Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Autogenic Training Simply Explained

1. What It Is About

Progressive muscle relaxation, known as PMR for short, is a body-based procedure. One tenses individual muscle groups one after the other and then consciously relaxes them again. The physician Edmund Jacobson developed it in the 1920s. His assumption: Physical tension and mental stress are closely linked.

Autogenic training, known as AT for short, was introduced by Johannes Heinrich Schultz in the 1930s. Here one repeats certain phrases inwardly to oneself, for example about heaviness and warmth. The body is thereby meant to come to rest. Both procedures are usually learned in a group or alone and require regular practice.

How the exercises proceed in detail varies. With progressive muscle relaxation there is often a fixed sequence, for example 16 muscle groups in a particular order. With autogenic training the range extends from short exercises to longer sessions with additional phrases. Measurement is usually carried out with questionnaires, for instance on anxiety or pain, or via physical values such as heart rate.

2. What Studies Show

Progressive muscle relaxation is the best studied. In a study with 51 people treated in isolation for COVID-19, one group practised progressive muscle relaxation every day for five days. Afterwards these people reported markedly less anxiety in a questionnaire than the group that received only usual care 1.

In 104 cancer patients in a hospice a programme of progressive muscle relaxation and guided imagery was examined. Two hours after the session pain was markedly lower than before, and anxiety and depressed mood had also decreased 3.

A review summarised 15 randomised studies in which relaxation procedures were tested against pain. Progressive muscle relaxation showed the most consistent results, especially for joint pain due to arthritis. Autogenic training did not perform better than the comparison group in this evaluation 5.

A further review evaluated 27 studies from the years 1997 to 2007 in which relaxation procedures were investigated in anxiety disorders. Anxiety scores decreased on average among the participants; this also applied to progressive muscle relaxation and autogenic training 4.

A study with 50 people with a chronic lung disease examined a therapy in an artificial, screen-generated environment as a support to pulmonary rehabilitation. After ten sessions this therapy produced improvements in stress, anxiety and depressed mood 2.

Many of these studies are small and run for only a few weeks. The procedures are frequently combined with other treatments, making it difficult to determine what proportion of the success is due to the relaxation itself.

3. What Remains Unclear

The largest open question is how much of the observed effect really comes from the relaxation itself. Both procedures are often used together with other treatments, for example with talk therapy. In many studies there is also no comparison group that receives the same amount of attention without the relaxation exercise.

The distribution is also striking: there are markedly more studies on progressive muscle relaxation. Many works on autogenic training date from earlier decades and focus on particular complaints.

Direct comparisons between the two procedures are still outstanding, as are long-term studies over months or years. The assumption that both procedures permanently alter unconscious bodily processes such as heartbeat and breathing remains a hypothesis.

4. What This Means in Everyday Life

Anyone interested in one of the two procedures encounters a body of research that above all shows one thing: improvements in anxiety, stress, pain and sleep problems were observed in many studies. The results are most consistent for progressive muscle relaxation, especially for musculoskeletal pain. For autogenic training the findings are more mixed.

Both procedures have been examined in many studies with people. For many applications, the question of how clearly the methods help is still open.

Both procedures have been known for decades and are frequently used in rehabilitation and prevention as an accompanying measure. What can be expected in an individual case depends strongly on how regularly practice takes place and how good the instruction is. What remains to be clarified is which complaints benefit most from which of the two procedures.

All details with study numbers and sources: detailed page on Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Autogenic Training. For children: Progressive Muscle Relaxation and Autogenic Training for Children.