Somatic Movement Repatterning

Hanna Somatics is a powerful mind-body modality that enables one to reverse chronic pain and tension by relearning how to release chronically contracted muscles by accessing the source of the imbalance – the BRAIN. The human body senses itself most directly through movement. Muscles that do not move are not sensed. There must be movement to stimulate the sensory nerves within the muscles and joints. When a muscle has lost it’s ability to sense itself the brain can no longer send clear command signals to the motor nerves that cause our muscles to move. This condition is called Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) Sensory Motor Amnesia is a habitual forgetfulness that occurs when we loose conscious control over how our body functions and moves. As a result certain muscle groups can remain in a state of contraction for years simply because they have forgotten how to contract and relax at will.

Most people are unaware that muscles have no will of their own. Muscles rely solely on a signal or message from the brain in order to contract. When not in use a healthy muscle returns to its resting length and releases the contraction. But, when, through injury, misuse or habitual use patterns muscles stay contracted it is because the brain is signaling the muscle to do so. Through a guided process of self-sensing while voluntarily contracting then relaxing a muscle one can reprogram the brain and thereby change the motor or muscle response to return to itʼs natural state of rest and ease.

After this resetting of muscle length has occurred it may be necessary to reinforce the change through repeating a movement sequence until the new pattern has become well established.

How Does Somatics Work?

Once a movement has been learned it is stored within the sub – cortex of the brain. Even if you haven’t ridden a bicycle in 30 years you can still get on a bike today and ride it because you once learned how to and your sub – cortex has a stored map of that pattern in your brain. Most of our stored, learned patterns serve us very well.

Can you imagine if you had to think about how to lift a coffee cup to your mouth or how to bend down and pick something up each time you needed to? But what about the learned patterns that don’t serve us? We’ve all experienced sitting at a computer and slumping. When we habitually repeat a pattern of slumping over time it results in chronic neck, shoulder and mid back pain. In order to change an involuntary, chronically contracted muscle one must relearn a new pattern by using the frontal cortex of the brain. Through accessing the brains frontal cortex we can intentionally reset the habitually contracted muscles back to resting length so that your body remembers where the “off switch” is when muscles are not in use.

It is important to know that pain is a result of sustained muscle contraction. This contraction is being signaled by the brain to the muscle. A muscle that is contracted at 10% will be very tired and firm. 20% contraction and it will result in a muscle that is tired, very firm and sore. 40% contraction defines a muscle spasm and it will feel tired, hard, weak and quite painful.

As your practitioner I will guide you through a series of passive and active movement sequences. As you explore these movements you will become aware of your own habitual way of moving and the substitutions you have adapted to “get the job done”. When we discover these areas of “amnesia” you will be asked to make a specific voluntary contraction followed by a slow controlled release so as to remind the brain-body how to return to it’s natural, relaxed state of rest. As we begin to re-awaken what has temporarily been placed “on hold” in your body you will begin to reclaim freedom, aliveness and a restoration to pain free motion.

The single greatest cause of pain is chronic and habitual dysfunctional movement patterns.

Through years of repetition we become imprisoned by our own engrained habits. The longer we live and move repeating stressful patterns of movement the more automatic they become.

The good news is that the brain is always, at any age, able to learn new ways of moving as an integrated whole.