"62 medicine (CAM) use by Americans, 12.7 percent of American adults use deep - breathing exercises, 2.9 percent used pro gressive relaxation, and 2.2 percent used guided imagery for health purposes. Most of those people reported using a book to learn the techniques rather than seeing a practitioner. To understand how consciously producing the relaxation response may affect your health, it is helpful to understand how your body responds to the opposite of relaxation — stress. When you’re under stress, your body releases hormones that produce the “fight - or - flight response:” Heart rate and breathing rate go up and blood vessels n arrow (restricting the flow of blood). This response allows energy to flow to parts of your body that need to take action, for example the muscles and the heart. However useful this response may be in the short term, there is evidence that when your body r emains in a stress state for a long time, emotional or physical damage can occur. Long - term or chronic stress (lasting months or years) may reduce your body’s ability to fight off illness and lead to or worsen certain health conditions. Chronic stress may lead to high blood pressure, headaches, stomach ache, and other symptoms. Stress may worsen certain conditions, such as asthma. Stress also has been linked to depression, anxiety, and other mental illnesses. In contrast to the stress response, the relaxat ion response slows the heart rate, lowers blood pressure, and decreases oxygen consumption and levels of stress hormones. Because relaxation is the opposite of stress, the theory is that voluntarily creating the relaxation response through regular use of r elaxation techniques could counteract the negative effects of stress. Status of Research on Relaxation Techniques In the past 30 years, there has been considerable interest in the relaxation response and how inducing this state may benefit health. Resear ch has focused primarily on illness and conditions in which stress may play a role either as the cause of the condition or as a factor that can make the condition worse. Currently, there is some evidence that relaxation techniques may be an effective part of an overall treatment plan for some disorders, including: • Anxiety; Studies have suggested that relaxation may assist in the treatment of phobias or panic disorder. Relaxation techniques have also been used to relieve anxiety for people in stressful situ ations, such as when undergoing a medical procedure. • Depression: In 2008, a major review of the evidence for relaxation in the treatment of depression found that relaxation techniques were more effective than no treatment for depression, but not as effecti ve as cognitive - behavioral therapy. • Headache: There is some evidence that biofeedback and other relaxation techniques may be helpful for relieving tension or migraine headaches. In some cases, these mind and body techniques were more effective than medica tions for reducing the frequency, intensity, and severity of headaches."