I must be one of the most wound-up, fiery people on the planet. And that's why I'm reasonably well qualified to teach folks how to relax: I had to learn it myself, because without it I'd just keep on going round the bend every few years.

Some of us are born with a red mist setting lower than those around us. Some of us acquire more anger thanks to the crap that life throws at us. And others still make it worse for themselves by never learning how to relax.

Well, not so much relax: more how to break the circle of misty crimson cloud formations.

Why this works

Unfortunately, I can't just start at 'this is what you do' and then take you through it. Believing in the system is crucial to success - and to know why you can believe in it requires some background.

Anger comes chiefly from poor self-esteem....lack of confidence if you like. We feel brittle, so we feel easily threatened, so we get easily scared. Observe small dogs and watch them lick their lips just before going ballistic: the licking is a fear sign, and the attack is to hide that. We're very similar.

Fear breeds anger. Almost all fear comes from the past (guilt and worrying about the past repeating itself) and the future (anxiety about what might happen). 99% of fear isn't real, because there is no such thing as the past or the future: physically, they don't exist. Your subconscious mind can't tell the difference between then, now and next - that's why nightmares are scarey: if we knew it was a movie, we'd just thing 'Great! This is good', and chew more popcorn.

Therefore, the key to true, meditative relaxation is to switch off your mind. Your 'worrying' mind can only say stuff about the past or the future: it has nothing to offer on the subject of right now. Try it - focus on what's going on around you and ask your mind to comment on only those things. Unless a truck is heading right for you, there will be no comment.

Therefore, the key to switching off your mind is to stay entirely in NOW. And not sit in the middle of the road.

The Concept of NOW

Four types of people go on a lot about Now: physicists, CBT therapists, Buddhist Monks, and a German bloke called Eckhart Tolle. If it's all the same to you, I'd like to take these in reverse order.

Tolle is - whatever you think of him - an extraordinary human being. He led a life of almost constant breakdowns and madness until, around the age of thirty, he went more than usually bonkers and became a vagrant. Somehow, something during that period (and he was a physicist, bear in mind) told him that the key to everything was controlling that irritating habit the mind has of wittering on endlessly about past cock-ups and future dangers. He wrote this all down in a book called The Power of Now. It has sold zillions of copies and made him a multi-millionaire. Today he runs a centre in Canada dedicated to explaining in person how his ideas can help everyone.

You should read the book. Preferably three or four times - it's not very long. By the end of that process, you'll either think he really is onto the secret of serenity, or talking a load of complete toss. I'm in the former camp.

Although he isn't a Buddhist, Tolle shares a great deal of their views about the Universe and what Time is or isn't about.

He thinks that Now is what religious prophets have meant by Eternity. He thinks that in real NOW, one can exist without physical needs. And he calls the achievement of NOW 'the end of suffering': the shutting out of the neurotic mind, and the achievement of bliss.

Buddhists think pretty much the same: they call NOW 'the unmanifested realm' or 'no-time'. They lay great emphasis on being alert in no-time.

Both the Buddhists and Tolle think that focus on the senses - sight, sound, taste, smell and touch - is the ultimate way to shut the mind up. Further, they argue that one should actively 'watch' what the worrying mind is on about: Tolle calls this being The Watcher, and Buddhists call it Mindfulness.

Above all, they agree that identification with the mind is the core problem of our species, and responsible for most of the world's contemporary ills. I think this is slap bang on the money: most of us do our mind's bidding.....whereas it should be the other way round. (In a lot of this stuff by the way, the terms 'mind' and 'ego' are virtually interchangeable)

Enter CBT, or to give it its full name, Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. CBT is rapidly taking over from Freudian psychiatry for two reasons: one, it's far more scientifically based; and two, it works far more quickly. It's not important in this context for you to know why that is, only that CBT practitioners in turn lay great emphasis on NOW, focus on the senses, Mindfulness, and non-identification with the kind of invented fears our minds dig up. And it is in fact from this branch of science that the form of relaxation I want to talk about stems.

So, its foundation as a method is based on the ideas of a famous millionaire, a very successful and non-aggressive religion, and field-trialled neuroscience. But as it happens, it's also borne out by quantum physics.

Those last two words are usually enough for most people to dive behind the sofa. In fact, there are very few numbers or eggheads involved here. Quantum physics and its ideas have been confirmed by numerous experiments, but the basic idea is simple: mind over matter. Any physicists reading this will of course have an attack of the vapours about this gross over-simplification, and that's fair enough. But for me, QP's main tenet asserts (with tons of evidence) that in the sub-atomic - ie very small - level of existence, the presence of any form of intelligence can change the result of anything and everything....and usually does.

The more enthusiastic members of this clan, for instance, believe that truly great soccer strikers unconsciously direct the ball into the net by 'changing the quantum future'. They determine NOT that the ball be directed by their foot, but that WHATEVER happens, it will cross the goal-line. Looking at the likes of Wayne Rooney and Didier Drogba, it's hard to credit this; but then, it's also hard to understand how autistic savants know precisely what will happen on occasions. In truth, the two examples are directly comparable: neither of the 'changers' of the future have a clue how they're doing it, but they do.

So it is that these days you will find CBT folk attending seminars with neuroscientists, Buddhists and physicists. The overriding thing they have in common is a belief that nothing is real: if you have a mind to, as it were, control your mind, then you can control anything.

We're getting into metaphysics here, and that's close enough. The point is, using your sensory brain as a tool (rather than the mind using you) can work miracles - including the ability with practice to shut out all anxiety and relax entirely.

The Method.

These days, I can reduce my blood pressure from 165/110 to 130/90 in fifteen seconds. I know this because I've had my bp tested and terrified the staff who were taking it by doing this trick.

But as any conjuror will tell you, nothing comes easy: it takes a whole lot of practice. Nevertheless, perseverance will deliver what you want in the end. Most people fail at this method because they've been brought up in an 'instant results' culture. Others still lose the skill because they fail to realise it's not like riding a bike; CBT-style relaxation technique is like belonging to a gym - a long haul to get fit, and then the need to top up and stay at that level.

Stage One - Novice

That's you right now. At this stage you need a darkish, warm room, loose clothing, a very thin pillow on which to rest your head, and solitary confinement. Try and choose a time when you won't be interrupted. Allow yourself about half an hour. Lie down with your head on the pillow, legs about two feet apart, and arms away from your body at 45 degrees with the palms facing upwards. If you're lying on your front, your wrists will have broken by now. So lie on your back.

Start by becoming aware of your senses. Don't try to interpret what you see, just look at what's there and what you might not have noticed about it/them before. Then listen - really strain your sense of hearing - to audit all the sounds you can hear. Breathe in slowly through your nose and enjoy the smells. Taste what's in your mouth. And then focus on what you're touching: clothes, pillow, floor etc. Visualise the different surfaces with which you're inter-reacting.

At least ten times by now your mind will have wandered off to think about the meeting next week or the match last night. Don't be annoyed by this - we're all wired to do it -just keep on going through each of the senses.

Having completed this, visualise each body part one by one, and tense them up in turn. Doesn't matter whether you start at head or toe, just so long as - having decided on a method - you stick to it from then on. Tense each part for as long as possible, and then feel the relaxation as you let go.

Two science bits here. One, you need to stick to the same order because this is how the brain learns - by rote. Once having got it, the left brain then starts over time to anticipate it. It thinks 'Aye, aye - he's doing that tensing thing again' and quite quickly it will become a reinforced behaviour pattern. Or as ordinary folk might say, quicker and easier. Two, the tensing is important in confirming a cardinal rule of physics: every action is folowed by an equal and opposite reaction. If you tense up, once that action stops there will be a powerful relaxant action.

You'll find at first that once you get to whichever end you've chosen as the end (as it were) back at the start the relaxation will have worn off. Again, don't get annoyed - just do it all over again.

That's it. Twice a day for a month.

Stage Two - Something is happening

You'll notice two things by the end of this month: first, the process is taking less time every day. And second, your extremities feel slightly numb after a while.

Once this happens, you can move on to the next level bit by bit. The first bit is to visualise the numbness, and imagine the hand, foot, bum or whatever having no mass or shape. This will intensify the feeling of, um, having no feeling. The second bit is to visualise this feeling spreading elsewhere - up each arm and leg in turn, and then up the body's trunk.

The third bit is - after each tensing action - to visualise the release and relaxation of muscles.

I'm laying great stress at this point on getting the brain to imagine what the numbness and relaxation are like, because this requires a lot of effort by your cerebral matter. So much at first, in fact, that all the past guilt and future anxiety get increasingly blotted out.

I'm not a great skier. Let's be clear about this: I'm a scaredycat skier. Each time I do downhill, 97% of the time I am pretty scared. While this is not a good way to ski, it is an excellent way to relax. Because there is (a) the action/reaction thing and (b) corporate and other concerns get completely blocked by the primary desire to survive. I hate skiing holidays, but I go on them because I am totally laid back by the time I get home.(There is an excellent Buddhist maxim which asserts, 'every day, do something you don't want to do'. It is remarkably effective)

It's the same with visualisation during this style of meditation: if you make your brain work extra hard, it has no energy left to worry. In effect, it forgets - for a time - all those daft things it's obsessing about.

Once the visualisation is really working, you can gradually drop the tensing: by now, your brain will be fully trained to relax the second you start thinking about it.

Stage Three - Anywhere, anytime

In the West -sometimes for perfectly good reasons - folks don't have an hour a day to sit in darkened rooms and turn off all the phones, SMS, Twitter etc etc. Also they can't order everything to go quiet. And most important of all, the times at which they get stressed tend NOT to be in calm, quiet places. The next stage is therefore to perfect doing this technique with all kinds of other crap going on around you.

There is one vital rule about this, however: don't use the technique while driving, using machinery or trying to relight the boiler when it's minus 5 outside. At these times, it is quite important not to lose interest in what you're doing.

The key problem here is noise. The best way to start on this issue is to accept the noise and realise that it will pass through you. It's not there just to annoy you, and there's no need to absorb it. If anything, it's a good idea to analyse the various components of it.

Don't start with a pneumatic drill: that's setting out to fail. Kick off with a radio in the background, then louder music you don't like, and then gradually 'immerse' (as the shrinks say) until you can go to the end of a fighter jet runway and go through the visualised relaxation. The trick is NOT to ignore the noise: remaining alert during meditation is vital otherwise you'll just go to sleep. The game is to prove to yourself that you can relax no matter what the circumstances.

Your worrying right brain would deny this; but do it often enough, and your rational left brain will learn the truth and tell the right brain to shut up. The one really todally cool thing about our two brain hemispheres is that when push comes to shove, the sane bit has the final say. Unless of course you're a dictator or banker or footballer. But obviously you're not, so it's irrelevant.

In a future posting, I'll talk about how to use the technique when dealing with jerks. And also how to rectify your self-image inaccuracies that caused the worrying in the first place.

But in the meantime,just relax and enjoy it.

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