By Anthony Meindl | Posted May 13, 2014, 3 p.m.

Relaxation. Its always a breath away, but we often forget this when we get stressed, tense our bodies, and attempt to go for something big.

It almost seems counterintuitive to relax when what were wanting seems to come from moments of committed self-exertion. But it always comes back to relaxation.

There is an acting equivalent. Jack Nicholson says that, Eighty-five percent of acting is you. The other 15 percent is relaxation so that you can access you.

We are often unconscious of how we work against ourselves when we begin to strain and hold tension both physically and mentally. When we have battles in our left brains telling ourselves we suck or were talentless or we become scared, our bodies take on the physical expression of that mental tension. There is always a physical and emotional equivalent to the energy you give to mental resistance.

The laws of thermodynamics say the energy has to go somewhere...and it does. Its produced as waste and is known as entropy.

So for actors, that entropy is stored within us as tensionclenching of the jaw, shutting feeling down, not releasing the voice, straining, physically getting tightnarrowing the channel through which feeling can be released.

The only way you can be free of that resistance is first, knowing that you are tightening up and second, relaxing so you have access to all the other stuff thats getting squeezed out in the first place.

You can begin to work optimally, tapping into all your innate potential, but in order to access it, you have to relax.

Sometimes its as simple as remembering to breathe. Sometimes its expressing the mental noise, outwardlywhether thats through a vocal release, a breath, crying, laughing, letting go of a pure sound, screaming, shoutingor getting physical.

Continued here:
The Importance of Relaxation