“Sleep is the golden chain that binds health & our bodies together”
Have you ever wondered why, when you wake up your body feels sore, tense and achey? You might still feel tired, exhausted even after a good night’s sleep? Even after your evening ritual of a bath, stretches, pain relief creams, meds or herbal night-time remedy the tension in your neck or back pain is there when you open your eyes, or it may be keeping you awake.
When there is tension or pain, it normally means that the muscles have learned to become tight through repetitive movement, feeling or thought. Like all learned skills, they become “banked” in the sub cortex of your brain. For our daily tasks this is beneficial, like eating, speaking and walking etc and allows us to move through our day without thinking and relearning these skills. With painful tight muscles or repeated stress this is not the case. Because, just like when you wake up and you do not need to re-learn how to walk to the bathroom, your sub cortex also holds on to those tight hip flexors that became so due to hours of sitting. Just like it learned to hold your back muscles tight, after every time your nervous system felt under pressure. Your brain thinks it is being efficient and helpful. So this is how we can end up living and sleeping with the enemy, but what we want is our brain to be our ally, there for us when we move, to contract our muscles effectively and efficiently when and to relax them afterwards especially when we need to sleep.
So, if you notice you wake with the same tension every morning, give Somatics a try, it will be your ally to combat daily tension, chronic pain and stress.
In Class This Week
I am going back to basics to explore variations on Arch and Flatten and Arch & Curl. Inspired by a class I took recently, it reminded me how effective these "bread and butter movements are for cultivating a more balanced posture, comfort and equanimity.
New in the Library
Is last week’s class “Glorious Glutes” I heard it had helped many students with hip and groin pain to improved balance and gait. Want to give it a go? You can access the class here.
I look forward to seeing your Soma soon
Liz 🙏🏻💕