. The paint is thick, and smooth..sitting on the surface of your forearm. See the paint on your skin and feel it relaxing this area.
Notice that as your forearm relaxes, the paint is disappearing. It is as if it is absorbing into your skin…creating an even deeper, more complete feeling of relaxation. Soon there is nothing visible on your forearm at all. It is clean and dry and looks perfectly normal…and is so deeply relaxed.
Imagine painting relaxation to your right forearm as well…and observing as the relaxation absorbs, leaving no visible trace but a total feeling of relaxation.
Feel yourself calming down…calming down…calming down…
Your hands and forearms are heavy and relaxed…and you can relax the rest of your body too.
Imagine applying the relaxation paint to any area that is tense and needs to relax. Perhaps your shoulders. Maybe the paint feels pleasant and cool on your skin…and perhaps it leaves your shoulders feeling warm and heavy…sinking into relaxation…down your arms…so fully relaxed all the way from your shoulders to your fingertips…
Imagine how good it would feel to relax your neck. Imagine what it would feel like if the relaxation was smoothed over the surface of your neck with the soft paint brush.
Imagine brushing the relaxation gently across your forehead…down your nose…over your cheeks…eyelids…lips…chin…
Imagine the relaxation being spread over the surface of your back…over your sides…chest and stomach…all the way to your hips…
Imagine relaxation on your upper legs…and your knees….your lower legs…and ankles…
Feel the pleasant relaxation paint being applied to the top of your feet…and then the bottom of your feet…
Feel your body relaxing from head to toe…so relaxed and still…so heavy…calm…relaxed…
Feel yourself calming down…calming down…calming down…
Notice if there are any areas that have not fully relaxed. Imagine applying the relaxation paint to these spots…feel the paint absorbing…and the area relaxing…sinking into warmth and relaxation…
The relaxation is inside your body now…filling you with a sense of peace and calm…relaxed inside and out…calming down…calming down…calming down…
(Pause)
The relaxation flowing through your body also works to calm the mind…allowing you to focus intently with calm and clarity. Feel yourself calming down…calming down…calming down…
(Pause)
Allow the feeling of relaxation to deepen…feel yourself slipping more deeply into a sleepy feeling…drifting into heaviness…
(Pause)
You are so calm…your thoughts wander…to sleep…without particular focus…except the focus on relaxation…turning your attention inside yourself…deeply…sleepy…drifting…
Trying to think but the mind is dreaming…flowing like a river…slowly…any direction…back to one direction of sleep…flowing toward sleep…meandering…but ever gradually getting back to deeply sleeping…
Relaxed…
Peaceful…
Softly…
Falling asleep…
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