Tension Control in the Physical Education Classroom

The effects of a school‐based relaxation training program on fourth grade children

“…The findings of this study confirms the more subjective findings of Frederick (1967) and Setterlind and Patriksson (1981) that children can in fact learn tension/stress control in a period as short as six weeks. Heart rate and respiration rate are traditional measures of physiological arousal and it appears that children can learn to control these parameters by focusing on breathing, relaxing their musculature and imagining warm relaxing scenes.…”

“…Essentially the program was based on modifications of the programs developed by Bernstein and Borkovec (1973), Frederick (1967, Marshall and Beach (1976), and Stroebel et al (1980). The 18 lessons dealt with the following concepts:…”

“…According to Frederick (1967) the first attempt to introduce tension control training in the schools, was by Edmund Jacobson (1978) (commonly referred to as the "father of tension control") and his followers in the Chicago Heights school system. Unfortunately no formal evalution of the program was made.…”