Paradoxal reaction to relaxation techniques

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Before my ASD diagnosis I had tried meditation a couple of times yet each instance left me feeling quite wound up and distressed, I looked it up and found that's not necessarily unusual for people who were trying it for the first time.

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago, post-diagnosis, my psychologist takes me through a mindfulness session. It was pretty awful. I've been obsessing over the accuracy of my diagnosis especially in terms of whether I do or don't have significant sensory issues and the mindfulness just made that worse. I didn't like any of the sensations either. My psychologist had to leave the room for a short while so I could regain my composure as I could barely speak to her once we stopped it.

This week we tried progressive muscle relaxation and while there were a few moments were I did feel a relaxed, I spent the majority of it feeling wound up, tense, and resisting the urge to fidget. The script for the sessions refers to a 'pleasant tingling sensation' but I can't stand that feeling! I also found it very difficult (essentially impossible) to regulate my breathing, think of somewhere pleasant, AND do the task... in the end I gave up on the visual aspect and jumped between trying to do the task, breathing, and listening to a clock in the room.

I think I spend the majority of the time either quite tense or feeling 'zoned out' so imagine this could be a reaction to a perceived loss of control or just the sensations are too uncomfortable?

A quick bit of googling has shown that techniques such and mindfulness and progressive muscle relaxation are meant to be beneficial for those on the spectrum so I'm a little confused?

Can anyone relate?

I haven't had so much a problem with meditation and similar, but I do find that breathing techniques actually make me more tense! Anything to do with breath control, breath training for relaxation or calming, actually makes me panicked and my heart beat faster. I get panic from any sensation of holding the breath or controlling it.

YES! I HATE relaxation techniques where someone talks at you the whole time. And gives you lots of instructions. And I know I'm yelling and I say yelling is WORTH IT! Cause its ANNOYING!! !

I do think this is an autistic thing. Apparently, some people who don't have auditory processing problems find it comforting to be "talked through" the process of meditation. All that does is cause me distress. It's even worse live. Because when I have distress while meditating, the leader inevitably talks MORE, because NTs would find the soothing. Yuck.

I have strong feelings on this.

I do meditate regularly, and I do find it so helpful. But I do my own meditations. I don't do guided meditations. I'm actually very good at it. I switch which focusing methods I used from time to time. Right now, I'm using an image of a well on a grassy hill. I can see it very clearly. When things get going well, I feel the water from deep in the well nourishing me. Its nice. But I don't always get there. Sometimes my head is just too crowded with crap and that's OK, too.

I was in a daily therapy group for four weeks and we'd do mindfulness and grounding exercises a couple times a week and I ended up disocciating every time.

Interesting. I hate the "relaxation portion of my weekly yoga class. And my physiotherapist has been trying to get me to do relaxing breathing - without success.

People with any kind of mental difference (from the norm) may have a paradoxical reaction to these techniques.

My advice is tailor the session to your own needs. Are you practicing daily at home, and logging what happens when you try with/without a spoken guide?

Aside from sensory issues, there can be cognitive intrusions that sabotage the session. You may feel performance anxiety at being able to succeed with the method - which is certainly not going to facilitate relaxation! You may also feel such things as a frightening loss of control. And you may simply find your mind goes off on tangents, which may exasperate you.

Discuss these with your teacher. There are quite a few approaches to meditation, and one may work for you.

In Tibetan Buddhism, chanting is sometimes used. You can take a string of 108 beads and as you touch each bead, chant "om mani padme hum". Reaching the next bead in the string is your cue to return to the chant. This method quiets the mind, without concentrating on breathing. It is more active than whatever your psychologist was instructing, yet may give you the same result in the end.

Another method is walking in a wide circle, perhaps on a path in the park. With each step, repeat a mantra such as "peace." Don't go into deep thoughts about peace, but simply use it as a cue to start the next cycle of step, chant, repeat.

Beginners often are unaware that this all gets easier and smoother with practice. Give yourself many chances to learn this skill. Do not criticize your performance, but simply continue to try, without judgment.

Good fortune to you.

Well, since we're all wired differently, it makes sense that this stuff won't always work for us. I can't find the listed things relaxing at all. But my way of calming down is different...

Many beginners, autistic or not, have a bit of a reaction to beginning many meditative or relaxation techniques. In some cases, it's a matter of getting comfortable with it and progressing with your practice that you get over those initial reactions and things start to smooth out.
I meditate (though definitely not as much as I should) and it is the only time when I'm awake (apart from when eating and thus using my tongue) that I am able to stop stimming.
I think it also depends on the technique being right for you. I mainly do samatha meditation in a Buddhist tradition. This is lightly led when at the temple but not overwhelmingly so, and sometimes it is actually effective, when the mind is wandering, to hear the teacher's voice gently bringing your awareness back to breathing in the present. They also time the bells for the stages of the meditation which is helpful.
Maybe you need another form of meditation or relaxation that is more suited to you. I know that most people consider massage to be relaxing, whereas for me, being touched makes my brain think I'm being crushed, which is definitely not relaxing. Perhaps guided meditations, that seem to tell you what you should be feeling, just aren't the right kind for you.

I read this with interest having practiced mediation for around 15 years, in the past very regularly.
My teachers were from a monastic tradition (Tibetan Buddhism) and they viewed mediation as s skill for viewing and taming the mind rather than a means of relaxation.

There view was that meditation was a means to observe the mind rather than relax or quieten it. Advice given included the cautions that when sat in meditation one could discover one’s mind being extremely busy, and advised that this busy state may simply be ones mind’s usual state but when taking the time to sit in meditation, one becomes very aware just how busy the mind is. A paradoxical piece of advice given was that if one found ones mind feeling very busy, pre-occupied etc, this was actually indicating your meditation was good – you were actually Observing and Noticing what was going on in ones head.

I was also advised to take things very gently. Set aside something like 15 miutes or so each morning. During those fifteen minutes, it would be quite normal to feel quite busy, pre-occupied and that was normal, one simply acknowledged to oneself quietly that one was pre-occupied, and went back to watching ones breath, or some object or whatever one had chosen to support ones meditation and started again, and in fact one would probably watched a few breaths and then noticed one is Distracted, Again, and again and so it goes on. I was advised that in fact a meditation session where one is continuously noticing all the distraction, busyness in ones mind, tension even, and starting again, and a short time later starting again, is Good meditation, more valuable then a session of a blank mind. Another teacher advised me this way, “Legs have evolved to walk, brains have evolved to think, meditation is nto about stopping thoughts, it is about practicing watching thoughts”

I found out that relaxation = letting my guard down = unsafe = huge panic attack.

So the priorities changed. First: feel safe. Second: feel safe with my guard down.

It worked okay for me.

I hated breathing techniques, they made me feel so restless! Meditation isn't so bad though.

YES!

I find that many NT techniques cause me to feel more stressed. I dunno, they are VERY difficult for me. I just found them very frustrating to learn. I have my own techniques, but NTs (and some aspies even) sometimes scoff at me when I mention them so I never do and just do them myself. I have found a therapist who doesn't scoff at me, but my last one did.