Somatics - The Art Of Letting Go
Somatics or Somatics Education is a highly effective neuro-muscular movement training that goes directly to the root cause of most chronic muscular pain: your brain and the way in which it senses and organizes your muscles and movements.
By learning to regain both awareness, sensation, and motor control of muscles – an educational process that can only be achieved through movement – your brain can remember how to relax and move your muscles properly. This process of sensory motor training creates improved muscle function and enhanced sensory awareness.
Somatic bodywork has lasting effects on the body and mind. Somatic Education is either taught in group classes or can be done 1-1 with a trained practitioner. It is helpful in dealing with the following issues and symptoms:
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Muscular pain and tension
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Head aches and migraines
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Sciatic pain and issues
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Postural disorders
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Joint pain of any kind
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Insomnia
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Emotional and physical trauma
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Lack of flexibility
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Limited sensory control over the body
Somatic Education is a safe, gentle and common sense approach to reverse chronic pain. It is the only method of pain relief and sensory motor training that targets the condition of MOTOR SENSORY AMNESIA (MSA).
Motor Sensory Amnesia (MSA)
Motor Sensory Amnesia makes us unaware of our bad posture.
Motor Sensory Amnesia is a common neurological condition where your brain has learned to maintain certain muscles in contraction due to repeated and reflexive response to stress. Accidents, injuries, surgeries, repetitive tasks, and on-going emotional stress all contribute to MSA.
Another way to understand Motor Sensory Amnesia is through the "Lightbulb analogy":
Imagine you have a lamp in a room where you work every day. The light bulb always shines while you work. One day you get the idea "hey, if I use that light bulb so much, why don't I just leave the light on so that I don't need to remember to turn in on/off?" So you leave the light on from now on until you don't even notice it anymore. But at the end of the month you receive your "electricity bill", that is when it hurts.
The same thing happens in your brain when it develops an automatic muscular habit for you as soon as you start repeating certain muscular actions on a regular basis. When your muscles are tense, stiff or painful the Motor Sensory Amnesia is your brain technically "keeping all the lights on for you", so to speak. You no longer have full awareness of the full range and length of your muscles.
The most effective way to deal with MSA is pandiculation!
Pandiculation
Pandiculation is what we call the particular kind of movement that mechanically lengthens specific muscles or muscle groups. By pandiculating your muscles you can retrain your brain to lengthen the muscles that you have forgotten to let go of.
Kind of like a yawn, you contract muscles and then slowly release them to let them restore some of their original length. When done with proper focus and awareness you can lengthen your muscles into new flexibility and feel less pain and more energy. Enjoy better circulation, stronger health and more precise control over your body. We believe that pandiculation, because it neurologically remaps your brain, can over longer term use make you a calmer, more confident and conscious human being!
Private Sessions (Assisted-Pandiculation):
A private session in Clinical/Hanna Somatic Education is a wonderful experience! In a private session the Somatic Educator uses a technique form called "assisted pandiculation" which is the most effective form of pandiculation.
Our Educators can assess what is happening in the body of the client and work with them to correct the muscular habits that hold them in unhealthy postures, chronic pain and physical impairment. They are well trained in using manual hold-and-pressure techniques and crystal-clear verbal instructions to help the client restore full muscular control and range as well as providing satisfying and long-lasting pain relief.
Depending on the practitioner/educator that you work with they can have different styles, based on other types of Somatic Healing Arts and bodywork techniques they are versed in.
Regardless of style, all our practitioners/educators are skilled, competent and professional!
Personal Practice (Self-Pandiculation):
Next to private sessions the next best way to keep Motor Sensory Amnesia down in your neurology is by developing your own Self-Pandiculation Practice. You can pandiculate your own muscles by using the "Cat Stretch" movement techniques that any of our practitioners can teach you. By booking a Virtual Session with us you will be taught specific pandiculations that you can do easily on a yoga mat, your bed or even while sitting for relieving your own pains and stresses. A regular self-pandiculation practice is vital to staying flexible, strong, mobile, pain free and young!
Disclaimer:
We are not medical professionals or doctors. We do not diagnose medical conditions nor do we "treat" or "cure" any diseases/conditions/ailments.
We are certified professionals that are educators above anything else. The techniques we apply with our clients are based in holistic care and are intended for the purpose of helping individuals to deal with conditions related to muscular tension, chronic/habitual tension, habitual posture, recovery from accidents/injuries or developing sustainable mindfulness practices.