In this blog I am inviting you to watch this video (20 minutes) with three consecutive Somatic Movement Flows® to help you unwind from stress, pain, and stiffness in your upper body. My intent is to support you improving your posture and becoming more present in each moment so that you can make the next best generative decision for your health and wellbeing.
You can watch and practice all Flows at once, or explore them one at a time at your convenience. The anatomical focus continues to build on previous videos I’ve shared: neck, shoulders, and upper back.
For those that like to understand, from a scientific and practical level, how/why Gentle Somatic Yoga & Wellness® is highly effective and unique compared to other styles of yoga might also enjoy further explanations found in this video. I’ll also provide more details in this week’s blog. You can find it on our website under blogs here.
For more self-help videos like this please visit Somatic Wellness TV gentlesomaticyoga.com/somatic-wellness-tv/
How it works…
The video above shows how to self-correct from poor posture from being sedentary, which many of us who work from home or due to today’s pandemic, now work from home.
Sitting, even for short amounts of time, causes compression on the spine. And, when the body maintains the same shape the muscles in the front body can remain contracted, even when you think you are relaxed.
Consider this:
Next time you are standing in line at a store look at the people near you and look at their posture. You might notice that many people have their head and shoulders forward and down (haunched). Interestingly, most people are not even aware of this, let alone know how to change it.
In our blog from a few weeks ago, Foot Sliders, we talked about fascia. Fascia is what our entire body is encased in: fibrous tissue that functions as the biological fabric that keeps our muscles, organs, and joints all together. When your body is inactive or experiences stress ongoingly, the fascia can become stiff and sticky. As a result, this contributes to the body becoming less flexible and mobile.
Go here to read more https://www.gentlesomaticyoga.com/somatic-foot-sliders/
So why am I mentioning this?
Because it is important to consciously move our body everyday for a variety of reasons. And, the ones I’m going to share with you in this blog are the most important for this flow.
- Neuroplasticity, or brain plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through growth and reorganization. These changes range from individual neurons making renewed connections strengthening the brain-to-muscle connection.
- Plasticity
Every time you learn something, neural circuits are altered in your brain. These circuits are composed of a number of neurons (nerve cells) that communicate with one another through special junctions called synapses.
When you learn something new, it is actually these synapses whose efficiency increases, thus facilitating the passage of nerve impulses along a particular circuit.
- Posture
The way gravity moves through the body is an unconscious experience. When we sit for too long with our head, bones, and ligaments not properly aligned, our muscles work against gravity. In other words some muscle groups become overly engaged intending to keep the body upright and can stay contracted even when the body changes position. This reflex is called sensory motor amnesia.
- Sensory motor amnesia
Sensory Motor Amnesia is the root cause of most chronic muscular pain and misaligned posture. It is when the brain has lost the ability to relax tight, contracted muscles that are in effect functioning on “cruise control”.
With Sensory Motor Amnesia we temporarily loose voluntary control of specific muscle groups. When this happens the muscles stay contracted despite our best efforts to relax them.
How do you reverse Amnesia?
In Gentle Somatic Yoga and Wellness, the Somatic Movements are designed to assist in unwinding from unconscious habits, creating new neural pathways, and increasing neuroplasticity.
Through these practices, you can retrain the brain to notice (sensory) how to move – or not move. From here you can make the decision to mindfully contact chronically tight or contracted/frozen muscles and instruct them about how to release or “unwind” (motor). We do this through practicing therapeutic corrective exercises called Somatic Movement Flows. Through slow and mindful movement, your pain and stiffness can be erased and new neural pathways in the brain will keep it this way.
See our Tips and Guidelines to enhance your success.
Enjoy!
In Radiant Health,
James Knight, Founder of Gentle Somatic Yoga and Somatic Wellness
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