Definition
Relaxation is the state — both physical and mental — in which striving stops interfering with skilled performance. In Maltz's framework, the servo-mechanisms of the brain and body steer most accurately when conscious control loosens its grip; relaxation is the operating condition that lets them work.
It is not collapse and not indifference. A relaxed surgeon, athlete, or speaker is alert, intentioned, and oriented to a goal — but no longer braced against it. The hands stay steady, the breath stays even, and the mind stops second-guessing every micro-decision.
Why it matters
How it works
Excess striving recruits muscles, narrows attention, and floods the body with stress signals that the trained nervous system reads as threat. The result is the freeze, the choke, the blank — the hand that misses the cup it has held a thousand times. Relaxation reverses each of those signals: shoulders drop, breath lengthens, peripheral vision returns, and the practiced skill is allowed to surface.
Maltz treated relaxation as a skill in its own right. You cultivate it through deliberate practice — short daily sessions of quiet attention, mental imagery of a calm place, or simple physical release — until the body learns the pattern and can re-enter it within seconds when pressure rises.