The first step to releasing tension in the body

- for good!

It’s December, and for many, this is a very busy time of year. Although you may be celebrating a joyful holiday this season, there can also be a lot of pressure and stress as well. You might notice the regular areas in your body you feel stress in are carrying a bit more tightness and strain. So what can you do about it?

The first step to releasing stress in the body is to notice and sense it in the first place. Sometimes this is clear, and other times the brain cannot sense it clearly. This noticing is a practice in and of itself and is at the heart of somatic movement. The body reflexively responds to stress. It is automatic, we cannot change it. Sometimes these reflexive responses become habituated (more on this in a future blog post). But, by coming to still rest, and starting to sense and feel what parts of you feel relaxed and what parts are tense, you are cultivating a path forward out of stress and pain. In Somatics we call this first act of self-sensing the Soma Scan.

Soma is a Greek word that means “living body”. It is your own body as you perceive it from within. Somas can self-sense and self-regulate based on what they sense. Somas are one giant sensing organisms that are governed by instructions from the nervous system. In a soma scan and all somatic movements, we take the time to sense ourselves. To cultivate our first-person experience of ourselves.

The soma scan sets the stage for changing habituated patterns of tension in five powerful ways.

1. It allows you an opportunity to drop into your body so you can connect to and expand your proprioception. “Proprioception… is the sense that lets us perceive the location, movement, and action of parts of the body. It encompasses a complex of sensations, including perception of joint position and movement, muscle force, and effort.” (1) By becoming aware of where and how you are positioned in space, you can begin to change it.
2. A soma scan provides you with an opportunity to come to rest and down-regulate your nervous system. In order to change ingrained movement patterns, we must be in a relaxed state…this is where the brain learns best.
3. It allows you to come into your first-person experience of yourself and meet yourself where you are at in that moment - your soma is constantly responding to the experiences of life. This will change day to day…so your sensing self is changing day to day. Sensing yourself in the moment allows for a focused practice that is responding to your particular needs.
4. It provides a backdrop to notice areas of holding and start to develop your body map - from a place of rest, you can start to notice areas of holding and tension…areas that are pulling away from the floor, or twisting you one way or the other for example. This is your body map…this is an illustration of how your nervous system is organizing you at this moment. Over time you will start to notice patterns as you figure out which muscles are contracting.
5. It allows you to mark change…by starting and ending each somatic session with a soma scan, you provide yourself with clear information on any change you have created.

When you are able to recognize your own patterned responses to stress it becomes easier to self-sense and self-regulate your posture and movement. After all, you can’t change a movement pattern that you can’t sense. This in turn provides you with a sense of freedom in your body and provides movement choice. Movement choice is how you get out of pain for good. Your self-sensing soma now has a CHOICE about how to move. You can move in the way that caused you pain, or you can move in this newly learned way that is easier and less restricted and tense. This self-sensing and self-regulation is what makes lasting changes in your body and gets rid of stress-induced pain for good!

Here are a few different soma scans you can try:

Kazimira Movement soma scan

Think Somatics soma scan

Sources:

1. J.L. Taylor, in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 20091