Musings from Think Somatics + Kristin Jackson

An online search defines Clinical Somatics as “neuromuscular reeducation, to help people get rid of pain.” Let’s dive a little deeper… Everything your body does is controlled by your brain and nervous system. Everything your body does is controlled by your brain and nervous system. More specifically, your somatic nervous system (SNS) controls your conscious movements and what you feel as you make them. And it’s the SNS that is at the heart of Clinical Somatic Education. Something as simple as standing upright is learned .  No one taught you how to stand upright. Rather you educated yourself by doing and sensing . When you learn to stand, walk, swing a golf club, knit, etc., neural pathways form between the brain and body to make those actions happen. Think back to learning to ride a bike. There were so many processes involved. And with repeated practice, you eventually were able to ride your bike, like magic! And as the saying goes, “You never forget how to ride a bike.”

If you Google it,  pandiculation  comes up loosely defined as stretching and yawning, usually when upon waking up. But it's so much more than that. What is a pandiculation? When your dog or cat (or any animal) wakes up and looks like they are stretching they are actually pandiculating. You do it too, if you ever wake up, and reach your arms to the ceiling, yawn big, and then relax. Humans (and all other vertebrates) are genetically programmed to pandiculate. By doing so, our nervous systems reset our muscle length so we can easily move after being sedentary (sleeping, sitting, etc) for a extended period of time. When an animal or human pandiculates they are resetting the feedback loop between the sensory motor cortex part of the brain and the receptors in their muscles, to release built up tension. Where does all my tension come from? We humans accumulate tension as we sleep, sit for long periods of time, arch our backs in an effort to work hard. Even things like