I had my first instalment of autogenic training a few days ago and it's left me feeling spaced out. I had begun to realise that it can be hard slowing down, but the effects of my three-times-daily meditation, which works as a kind of self-hypnosis, have really kicked in now.

I can switch off far more quickly now and feel mellow after the exercises, but then find myself at odds with a world that is completely wound up.

The exercises, which involve focusing on different parts of the body to trigger relaxation, are aimed to slow us down with all the health benefits that that brings, including lowering blood pressure, relieving phobias and insomnia and lowering anxiety levels.

After you've found the knack of zoning out, it can work like a dose of horse tranquilisers. Or it does for me.

Last week I was so relaxed I went around feeling dizzy and walking ten times slower than everyone else. I don't think I was actually crawling, I just think the rest of the world was running.

Autogenic training is apparently supposed to increase the number of alpha waves in your brain and is supposed to help you tune into the intuitive side of your brain, or so the teacher tells us.

He, for one, is so mellow that there is a marked time delay between asking him a question and seeing him register it. A response comes many seconds later. It's like he's on a natural form of dope all the time.

It seemed brilliant at first to chill out and slow down, but I'm the only one who seems to be doing it and it feels lonely. I no longer want to gulp down ten cups of double latte and sprint through a day of frantic multi tasking. I'm now quite content to spend the afternoon shopping for cushions and then going to bed early.

Last week, the teacher got us to concentrate on relaxing our necks and shoulders and taught us a fantastic technique. When we found ourselves in a stressful situation we would have to mentally repeat the phrase "my neck and shoulders are heavy" to trigger a sense of calmness, which worked in combination with the longer sessions of mediation we were doing every day.

It sounded like nonsense when he told us about it, just too simple to work in situations of adversity such as overcrowded tubes and interminably long queues at Sainsbury's. But, remarkably, I found myself standing in a queue that never moved at the local supermarket and felt my burden lifting as I chanted the phrase.

I looked around and saw a sea of stressful faces around me. Did I really look as stressed as that a few weeks ago? And was the solution really as simple as saying "my neck and shoulders are heavy" to myself 50 times a day? Apparently so.