Somatics

What is Somatics

With his work on movement education, Thomas Hanna discovered that most chronic pain, joint degeneration, and recurring injuries are caused by the way we use our bodies – the way we sit, stand, and move throughout our lives. And our nervous system is responsible for telling us how to use our bodies. Our nervous system tells us which muscles to contract, when to release them, and how to hold our bodies when we’re just sitting or standing still.  He

Using a simple but extremely effective movement patterns, Somatics is a gentle, sensible, and safe approach to recovery from chronic pain and have ease of movement throughout your life. Somatics is sensory-motor training that works for all kinds of stress, injury, and movement problems. It works for kids, it works for aging bodies, it works for everyone…Learn how to move “from the inside out,” recover your well being and enhance your life!

Conditions Helped by Somatics

Many conditions that are commonly thought to be structural in nature, are actually functional, neuromuscular problems that can be prevented and improved with Somatic Education. When the brain forgets how to sense and control muscles properly, coordination, balance, and proprioception are impaired and pain develops. Chronically tight muscles are the result of Sensory Motor Amnesia (SMA) – an habituated response to stress (accidents, injuries, surgeries, improper biomechanics, repetitive stress). Examples of Sensory Motor Amnesia that can be eliminated with Somatics include, but are not limited to:

• Tension headaches
• Chronic back pain
• Neck and shoulder pain
• Accident traumas and whiplash
• Repetitive use injuries and One-sided sport injuries
• Sciatica
• Hip, Knee and foot pain
• Frozen shoulder syndrome

• TMJ
• Herniated discs
• Leg length discrepancy
• Piriformis syndrome
• Whiplash
• Scoliosis
• Knee and foot pain

These conditions cannot be stretched away or alleviated for the long term through passive manipulation. Stretching often causes muscles to become tighter, in effect, worsening your muscle pain. Medication blocks the pain but does not address the root cause. Passive methods such as chiropractic and massage therapy only confer temporary relief. Somatic is not magic. It is education, which requires your participation and engagement in order to eliminate chronic muscle pain that has developed due to your unique responses to stress. We don’t fix people; we teach you to fix yourself! Creating new habits requires practice, just like any other skill. The slow, gentle, safe Somatic Movements taught are movement patterns that reprogram your brain to muscle connection, create efficient movement and improve your self-awareness.

These Somatic Movements are basic to all human movement – running, walking, reaching, bending. When you remember how to move without overly contracted muscles, your movement is more efficient and effortless and your pain disappears!

Benefits of Somatics

• Release and reverse neuromuscular pain (chronic and acute)
• Improve mobility, strength and coordination
• Improve posture and appearance
• Eliminate the need for guarding to protect injured areas
• Improve physical fitness
• Create a new freedom of movement
• Ease breathing
• Improve athletic skills
• Long term pain relief from a host of common conditions
• Life long skills that teach you how to regain voluntary control of habitually tight muscles
• Greater physical independence and mastery of your movement
• Increased flexibility, coordination, stress relief, balance and proprioception
• A safe, easy and common sense alternative to drugs, and surgery

Anyone whose daily movement habits cause stress and muscle pain can benefit from a Simple Somatics . Many people sit for extended periods of time at a desk or in a vehicle, stand for long hours or do repetitive movements at their jobs and in their daily lives; every day our brain responds to stressful events, good or bad, mental, physical, or emotional – all of which contribute to muscle pain and Sensory Motor Amnesia. Through Somatic Education, you can learn to reduce and prevent muscle pain that comes with poor posture, long term sitting and a high stress lifestyle regardless of your age.

Classes Courses and Private one to one Sessions

At VFIT we offer a range of courses, drop in classes, free introductory workshops and private one to one clinical sessions either face to face or online.  All  these services are provided by an experienced and qualified Somatic Educator.

You can find  further information about our services, including timings and prices within this website.