Somatic Patterning

     Imagine, you're really busy and not paying much attention to your body, then make a quick turn or take a clumsy stumble and - BAM! - you injure yourself. The shooting pain or sudden tear of a strained muscle or sprained joint grabs your attention. In the aftermath of pain and discomfort, you start to pay attention to your body and being being more careful how you do things.    

      Sound familiar?  

      Somatic patterning can help prevent these types of injuries. If you are like most people, the term somatic pat­terning (SP) is foreign to you. What it means is so fundamen­tal to the life of the body that you may be surprised at how much you inherently know about SP. Once you start noticing how you got injured and start paying attention to how you use your body, the somatic patterning process begins.      

     I look forward to touching base with you next year. Until then, best wishes to you all for a joyous, peaceful, and healthy holiday! --- Mary Ann

What does Somatic Patterning mean?

      Patterning is any intentional movement we do to improve how we use our bodies, often to avoid pain and injury, and also  to improve posture and performance. People pattern themselves all the time, but it's such an obvious and natural process that it goes largely unnoticed. Every time you carefully position your back to protect it while lifting a heavy box, or change your workstation ergonomics to make repetitive tasks easier on your body, you are patterning yourself.

      Somatics extends patterning into the body-mind connection. Somatics illuminates how stressful thoughts and feelings wear on your body and health.  

      The late philosopher and Feldenkrais teacher Thomas Hanna coined the term "somatics" in 1970 to describe an emerging field of body-mind therapies. Hannah felt that most people have very little awareness of their body and lack the ability to sense movement in their body. He described this condition as sensorimotor amnesia, which leads to a lack of control over movement.

      Injury and pain bring us all face-to-face with this inevitable truth: You get only one body and it needs to last a lifetime. Every new task you undertake, every new tool you use, and every new situation you are in requires some kind of patterning pro­cess.

      All activities train your body patterning, whether you are aware of them or not. For example, the marathon runner trains the body for endurance, speed, and agility. The couch potato trains the body for low muscular tone, poor posture, and a sedentary lifestyle.

      Thus, we either figure out better ways to use our bodies, or depend on habitual ways of doing things. If you choose somatic patterning, you will be able to make intelligent physical adaptations to each new situation you encounter.    

Do you already use Somatic Patterning?

To find out, during the course of your day, follow these steps to see if and how you instinctively use somatic patterning.

1.      Notice when pain makes you to pay more attention to your body and how you do things. You might notice that you feel back pain every time you sit or bend a certain way.  

2.      Observe how you identify what causes the problem. You might conclude that sitting with your legs crossed is the source of your problem.

3.      Watch how you start making a conscious effort to change the faulty pattern. You might start making a concerted effort to keep your feet flat on the floor. 

If you have gone through these steps, congratulations! You are already practicing Somatic Patterning.   

SP Tips for Dealing with Holiday Stress

The holiday season is upon us and with it comes stress for many. Here are some simple somatic patterning exercises to help you deal with the physical tensions that often occur during this time of the year.   

You can do these exercises anytime, anywhere. Practice them while you're driving, while you're shopping, or anytime you find a moment when you're bored or waiting around for something.

1.      Releasing muscle tension with a simple relax-contract technique. Contract your tense muscles; then relax them. Repeat the contraction, but this time with only half the effort you used before. Then relax your muscles twice as much as before. Contract one more time, with even less effort, then relax twice as much again, letting the tense area of your body get heavy and sink. 

2.      Bringing up the muscular tone in one area of your body to lower it in another area. Scan your body and locate the area that you are least aware of or where you have the least tension. Contract that area as hard as you can while relaxing the tense area. Hold for several seconds, then relax. For example, contract your abdominals or hips as hard as you can as you relax your shoulders, then relax everything and notice how you feel. 

3.      Taking an antidote to the harried and compressed feeling that the frenzy of the holiday events can cause. Imagine air as food and take a few moments to feast on oxygen. Breathe slowly and deeply. As you breathe, laterally expand your lower ribs. Also expand your ribs, your chest, even your shoulders. Take in as much as air as you can. Get full of yourself!

4.      Giving yourself more physical support when you’re feeling unsupported. This may sound overly simple, but when you are stressed and feel that urge to collapse into a slumped posture, sit up. Get your body over your best base of seated support, your pelvic sit bones. Rock your pelvis to loosen your hips, lower back, and even your spine.