autogenic training

noun

variants or less commonly autogenic relaxation

: a self-relaxation technique that involves silently repeating one or more statements intended to produce a relaxed feeling of bodily warmth and heaviness and to foster a state of physical and emotional calmness

Another reliable relaxer is autogenic training, a kind of self-programming that creates the relaxation response through suggestion. For example, if you simply repeat to yourself, "my limbs feel heavy and warm," your body soon responds accordingly.

—Lonny J. Brown

Autogenic training, a series of meditative techniques designed to quell anxiety in stressful situations may initially seem like New Age quackery, but it's hard to argue with its effectiveness.

—Jesse Harlan Alderman

called also autogenics

Word History

Etymology

after German autogenes Training

Note: The term and technique were introduced by the German psychiatrist Johannes Heinrich Schultz (1884-1970) in Das autogene Training (Leipzig, 1932) and other publications.

First Known Use

1954, in the meaning defined above