Farhad Jokar, Fereydoon Yaryari, Maryam Ghasemi,
Volume 4, Issue 1 (9-2010)
Abstract
The aim of the study was to investigate the effect of therapeutic touch and muscle relaxation on trait and state anxiety in Tarbiat Moallem University’s students, Tehran. Population of the study included all the students of this university in the academic year 2007-2008.A sample of 40students was selected through simple random sampling. Based on Spielberger state-trait anxiety inventory (STAI),the subjects were put into four groups of ten: Therapeutic touch group, muscle relaxation group, anxious control group and normal group control. In this study which was a quasi-experimental research, pretest-posttest, control group design was used. To analyze and to test the hypotheses of the study, Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used. The findings revealed that there was a significant difference between the experimental and control groups in terms of state and trait anxiety. Therefore, muscle relaxation can be used to decrease the anxiety, since the results of the study indicated that muscle relaxation method can have an effective role in decreasing state and trait anxiety.
Mohammad Khabiri, Ali Moghadam Zadeh, Amirhossain Mehrsafar, Hamideh Abrisham-Kar,
Volume 11, Issue 1 (5-2017)
Abstract
The aim of this study was to compare effectiveness of progressive muscle relaxation and mental imagery-based relaxation on psychophysiological responses of competitive anxiety (cortisol levels) and self-confidence in elite athletes. For this purpose, 36 of elite Wushu athletes selected and randomly divided into two experimental groups and one control group. In the pre-test (first competition) competitive anxiety and self-confidence as well as salivary cortisol were measured in all three groups. In experimental groups, relaxation techniques was trained for 4 weeks. Data with univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) were analyzed. The results showed that progressive muscle relaxation was more effective than mental imagery-based relaxation in decreasing saliva cortisol and somatic anxiety. Also, mental imagery-based relaxation was more effective on the cognitive anxiety rather than progressive muscle relaxation. In addition, self-confidence was increased after mental imagery-based relaxation. In general, it could be concluded that different types of relaxation training was an effective strategy to reduce psychophysiological responses of competitive anxiety and improve self-confidence.
