"As we grow older, our bodies - and our lives - should continue to improve, right up to the very end."    Thomas Hanna

What is Somatics?

The Calgary Herald described Somatics as "A Toolbox for Coping with Pain," but just what is Somatics?  Somatics Movement is a sensory-motor training technique developed by Thomas Hanna that works for all kinds of stress, injury, and movement problems and is a gentle, sensible, and safe approach to recover from chronic pain and promote ease of movement throughout your life. 

SOMATICS GOES TO THE ROOT OF MUSCLE PAIN - YOUR BRAIN AND THE WAY IT SENSES AND CONTROLS MUSCLES.   Somatics re-trains the brain to release and relax muscles for improved function and long term pain relief by regaining awareness, sensation and motor control of muscles. 

By focussing on gentle movements, Somatics can eliminate SENSORY MOTOR AMNESIA, the condition of tight, “frozen” muscles that occurs when we learn to hold ourselves tightly in reaction to pain, injury, surgery, stress or habitual patterns. These patterns present themselves as back pain, neck/shoulder pain, TMJ, sciatica, scoliosis, leg length discrepancy and other common muscle pain conditions.

This is an ACTIVE process.  Since your brain controls your muscles, and muscles only learn through movement, YOU are the only one who can change what your muscles are doing.  Other methods such as stretching only give short term benefits.

Somatics can help to relieve pain and disability associated with common health complaints such as: headaches, stiff or painful joints and muscles, fatigue, poor posture, breathing problems, impaired movement, the effects of accident trauma and whiplash, back pain, and repetitive strain injuries.

Thomas Hanna developed Somatics not only to provide a means of releasing contracted muscles and provide pain relief,  but also with the intention of preventing these conditions from occurring.  Consistent practice can create and maintain lifelong freedom of movement of the entire body.

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