Barbiturates were manufactured in 1912 and were used extensively for the next 60 years as a tranquillizer to calm the anxious. In a moderate dose they can be used as a hypnotic for sleeping. In an even higher dose they can be used in general anaesthesia, knocking people out completely for surgical operation.

After many years it became apparent that a lot of people abused barbiturates, becoming addicted to them, There were serious withdrawal symptoms. People who were on high doses of these pills could not stop taking them and needed a higher and higher dose to have the same desirable effect. People who were on high doses for a long time and stopped suddenly experienced serious withdrawal symptoms. Not only could they not sleep, but also they could go into convulsion and could even develop temporary psychotic illness. These pills have a narrow safety margin, and people have overdosed either accidentally or on purpose. Remember the sad cases of Marilyn Monroe and Elvis Presley?

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Ideas have a rather different meaning for us—a different significance—according to our state of mind when the ideas are presented to us. At this moment, as you are reading this paragraph, you are in a state of mind that is relatively alert and critical. In this state of mind you read the heading “Emphasis on the feeling that it is good” and quite likely you think critically to yourself that it is a rather strange heading, a strange idea. This is natural enough in your alert state of mind. But remember that we are going to use this idea by presenting it to ourselves when we are in an extremely relaxed, unalert, uncritical, and partially regressed state of mind. In this condition the idea, which now may seem rather odd and childish, takes on a new meaning of greater simplicity, and of deeper and more profound significance which quite eludes us in our normal state of critical alertness.

When we suffer from anxiety and chronic nervous tension, it is easy to feel that nothing seems good any more. The lustre goes from life. The brightness of the day has gone.

Things that once brought us pleasure can no longer stir us. There may come a sensation of emptiness, the feeling that good has gone from us, and that we are indeed destitute. We can let ourselves relax and help ourselves along these lines:

Relaxed.

Good to relax.

Feel the relaxation all through me.

Good to feel it like that.

Really good.

Wonderful feeling.

In our regressed state it is easy to experience the feeling of relaxation as good. When we have been tense and anxious for a long period, we come to forget that things can feel good. We learn to experience the feeling again in our relaxing exercises, and soon we find that our outlook is changing, and once more things in our ordinary life begin to feel good.

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