Somatics Fundamentals
The Myth of Aging
The myth of aging is the belief that decrepitude is the result of aging, that aging means degeneration, and that degeneration is inevitable.
From a somatic perspective, the loss of bodily function is largely avoidable and reversible.
Through the course of life, our sensory-motor system learns to respond to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes. These reflexes create habitual muscular contractions that we cannot voluntarily relax.
As a result of this involuntary and unconscious muscular contraction, we lose the ability to move freely, resulting in stiffness, soreness and restrictions in our movement. This habituated state of forgetfulness is what Thomas Hanna calls sensory-motor amnesia. It is the loss of our ability to feel and control our muscles.
Through a somatics practice, we learn how to reawaken the possibilities for movement. And by learning move move, we regain and retain the rich possibilities for life.
Sensory Motor Amnesia
Sensory motor amnesia describes the condition in which our brain looses the ability to fully sense and voluntarily control our muscles.
An adaptive response of the nervous system, sensory motor amnesia leads us to feel we are growing older. While sensory-motor amnesia affects people as they age, it can happen at any stage in life as a result of trauma and injury as well as emotional and physical stress.
When our central nervous system becomes overwhelmed, our brain responds by limiting our awareness of the discomfort. This happens beneath our awareness and often takes place gradually so we may not notice the loss of our sensory awareness for many years or even decades.
When we lose the ability to sense our muscles, we lose our ability to control them. We can no longer fully release our muscles, even when we sleep. Chronically contracted muscles become sore and painful, and are weakened from constant exertion.
What is most striking about sensory motor amnesia is that we are actively contracting muscles without knowing it.
Sensory motor amnesia alters not only the way we move but also how we experience ourselves from within. SMA is not just a distortion of the body, but a distortion of our awareness of ourselves as living beings.
Sensory motor amnesia can be noticed as:
stiffness
soreness
restricted movement
chronic pain
altered gait
weakness
inability to move with ease and grace
Examples of functional disorders caused by sensory motor amnesia include:
Sciatica
Leg length discrepancy
Plantarfasciitis
Piriformis syndrome
Temporomandibular Joint Disfunction (TMD/TMJ)
Scoliosis
The Reflex Patterns
A reflex is an involuntary response to a stressor. These reflexes are hard-wired into our nervous system - they are not something we can control.
Thomas Hanna developed a comprehensive theory for understanding the origin of typical neuromuscular postural distortions. He calls these the muscular reflexes of stress.
During our lives, our sensory-motor system responds to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular contractions.
Over time, these responses become habituated — that is, learned at an unconscious level. Habituation is an adaptive act that slowly and relentlessly ingrains itself into the functional patterns of our central nervous system.
Because these reflexes are outside our conscious awareness, we can’t voluntarily relax them.
Over time, we find we are no longer able to move about freely. We may notice this as pain, discomfort, lack of coordination, poor balance, and fatigue, even when we wake in the morning.
Green Light
The action response
Also known as the Landau reflex
The muscles of our back that are involved in all forward movement
A habituated landau reflex leads to low-back pain, neck and shoulder pain, and conditions like sciatica and herniated discs
Red Light
The withdrawal response
Also known as the startle reflex
The muscles of our front that protect us and cause us to slump forward
A habituated startle reflex leads to chronic neck pain, jaw pain, mid-back pain and shallow breathing, which in turn can cause fatigue, depression, anxiety and sleep problems
Yellow Light
The protective response
Also known as the trauma reflex
The muscles of our sides that contract as a one-sided pattern in response to an injury
A habituated trauma reflex affects the smoothness of walking and the sense of balance
Somatic movement is the most effective way to bring these reflexes into our conscious awareness and restore our ability to move freely.
Pandiculation
Have you watched what happens when an animal wakes up? It does something called pandiculation. The animal will extend and contract its muscles, then perform a slow motion release the contraction. It will complete a series of these movements through its spine and limbs, getting the animal ready for motion.
Humans do the same thing. Or at least we did. Over time, our natural inclination to pandiculate becomes muted. We become more sedentary and our movements more repetitive.
Pandiculation is the primary method we use to restore the connection between the sensory-motor cortex and its control of the muscles, including sensation and movement.
Pandiculation resets the resting length of the muscles and restores conscious, voluntary control over our muscles. It wakes up our sensory-motor cortex.
Unlike stretching, pandiculation works to relax tight muscles.
Through pandiculation, people can learn to release muscle groups that have been in continual contraction for years or decades.
There are three stages of pandiculation:
A contraction that is slightly stronger than what currently exists. This sends sensory feedback to your brain so your voluntary cortex notices the muscles involved.
A slow controlled release that requires utter attention. This is the stage where your brain notices the details of the movement and takes back control. In other words, the involuntary becomes voluntary.
A complete release after the end of the movement. This gives your brain time to integrate the sensations and any differences you have created.
While pandiculation is not difficult to understand, it can take a bit of practice to feel natural, so be patient with yourself when starting a somatics practice.
Why doesn’t stretching work?
Humans are well designed systems. And we come pre-programmed with something called the stretch reflex. This is a protective measure for the muscles that prevents tearing.
When a muscle spindle is stretched, an impulse is sent to the spinal cord with a message to contract the muscle back against the stretch. This is meant to prevent the muscle from being pulled forcefully or beyond its comfortable range. This all happens within one or two milliseconds — not enough time for the message to make it to your brain.
When we attempt to stretch a muscle that is in a state of sensory motor amnesia and is involuntarily contracted, we activate the stretch reflex and cause the muscle to tighten further. This is why in somatics we move gently and stay well within our comfortable range of movement.
“We are capable of far more than we believe ourselves to be. As we learn more and more about the ways in which brain functions control, maintain, repair, and protect our bodies, we come more and more to respect this marvelous capacity that we have. We are far less dependent and helpless than we believe ourselves to be; which is to say, we are far more responsible and self-governing than we know.”