In this podcast segment, Brendon Burchard discusses how chronic stress harms health, happiness, and overall life satisfaction. He differentiates between reactive "relieving" practices (like exercise or meditation) and proactive approaches, introducing his own method called the Release Meditation Technique (RMT). RMT is a brief, mantra‑based meditation that he practices multiple times a day. It involves two steps: first, consciously releasing physical tension throughout the body; second, using the mantra "release" to let go of thoughts, returning to the mantra whenever the mind wanders. He emphasizes setting an intention before resuming activity. Burchard also frames stress as an accumulation across the day, urging regular "dumping" of stress to prevent buildup. The segment serves as both an explanation of stress’s impact and a practical guide to a simple, repeatable meditation for stress management.
Chapters
Stress. At some point we got so stressed it jacked up our health, it jacked up our happiness. And all of a sudden we're like frustrated with life. If you're living in a state of perpetual stress, we know what that does to you now. I know some of them, you know, right? Like if you're stressed, go do some physical exercise. You're stressed, go do some meditation. Those are what I call like relieving practices. But there's also things that are more proact practices. And what I'd love to introduce you to is this concept of dealing with stress called the release Meditation technique. Okay. If you haven't heard about rmt, it stands for Release Meditation Technique. So RMT is a way of releasing stress in your life. Okay. And it's just a simple sort of mantra based meditation. And what I do is several times throughout the day, I'll push back from my computer or I'll excuse myself from that meeting, or I'll take a minute to myself and I'll close my eyes and I do two things in the release meditation technique. Number one is I try to release the tension in my body. So I might sit down, might lay down, I'll close my eyes and I just focus for a minute or two of releasing the tension in my legs, my feet, in my hips, in my stomach, in my shoulders, my arms, my neck, in my eyes, in my brows. And I'll just try to release a little bit of tension. Second thing I do is I try to release thoughts. So that's what takes me to traditional meditation is where I go into a mantra based meditation. And for me, the mantra is literally the word release. So I close my eyes and I repeat to myself, release, release, release, release. And as I'm saying the word release, my intention in that moment is to release that tension in my body and to release the thoughts that are coming up. And as more thoughts come up, I just let them fly by returning to my mantra. And then before you open your eyes, set an intention for how you want to do the next thing. Well, a lot of our stress is carrying over from previous activities. Your 3 o' clock stress is the accumulation of 10am 11 noon 1. And so once you realize, wow, stress is an accumulation, you go, you know what? Then several times throughout the day, I better be dumping it. Let it go, release it. And that is the ultimate spiritual practice.