What is Somatic Yoga?

I teach a style of yoga called Somatic Yoga, but this term can sometimes be somewhat confusing, with many widely varying benefits often being pinpointed from teacher to teacher and if you’re searching online for a definition, from website to website too. Here I’m going to try and clarify what the benefits of Somatic Yoga are, what a session might look like and, most importantly, how you may feel after joining a class. Somatic Yoga is a simple practice, with complex, interlinking benefits and methods, so this is a fairly deep-dive article. Grab a cup of tea and dig in!

ORIGINS

Somatic yoga is a coming together of the ancient practice and philosophy of yoga, with modern, western science – with ‘somatics’, with recent developments in our understanding of human anatomy, including specifically nervous system science, the fascial web and connections between trauma (large or small) and our physiology, emotions and thought patterns. Science really is catching up with concepts yogis have talked about for thousands of years. Body, mind and emotions really are deeply intertwined and understanding this can be transformative to our health and wellbeing. Somatic yoga is one of many modern movement practices that are being offered in response to these recent scientific findings, allowing us to take control of our own health and wellbeing, softening the deeply held causes of many modern diseases, disorders and chronic ill health and discomfort.

KEY PRACTICES

a)      Mindfulness / interoception

In somatic yoga, a central factor is that we learn to feel into our body. One of the major differences between a somatic yoga class and a regular yoga class is the emphasis on noticing, on interoception, or mindfulness of the body. Actually, there are a lot of yoga classes out there that will do this, but in somatic yoga, this is a fundamental feature and central, pivotal part of the practice. We’re noticing where we hold tension, where we feel sensation in the body and where we don’t. We’re noticing the patterns, feeling into this, moving with this, offering kindness, unravelling and softening, respectfully and at our own pace. Yoga and somatic movements are woven together through the class specifically to help in this task.

And this is really important. It’s these patterns of tension that we all hold, that are the key to wellbeing. Revealing them, unravelling them gently, with kindness, little by little, is the secret to letting go of unhelpful tension that might be causing chronic back pain, stiff shoulders or neck, that might be putting pressure on our digestive system, causing repeated tummy upsets. With recent discoveries in nervous system science, we now know that it’s this long-held tension that often also works to keep us in fight-flight mode, holding on to unwanted thought patterns, to chronic stress and anxiety. It’s this chronic stress and tension that sets our entire system on the back foot, sometimes for years on end. Recent studies in psychoneuroimmunology, spearheaded by experts such as Gabor Mate, are revealing that chronic stress is causing chronic inflammation in the body, that ultimately can end up developing into many of the modern inflammatory and autoimmune diseases we’re so plagued with – diabetes, asthma, arthritis, chronic fatigue, multiple sclerosis and so on.

b)     Releasing tension, toning fascia

A difference in the way that we move in somatic yoga classes, when compared to traditional yoga, is that these classes tend to break the rules quite wantonly when it comes to pose precision. The emphasis is on exploring the full range of your body’s  movement potential, often using yoga poses as a starting point. This has tremendous benefits for the fascia, the connective tissues within the body, which need regular movement in all directions to keep well hydrated, to enable easeful and pain-free movement in the body. Fascia contain the majority of our nerve endings and are now thought of as being a body-wide sense organ, giving us the sensations of feeling our own body, both as it moves and as it remains at rest. Any part of our body that doesn’t move on a regular basis fails to flush fluid through its fascia and can end up stuck, stiff and either without sensation or a cause of chronic pain. Due to the connectivity of fascial tissues in long chains through the body, this can cause related problems elsewhere in the body too. Somatic movements and yoga flows help tone the fascia, typically through deep muscle relaxation, gentle stretching, bouncing movements and guided, free-style, three dimensional flows. The result is a body that feels fluid and easeful, that can move into dynamic yoga flows with composure, grace and inner strength.

c)      Compassion, nervous system regulation

Somatic yoga classes also include a lot of compassion - both in the way that we move and as a conscious focus of our attention. Well timed rest poses, an invitation always to move at a pace that feels comfortable and plenty of prompting to notice where comfortable is for you are a constant feature of a somatic yoga class. This is personalised yoga, rather than one size fits all. And this is an extremely important part of the process.

These patterns of tension I’ve mentioned are sometimes caused by repetitive habits, such as typing at a desk, digging the garden, lifting and carrying. But they can sometimes be caused by stressful events that have triggered our ever-responsive nervous system to set up a cascade of muscle contractions and this can happen without us being aware of it at all. This might have been caused by ongoing pressure from work, from a difficult relationship, from a traumatic event in our past, or simply from a seemingly never ending to do list. All of these situations add stress to our system and whether we’re aware of it or not, our nervous system picks up on this stress and triggers our brain to take responsive action. Part of this action is to tighten and hold particular groups of muscles in the body, which can end up getting stuck, unless we take action to set them at ease.

In a somatic yoga class, we do a lot of practices specifically to set the nervous system at ease and to keep bringing it back to ease. This becomes a part of the practice, training our system to let go of alert mode, to let go of related tension. Over time, this gets easier and easier, allowing us to access and gently release deeper and deeper layers of long-held tension and distress.

d)     Titration, rest, trauma release

And sometimes, in all honesty, we do release distress. Somatic yoga, from time to time, can bring up some emotions for us. Modern trauma theory is recognising now how emotions become locked into the body, into these patterns of tension. When we release these patterns, sometimes we release old emotions too. And this isn’t necessarily from major, shocking, sudden traumatic events, this could also be from the drip, drip, drip of ongoing low level stress, from our daily lives or even, perhaps, dating back to our childhoods. All of these can be events that leave an imprint on us and remain there, locked up in the way we hold ourselves. And it can be emotional when this comes up, as we notice and release this tension. This can come up as upset, as aversion, irritability or anger even – as resistance to taking part in particular movements in class, as a need to pause or take it more slowly. It may even come up as flashes of memory, or as a tone of thought process.

So somatic yoga classes include a lot of compassion practices, moments to pause, to soften, to give ourselves some love. Somatic yoga classes are delivered in a way that is very undemanding – we are invited to take part in poses, not ordered around, invited to move as much or as little as we like, to explore a movement or not. And then to rest, to do something different, before perhaps being given another opportunity to try it again. We explore and rest, explore and rest, a process used in trauma therapy called titration, where we just nibble at the edge of a potentially uncomfortable feeling and then retreat, to set our system carefully at ease, before moving gently towards it again. We set the pace ourselves, always remaining in control, as only we can know where a movement takes us towards the edge of our comfort zone.

As part of the rest phase, we are repeatedly offered  the invitation to come out of our head, back to our body – grounding our attention in the here and now, coming out of our thoughts, our memories perhaps; noticing the reality of this moment as being one where we are welcome, safe and can be at ease, but simultaneously holding space for and offering compassion for anything that comes up for us. With this compassionate work, we learn to befriend and ultimately let go of anything that no longer serves us, softening into a new normal, a new-found sense of abiding calm. And whether we’re feeling a rising emotional response or not, this gentle titration between active and easeful can be deeply restorative to our whole system.

EFFECTS

These classes can have many benefits for us, at many levels. They can simply be a place to find a momentary sense of ease and students by and large come out of class feeling great, feeling very chilled and settled in themselves. They can also be a great way to find more strength and fluidity in the body, to settle old aches and pains and find a greater sense of comfort in the body on a day to day basis. With regular practice, they can help to ease up inflammatory and autoimmune disorders and can support other treatments as part of a comprehensive treatment plan.

For me though, it’s the interconnectivity of benefits that is so exciting when it comes to Somatic Yoga. With regular attendance and practice, these classes can be deeply healing for the whole system – body, mind and emotions, dealing not just with what is here for us right now, but with the historical and emotional roots of any discomfort we may feel. And this is without the need for specifically examining what those roots might be. We are simply working with sensations that are right here for us, right now, in the body, learning to release these echoes of the past, to free ourselves up in the present.

Speaking from my own experience, this practice has been utterly transformative for me, bringing greater clarity of mind, a tremendous settling of my emotional state and releasing such a lot of chronic pain and long-held tension. Some of these tensions – a bad back, stiff hips and shoulders, were impacting my work and comfort on a daily basis. Other tensions, I wasn’t even aware of, but now feel so much better in myself to find them gone. This process continues, leaving me feeling better and better all the time. This is why I’ve trained to teach this style – because these benefits are too good not to share! I honestly can’t recommend Somatic Yoga enough.

If you’re not already joining me in class, I do encourage you to give it a go! You are very welcome to get in touch with me if you’d like to do so remotely; online options can be made available. Or seek out a Somatic Yoga teacher that’s local to you. It truly is brilliant stuff!

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