After a Crisis of Pain by Mia Juhn

By |July 12th, 2022|Clinical Somatic Education, pain & pain relief, self-healing|

After a Crisis of Pain by Mia Juhn I thought that Sarah Warren's Clinical Somatics Level One & Two Courses would help me overcome pain. I had no idea how profoundly it would go beyond that to change my life's course. I had pain that would mount during the day, incapacitating me by afternoon [...]

How to Approach Exercise When You’re in Pain

By |June 16th, 2022|athletic training, Clinical Somatics exercises, pain & pain relief|

How to Approach Exercise When You're in Pain There are endless benefits to physical exercise, and you should keep up with regular physical activity while you're learning Clinical Somatics exercises—unless your workouts are making your pain worse or preventing you from making progress. In this post, I'll discuss: The benefits of working out while [...]

My Journey to Hell and Back by Greg Steidel

By |May 18th, 2022|pain & pain relief, self-healing|

My Journey to Hell and Back by Greg Steidel In 2003, I was in my early 20's. I weighed 150 pounds and was in phenomenal shape. I had no history of back issues and was leading a normal life. One day I was doing some landscaping at my parents' house and decided to go [...]

Learning to Relax After Four Decades of Chronic Tension by Lena Pollack

By |March 17th, 2022|muscle tension, pain & pain relief, self-healing, stress & stress relief|

Learning to Relax After Four Decades of Chronic Tension by Lena Pollack Every time I get a tensed muscle to relax, it’s like a little miracle. It leaves me awestruck, much like being chosen by a shelter cat, or finding a beautiful field that’s completely empty. Maybe it isn’t anything objectively earth shattering but getting [...]

How To Retrain Your Brain’s Pain Processing System

By |November 4th, 2021|neuroplasticity, neuroscience, pain & pain relief, self-healing|

How To Retrain Your Brain's Pain Processing System I recently read The Brain's Way of Healing by Dr. Norman Doidge and learned about a fascinating way to retrain how chronic pain is processed in the brain. The approach, developed by pain specialist Dr. Michael Moskowitz, is used with people who have been in pain [...]

Understanding the Pelvic Floor Muscles and Pelvic Pain

By |July 6th, 2021|pain & pain relief, pelvic floor, specific conditions|

Understanding the Pelvic Floor Muscles and Pelvic Pain What is the pelvic floor? The pelvic floor is a large sheet of skeletal muscle that forms the base of the abdomen. It is made up of the levator ani (subdivided into the puborectalis, pubococcygeus, and iliococcygeus muscles) and the coccygeus muscles, and associated connective tissue. [...]

Recovering From 19 Years of Chronic Pain by Chris Werts

By |June 1st, 2021|pain & pain relief, self-healing|

Recovering From 19 Years of Chronic Pain by Chris Werts I’ve been an athlete all of my life, not at the elite level but perhaps some would say right below that. Growing up, very little emphasis was put on strengthening modalities, and all kids are invincible as you know. Baseball was my jam, but [...]

How Muscular Learning Leads to Pain and Degeneration

By |November 9th, 2020|Clinical Somatic Education, muscle memory, muscle tension, neuroscience, pain & pain relief, pandiculation|

How Muscular Learning Leads to Pain and Degeneration Chronic pain is invisible, and can be all too easily ignored by people who haven’t experienced it. But if you suffer from chronic pain, you understand the stress, helplessness, depression, and fatigue that accompany it. You might deal with financial hardship as a result of missed work [...]

How to Take Care of Your Knees for the Long Haul

By |February 5th, 2020|aging, athletic training, knee pain, osteoarthritis, pain & pain relief, specific conditions|

How to Take Care of Your Knees for the Long Haul Knee pain is one of the most common types of chronic pain that people experience, and it's no wonder why—our knees support the weight of our body throughout our entire lives! And while the U.S. population is getting older and more overweight, rates [...]

Figuring out the Cause of Your Chronic Neck Pain

By |December 11th, 2019|forward head posture, muscle tension, neck pain, pain & pain relief, specific conditions, whiplash|

Figuring out the Cause of Your Chronic Neck Pain Why is neck pain such a pain in the neck to get rid of? First, the muscles in your neck adapt to any postural imbalances you have in the core of your body. If your lumbar or thoracic spine is out of alignment in any [...]

Why Whiplash Turns into Chronic Pain

By |November 14th, 2019|neck pain, pain & pain relief, specific conditions, whiplash|

Why Whiplash Turns into Chronic Pain Whiplash is one of the most common acute injuries that results in chronic pain. Since many cases go unreported, we don't know exactly how often whiplash occurs. Some sources estimate that up to 3 million people suffer from whiplash in the U.S. every year. Studies show that at [...]

How to Even out the Imbalances in Your Body

By |October 30th, 2019|leg length discrepancy, muscle memory, muscle tension, pain & pain relief, posture, scoliosis, your personal practice|

How to Even out the Imbalances in Your Body Scroll down to watch this video on Youtube We all have imbalances in the patterns of muscle tension between our right and left sides; that's because of how we use the dominant side of our body differently than our non-dominant side. These imbalanced muscular patterns [...]

5 Ways Clinical Somatics Will Change the World

By |October 4th, 2019|aging, Clinical Somatic Education, Clinical Somatics exercises, pain & pain relief|

5 Ways Clinical Somatics Will Change the World If you've gotten out of pain with Clinical Somatics, you know how life-changing the exercises are. To not endure pain on a daily basis frees you from stress and suffering—like loss of sleep, mood disorders, and physical degeneration related to the pain. You can also be [...]

The Role of Diet in Chronic Pain

By |August 4th, 2019|diet and nutrition, fibromyalgia, headache, inflammation, pain & pain relief|

The Role of Diet in Chronic Pain In this blog, I usually focus on the muscle and joint pain that's caused by our chronic muscle tension and our habitual posture and movement; that's what Clinical Somatics is all about. However, there's another common cause of chronic pain that many people are not aware of: [...]

The Placebo Effect on Pain Perception and Healing

By |July 9th, 2019|neuroscience, pain & pain relief|

The Placebo Effect on Pain Perception and Healing The placebo effect is a general term that describes the physiological effects of believing that we're going to feel better or heal from a condition. The placebo effect has long been discounted in Western medicine—when placebos work, we're just imagining that we're getting better, we're not actually [...]

Unlocking Your Body: Your Personal Process of Releasing Tension and Pain

By |June 24th, 2019|aging, Clinical Somatics exercises, learn the basics, muscle memory, muscle tension, pain & pain relief, pandiculation, your personal practice|

Unlocking Your Body: Your Personal Process of Releasing Tension and Pain Many people ask me how long it will take them to release their chronic tightness or get out of pain. I wish I could answer this question, but the truth is that everyone's patterns of muscular tension and pain are so unique that [...]

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: Anatomy, Causes, and Treatment with Clinical Somatics

By |June 5th, 2019|carpal tunnel syndrome, forward head posture, pain & pain relief, specific conditions, thoracic outlet syndrome|

Thoracic Outlet Syndrome: Anatomy, Causes, and Treatment with Clinical Somatics Thoracic outlet syndrome might sound a little scary, but most cases are functional—meaning they can be prevented and often eliminated completely. When tight muscles or poor posture compress the thoracic outlet, you may experience symptoms such as pain and numbness in your shoulder, arm, [...]

The Functional Cause of Sciatica

By |May 28th, 2019|Clinical Somatic Education, pain & pain relief, piriformis syndrome, sciatica, specific conditions|

The Functional Cause of Sciatica Sciatica often occurs along with back pain, which 80% of Americans will experience at some point in their lives. By the time your doctor diagnoses you with sciatica, the cause may appear to be structural—most commonly, a herniated disc pressing on the root of the sciatic nerve. However, as [...]

How to Relieve Mechanical Back Pain with Clinical Somatics

By |August 14th, 2018|back pain, Clinical Somatic Education, pain & pain relief, specific conditions|

How to Relieve Mechanical Back Pain with Clinical Somatics What is mechanical back pain? If you're suffering from back pain, you're not alone--between 50% and 80% of Americans will suffer from back pain at some point in their lives.1 It's estimated that 97% of cases of back pain are mechanical in nature,2 meaning that [...]

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