Relaxation may refer to:

• a process or state with the aim of recreation through leisure activities or idling and the opposite of stress or tension
• Relaxation technique
• In mechanical systems, the release of tension on a given instrument
• In physics, the transition of an atom or molecule from a higher energy level to a lower one:
• Dielectric relaxation
• Relaxation (NMR)
• Relaxation time
• In mathematics,
• Relaxation technique (mathematics), in mathematical optimization, a technique for transforming hard constraints into easier ones
• Relaxation method, for numerically solving elliptic partial differential equations
• In computer science, the act of smoothing out a 3D mesh, or of substituting alternative program code during linking
• In music, the release of musical tension