Somatic Yoga Therapy
Soma means living body. Somatic yoga therapy changes your body by teaching your brain. The objective of somatic yoga is to release your body from habitually and unconsciously contracted muscles.
Somatic yoga is a blend of Hatha and Raja yoga developed by Eleanor Criswell Hanna. Her late husband, Thomas Hanna founded Hanna Somatics in 1990 (a mind-body integration practice. Somatic yoga uses the principles of somatics, neuroscience, applied psychophysiology, and psychology. It is concerned with the evolution of the whole person; mind, body and spirit. The postures and other practices are done by the brain with full awareness, rather than the body doing them by muscle memory and are not goal oriented.
Stretching versus Somatics
Unlike traditional yoga, where stretching is often the goal, somatic yoga is focused on the lengthening of the muscles through a series of pandiculations. Pandiculation is an awakening of our sensorimotor system. A pandiculation that we are all very familiar with is yawning or the “good morning stretch.” We often see mammals that pandiculate as they awaken from a nap. This movement resets the resting level of muscle tension and restores voluntary control back to the muscles.
The movements involve concentric contractions, a muscle shortening, followed by a slow, controlled release of the muscle, eccentric contraction. This allows the involuntarily and chronically constricted muscles to learn to relax. Pausing to get the sensory feedback after completing the posture, listening to your soma, following each posture is the focus of the practice. Some of the feedback you will be able to perceive. Other feedback will be in your unconscious awareness being processed by your nervous system.
There has been much research on the subject of somatic yoga. As with somatics in general, the more you know about how it works, the more you will get out of it. Somatic yoga often uses visualization before the posture so that you can develop a good motor plan for the posture.
Try this somatic yoga class to better your sleep here. Or check out other recorded classes on somatics by scrolling down on this page here. If you are looking for one on one care try somatic yoga therapy here.
