The coercivity of a material depends on the time scale over which a magnetization curve is measured. The magnetization of a material measured at an applied reversed field which is nominally smaller than the coercivity may, over a long time scale, slowly relax to zero. Relaxation occurs when reversal of magnetization by domain wall motion is thermally activated and is dominated by magnetic viscosity. The increasing value of coercivity at high frequencies is a serious obstacle to the increase of data rates in high- bandwidth magnetic recording, compounded by the fact that increased storage density typically requires a higher coercivity in the media.