So what is the buzz about somatics
Taking back control of your movement, your pain and ultimately your life.
Learning how to become strong and resilient. Like a sunflower that sways in the wind, bending but not breaking.
Somatic movement is a field of body-mind re-education that emphasizes awareness and direct sensory feedback of the body, aimed at improving physical well-being and posture. It focuses on retraining habitual patterns of tension and increasing mobility and self-awareness through gentle movement and awareness exercises. The benefits range from improved sleep and reduced stress to improving sport performance and healing from injuries.
It helps people be more aware of and control their physical sensations, movements and posture. This increased awareness and control brings a number of benefits, such as reduced pain, improved mobility and flexibility, reduced stress and anxiety, and improved overall well-being. The practices used in somatics can also help individuals develop an imroved sense of proprioception (knowing where you are in space) and interoception, (being able to sense what's going on inside), which in turn offers a host of benefits, including greater personal awareness and feeling more stable on one’s feet, reducing falls and injuries.
During our daily lives, we encounter various stresses, both good and bad. Our nervous system responds to these stressors with specific muscular reflexes which allow us to carry on with our lives even when we feel overwhelmed by normal life stress, injury, trauma or any strong emotional response. When these reflexes are repeatedly triggered, habitual movement patterns develop which can be outside of our voluntary control. The muscular contractions and patterns become so deeply involuntary and unconscious that we no longer remember how to move outside of the patterns we have developed. This is known as sensory motor amnesia; our brains and nervous systems have ‘forgotten’ (amnesia), how it feels (sensory) to move (motor) freely. Because this happens at the level of the central nervous system, it can impact every system in our bodies, including emotions, digestion, breathing and mental acuity.
To combat this, we need to become aware of what parts of our body are chronically contracted and then seek to intentionally release that contraction. For example, if you have a sore back and there has not been a specific injury or break in function, it is highly probable that the muscles of your back have become continuously contracted to some degree and have ‘forgotten’ how to relax. A painful back is such an all-encompassing situation because you can never seem to get away from it. It makes you feel older than your years and leaves you feeling drained and tired all the time. It takes energy to contract a muscle and a continuously contracted muscle requires extra energy to stay contracted, resulting in undesired exhaustion.
In our sessions together, we will seek to find those areas that are especially troubling for you; both through your descriptions and concerns, and through my observation of your movement. Then, through a series of gentle movements, we will ‘teach’ your muscles to relax. This will restore your intended motion and reduce your pain and tiredness. Overall, the movements I teach you will equip you to keep yourself moving well and free from pain. This is not to say you will never seek the help of your physiotherapist, massage therapist, chiropractor or the like again; but you will be able to ‘work’ on yourself, so those visits become more effective and efficient. The only thing necessary for you to be successful with this movement modality is to have the desire to take control of your health and the willingness to improve your posture and motion.