The Role of Belief in Health and Healing

By |October 14th, 2022|immune system, inflammation, meditation, neuroscience, self-healing, stress & stress relief|

The Role of Belief in Health and Healing Belief is a powerful thing. In a 2001 study, researchers told a group of Parkinson's patients that they were receiving a highly effective new drug that would improve their motor symptoms. However, the patients only received an injection of saline. Half of the patients experienced improvement [...]

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 [...]

What is the Polyvagal Theory?

By |January 13th, 2022|anxiety, Polyvagal Theory, stress & stress relief, trauma & PTSD|

What is the Polyvagal Theory? The Polyvagal Theory is a theory proposed by Stephen Porges that describes how the mammalian autonomic nervous system evolved to keep us safe and alive. As mammals evolved from reptiles, our autonomic nervous system developed to automatically communicate with other mammals and engage different self-defense systems when needed. When our [...]

The Diverse Ways in Which SMC® CEI instructors Use Clinical Somatics to Help People

By |April 9th, 2021|athletic training, Clinical Somatic Education, stress & stress relief, yoga|

The Diverse Ways in Which SMC® CEI Instructors Use Clinical Somatics to Help People The Somatic Movement Center® Certified Exercise Instructor (SMC® CEI) program was born out of a desire to make Clinical Somatic Education accessible worldwide. With the three in-person training schools all located in the United States, bringing the training online has [...]

Meditation Series

By |December 3rd, 2020|anxiety, breathing, meditation, self-healing, sleep, stress & stress relief|

Over the next few months I'll be offering a series of guided meditations for beginners on YouTube. Some of them are true somatic meditations—exploring breath sensations, internal bodily sensations, and noticing and releasing tension throughout the body. Others will explore ideas such as attention and awareness, energy, and love. Click the titles or the [...]

12 Scientifically Proven Health Benefits of Meditation

By |November 5th, 2020|anxiety, breathing, meditation, neuroscience, self-healing, stress & stress relief|

12 Scientifically Proven Health Benefits of Meditation To say that it's been a stressful year would be an understatement. If you don't meditate, you may have considered starting as a way to calm your mind, stop worrying, and get better sleep. But starting a meditation practice can be daunting. How can you fit it into [...]

Karoshi: Is Working Long Hours Worth the Health Risks?

By |June 17th, 2020|anxiety, overwork, stress & stress relief|

Karoshi: Is Working Long Hours Worth the Health Risks? In 1969, a 29-year-old man working in the shipping department of Japan's largest newspaper died suddenly of a stroke. While at first his case was called occupational sudden death, it was later determined that his stroke was caused by shift work and an increased workload. [...]

Forced Exercise and Stress Reduction Reverse Parkinson’s Symptoms

By |May 7th, 2020|aging, dopamine, neurogenesis, neuroplasticity, neuroscience, neurotransmitters, Parkinson's disease, self-healing, specific conditions, stress & stress relief|

Forced Exercise and Stress Reduction Reverse Parkinson's Symptoms If you read last week's post Doctors Call for an End to the Parkinson's Pandemic, you learned that Parkinson's disease is most often the result of a complex interplay between genetic and environmental factors, which include exposure to neurotoxic chemicals, head trauma, lack of exercise, diet, [...]

Doctors Call for an End to the Parkinson’s Pandemic

By |April 30th, 2020|aging, books & movies, dopamine, neuroscience, neurotransmitters, Parkinson's disease, specific conditions, stress & stress relief|

Doctors Call for an End to the Parkinson's Pandemic Parkinson's disease is not new—descriptions of the condition can be found in ancient Chinese medical texts from 425 BC and Indian medical texts from 600 BC. There have been references to Parkinson's symptoms in documents from Greek, Roman, and other civilizations over the past two thousand [...]

Chronic Tension in Facial Muscles Can Keep You Stuck in Stress and Emotions

By |April 2nd, 2020|facial muscles, muscle memory, muscle tension, stress & stress relief|

Chronic Tension in Facial Muscles Can Keep You Stuck in Stress and EmotionsIf you've ever watched the TV show Lie To Me, you know that people automatically express their emotions through their facial expressions, whether they want to or not. Our nervous system is hardwired to contract our mimetic muscles (facial muscles) in certain patterns [...]

The Latest Wonder Drug Is Free, and It’s All Around Us

By |March 4th, 2020|immune system, nature, neurotransmitters, outdoor time, sleep, stress & stress relief|

The Latest Wonder Drug Is Free, and It's All Around Us Screens have taken over our lives, and we've reached a point in our existence where we need a doctor to tell us to get outside. A study done in the mid-1990s showed that we spend about 87% of our time in enclosed buildings, [...]

When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection

By |February 26th, 2020|books & movies, immune system, stress & stress relief|

When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection “If you can't say no, your body will do it for you.” You may have experienced coming down with a cold after a period of high stress. You've worked long days, not slept enough, and put your needs last—and as a result, your immune system [...]

Why Body-Centered Therapies Help Heal Post-Traumatic Stress

By |February 11th, 2020|anxiety, self-healing, stress & stress relief, trauma & PTSD|

Why Body-Centered Therapies Help Heal Post-Traumatic Stress About one-half of adults in the U.S. experience at least one traumatic event during their lives. It might be a violent attack, accident, military combat, natural or human-caused disaster, or physical, verbal, or sexual abuse. People who have experienced trauma, whether or not they get diagnosed with [...]

Good vs. Bad Stress: The Critical Difference Between Challenge and Threat

By |December 4th, 2019|anxiety, inflammation, neuroscience, stress & stress relief|

Good vs. Bad Stress: The Critical Difference Between Challenge and Threat When we're faced with a potentially stressful situation, we automatically and subconsciously ask ourselves two questions: First: Could this situation cause me harm or loss, or is there potential benefit? Second: Am I capable of handling this situation? This is the transactional model [...]

New Research on How Stress Affects Inflammation, Neurodegeneration, the Gut Microbiome, Cancer Treatment, and Relationships

By |November 6th, 2019|anxiety, neuroscience, stress & stress relief|

New Research on How Stress Affects Inflammation, Neurodegeneration, the Gut Microbiome, Cancer Treatment, and RelationshipsStress is a particular passion of mine—I love learning how to reduce negative stress, and I'm fascinated by the ways stress affects our health. This is the first in a series of posts I'll be writing about stress in the coming [...]

Breathing in Clinical Somatics exercises

By |June 30th, 2019|anxiety, breathing, Clinical Somatic Education, Clinical Somatics exercises, learn the basics, stress & stress relief|

Breathing in Clinical Somatics exercises Many students ask me how to breathe correctly when practicing Clinical Somatics exercises. Your breathing pattern is more important in some exercises than others, depending on whether or not the exercise includes extension or flexion of the spine. In this post I'll describe why diaphragmatic breathing is important, the [...]

The Anatomy of Your Tension Headache

By |April 7th, 2019|anxiety, Clinical Somatic Education, headache, muscle tension, specific conditions, stress & stress relief, temporomandibular joint disorders|

The Anatomy of Your Tension Headache If you're reading this post, you may be one of the 45 million Americans who suffer from chronic headaches. Headaches are one of the most frustrating pain conditions because the causes are so varied and can seem completely mysterious. In fact, over 150 different types of headache have [...]

The Life-Changing Link Between Anxiety and Muscle Tension

By |April 3rd, 2019|anxiety, Clinical Somatic Education, muscle tension, specific conditions, stress & stress relief|

The Life-Changing Link Between Anxiety and Muscle TensionAnxiety is thought of as a psychological disorder, but it actually involves many systems of the body. Anxiety is a true “somatic” condition: It is typically brought on and made worse not by any external source like a virus, but by our internal psychological and physiological functioning.For many [...]

Somatic Relaxation Exercises

By |June 29th, 2016|Clinical Somatic Education, stress & stress relief, videos & graphics|

In this short Somatics class, you'll learn gentle movements that release chronic muscular tension in the lower back, abdomen, shoulders, chest, face and jaw. Did you know that chronic muscular tension is directly linked to psychological stress? Human beings are naturally well equipped to recover from short-term, life-threatening stress. Unfortunately, long-term, psychological stress stays with [...]

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