Addressing your symptoms with somatics

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 The beautiful thing about somatics is that it reminds us that we can help ourselves. Helping ourselves requires self-awareness, which we all have the capacity for. Our ability to be self-aware lives in a certain region of our brain and it is designed to help our nervous system regulate how we feel.

Our brains can stop using this capacity for self-awareness when life’s challenges require us to disregard how we feel in order to get by. We might simply react based on what we’ve done in the past, or react based on what the world around us is telling us we should do. We no longer have agency over how we feel then. The self-sensing part of us that helps us regulate how we feel in the present is being ignored. 

The good news is that we can re-learn how to regulate how we feel through self-awareness. Anything can be somatic. Somatic means to be in touch with your body’s experience - how it reacts to what someone says or the details of how you create movement, etc. 

A somatic movement practice can support us in accessing our self-awareness and once we establish that foundation and what our current habits are, we can use it to help us move towards feeling better and creating new habits that support freedom of movement, a sense of safety and ease.

• Somatic movements don’t look like much from the outside! Gentle, small movements, seated or lying down.  Example here.
• Small shifts in your habits that develop over time that can lead to long-term changes in your way of moving through life (both literally and figuratively)

• A quiet space, chair, mat/carpeted floor, a folded blanket/towel.

More importantly...

• An open-mind and willingness to consider beyond what you currently think is possible.
• An intention of curiosity - where do I over-work/push? 
• Patience - Habits take time to develop and therefore it will take time to notice and breakdown your current habits of movement and rebuild new ones that allow you to move with ease and feel good.
• Self-compassion - It isn’t easy to practice self-awareness. We are very good at judging what we find and quickly trying to correct it. If we want to change what our body is doing, we first have to be curious about what it is currently doing. 
• Dedication - You are the most capable out of anyone to help yourself. Helping ourselves takes time and consistent attention. From the words of author Caroline Myss, “Of all the many factors that healing and living a healthy life require, becoming an empowered individual is the most important. That’s also the most difficult.”

Dizziness and neck pain related to issues with the cervical spine.

How can somatic movement help?

• Thomas Hanna, a pioneer in somatic movement said in his book The Body of Life, “The vestibular system is the sanctuary of the standing function.” In other words your inner ear is essential in helping your brain sense up and down and therefore where you are in space. The position of your head and neck (a.k.a, posture) influences how the inner ear does its job. 

• The cervical spine (neck) play an important roll in our balance and coordination. Over time chronic muscular tension in the body can pull the head/neck/spine out of alignment and therefore distort the brain’s sense of center. The overworking that results in the neck muscles can cause or contribute to headaches and neck pain.  

• Learn movement patterns that will help you reset and maintain postural alignment (tall spine with head balanced on top) so the body has a clear sense of where it is in space  and to reduce the likelihood of experiencing neck pain and dizziness. 

•  Our joints can become stiff and painful if the bones do not maintain alignment and the space within the joint is reduced because of chronic muscular tension. 

How can somatic movement help?

• Learn where the muscles are tight/over-working and how to release this chronic tension so the joint has proper space and alignment for pain-free movement. 

• Frozen Shoulder/Rotator Cuff Impingement: often due to a bracing in the shoulder joint (chronic tension in the chest, upper back/neck) and associated with an imbalance between the left and right sides of the body.  

• Sacroiliac Joint Pain: often due to an imbalance of muscle function between the left and right sides of the body, influencing the alignment and restricting the movement of one side of the pelvis. 

• Jaw Pain (TMD)/Clenching/Grinding of Teeth: often due to chronic muscular tension affecting the muscles that connect the lower jaw to the skull. Poor posture, chronic stress and imbalances between the left and right sides of the neck can all lead to chronic muscular tension in the upper body. Learning to release this tension will improve posture and align the head on top of the spine which will free up the movement of the jaw. 

• Our nerves are like wires that send signals from and to our brain so that it can regulate our movements, digestion, EVERYTHING that our body does. Our nerves need appropriate space where they pass through for a clear signal to be sent from one part of the body to another. Chronic muscular tension can narrow the passage way through which nerves pass. This can lead to pinching of a nerve or poor communication between different parts of the body making coordinating movement difficult.

How can somatic movement help?

• Learn where the muscles are tight/over-working and how to release this chronic tension so the nerves have the proper space to pass through and the bones have proper alignment for pain-free, easy movement. 

• Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: due to a lack of space at the collarbone where nerves that originate from the neck, pass through to innervate and control the arm/wrist/hand.  Muscular tension in the front of the body pulls the head/neck/collarbone/shoulder forward narrowing the space this set of nerves passes through creating impingement and therefore pain in the elbow/wrist/hand. 

• Sciatica: This nerve can get pinched in a couple of place: At the spine - because of chronically tight back muscles that pull on the vertebrae and reduce the space for the sciatic nerve to leave the spinal column. Or, at the back of the pelvis because of chronic tension in the piriformis which reduces the space for the nerve to pass through as it heads toward the leg. In either case, this can lead to pain radiating down the leg.

• Low Back Pain: When the low back is chronically tight,  this puts pressure on the spine and influences the intervertebral discs and nerves running from the spinal column into the lower half of the body (hips, legs, feet). 

•  It is worth noting here that chronic stress can be a root cause for many of these conditions. Chronic stress triggers our nervous system to go into a protective state and with that comes a reflex pattern of muscular tension in the front of the body. Therefore, we are not simply releasing muscular tension to feel better, but actually shifting our nervous system back to a state of ease. (See the section below for Veterans/First Responders/Survivors for more information.)
• Conditions directly related to the state of our nervous system: Breathing Issues, Chronic Fatigue, Pelvic Floor Dysfunction, Anxiety, Depression, PTSD

Our nervous system can get stuck in a heightened/protective state after extremely dangerous/stressful experiences associated with military jobs, rescue civilians (police, firefighters, EMTS, nurses, doctors) and the general public who’ve survived traumatic events in both childhood and/or adulthood. 

Our nervous system regulates our entire body and everything happening within it. It is the captain of our ship if you will. When our nervous system experiences a dangerous situation, it goes into "protection mode" to help us survive. When that situation has passed our nervous system may stay in a  heightened state. This can make it difficult for us to function in day to day life. We may suffer from depression, anxiety, angry outbursts, substance abuse, digestive issue etc because our nervous system has forgotten how to regulate itself. 

In order for us to function in our daily lives we need our nervous system to become flexible again and remember the option of “ease mode,” when we are OKAY, when we are safe.

The state of our nervous system can be addressed both directly or indirectly with a somatics practice. Within the structure of a guided practice we can experience a sense of safety that allows our nervous system to return to “ease mode” again. Indirectly, if we shift what the muscles are doing (chronically tight to more relaxed), we can begin to shift the state of the nervous system as well. Releasing tension associated with our protective response will send a message of safety back to our brain.