Somatic Self-Care: Embracing Mind-Body Healing for Modern Lifestyles

Integrating somatic exercises into a self-care routine can be a transformative experience, enhancing both physical and mental well-being. Somatic exercises focus on the mind-body connection, helping  to develop awareness of the bodily sensations associated with heightened stress levels caused by our modern lifestyles. These exercises can include gentle stretches, mindful breathing, and slow, deliberate movements that promote relaxation and reduce tension. By paying close attention to how our body feels and reacts, we can reduce stress levels, alleviate symptoms of anxiety and depression, enhance energy levels, and improve health conditions. 

Somatics & The Nervous System: A Bottom-Up Approach

There is a common belief that stress is a mental agitator, or the result of a poor mindset. Consequently, we attempt to change our mindset through mental exercises or talking through our thoughts and feelings. This is considered a TOP-DOWN APPROACH and includes most modern forms of talk therapy. While talk therapy has been successful for many in resolving feelings of isolation and working through conditioned beliefs and values, many find talk-therapy to be unsuccessful, unfortunately triggering additional feelings of stress.

Most people don't understand that stress is actually a physiological response in our body in the form of hormones such as, cortisol & adrenaline. These hormones are essential for our body to sustain internal functioning. Within the ideal ratio of stress hormones, our nervous system rests comfortably within its parasympathetic state. We are healthy, energized, curious, and at peace. However, when our nervous system becomes overwhelmed or suddenly activated by a stressor, it floods our system with stress hormones that hijack our physiology to initiate our body's biological survival responses. 

When this occurs, our body transitions to its sympathetic state. In this state, we are tense, narrow-focused, hypervigilant, closed off, and experience adverse mental and physical health symptoms. Our body prioritizes its energy away from healing, digestion, and pleasure seeking towards  a FIGHT/FLIGHT response, gearing us to confront or flee from the stressor. If our body remains in the sympathetic state for a prolonged period, our adrenal glands ability to produce adequate amounts of stress hormones despite our body's perceived demand. As a result, our nervous system transitions to its dorsal state. In the dorsal state, our internal functioning begins to become disordered or shut down. Adverse health conditions such as anxiety, depression, high blood pressure, poor circulation, digestive disorders, autoimmune diseases, and chronic fatigue and tension may develop.

Because the effects of stress hormones on our nervous system is cumulative, it is necessary to regularly reduce stress levels within a daily routine to ensure that our body remains in its parasympathetic state of rest and relaxation as often as possible. Unfortunately, our modern lifestyles keep our nervous system highly activated and we have lost our ability to attune to our body's natural signals of stress before they activate our sympathetic state.  This is where BOTTOM-UP APPROACHES such as somatic exercises like breathwork, light stretching & movement, and meditation become invaluable.  Somatic exercises work directly with your nervous system to identify where in your body you may be storing stress, connecting the physical sensation with the emotional feeling of stress, and gently working through the sensation until the emotion is expressed and the physical sensation resolves. 

How Somatics Builds Resiliency

Resiliency is our ability to overcome stress and transform it into a positive experience.  The more that we train our nervous system to quickly and effectively transition out of the sympathetic state of stress and back into its parasympathetic state of rest, the more resilient our nervous system becomes. Our nervous system learns that it does not need to react to stressors as strongly as it may have previously, because it has developed the physiological resistance to increased stress hormones.

In order to train your nervous system to become resilient, you must practice somatic exercises routinely to build that relationship between the body and mind. Somatic exercises provide you with the tools to identify where stress has become trapped and stored internally which may be contributing to subconscious emotions, thought patterns, and mental/physical conditions that leave us feeling unwell and ungrounded. The better you understand how to identify stress, the more likely you are to resolve your stress before it cumulates, and the more resilient your nervous system becomes. 

Somatic Exercises: Vagus Nerve Activation

The reason the somatic exercises are so effective is because they activate our vagus nerve. The vagus nerve is the longest nerve in our body, running from our brain stem down to our pelvic region. The vagus nerve is located along our spine and branches into every single cell, nerve, tissue, muscle, and organ within our body. It is what controls our nervous system. When the vagus nerve is stimulated by stress, this shifts our body into its sympathetic state. However, when we activate our vagus nerve gently with somatic exercises, we are able to take the reins of our nervous system and redirect ourselves back into the parasympathetic state. 

We are able to stimulate the vagus nerve through diaphragmatic breathing patterns, light stretches and relaxing movements, as well as visualization techniques and mindful meditations. These exercises tone our vagus nerve by strengthening its ability to resolve stress hormones and return to internal physiological balance (homeostasis).

Vagus Nerve activation requires only a few minutes per exercise meaning somatic self-care routines only need to be about 15-20 minutes daily in order to be effective! In fact, somatic self-care routines can be integrated through-out the day, a few minutes at a time, as needed to manage stress levels. Or, they can be organized as a daily meditation to be practiced within a sequence. However, you decide to practice is not nearly as important as the intention to set aside the time to tend to your nervous system with care. 

Vital Breathwork's Somatic Exercise Program