“It’s wonderful to meditate, but if you meditate with a stiff neck, you’ll never feel peace, but if you have a soft neck, you’ll have peace. ”
In this second part of understanding your posture, my aim is for you to understand why an increase in anxiety or worry can, amongst other things contribute to tension in the neck . In Somatic Movement Education terms we refer to this as the “Red Light Reflex” it’s also known as the “Startle Reflex”
Because our nervous system is so inextricably linked to our muscles, when we encounter a fearful situation we instinctively tighten the muscles in the front of our bodies. Think of hearing a loud bang or explosion, if we heard this, we would flinch in seconds and a cascade of muscles tighten from our , eyes, jaw, neck, downwards through our torso, all the way down into our feet. But this reflex isn’t just triggered so quickly, it can build up slowly through sustained periods of worry, fear, grief and anxiety. It’s a form of protection that goes back to millennia, something we need but not long term due to the increase in hormones and their snowball effect on our mental & emotional states, breathing, digestion and cognition but also on our posture. In reality, this is how hundreds of thousands of us have habituated this reflex, over time. It contributes to stiffness and pain in the neck, shoulders and back pain. This reflex tightens the abdominal muscles, affecting breathing, digestion and blood pressure.
There is another way we come to adopt this posture, what we do and how we do it. Sitting for a long time, head towards a screen or down toward a device or reading, driving, spending time slouched on the sofa or doubled over in pain and exercises that tone and tighten the abs and pecs, hunching and rounding shoulders, sitting for hours like this tightens abs and hip flexors, a tucked pelvis. The culmination of this reflex creates a rounded stooped posture the one familiar with ageing along with a shuffled walk. I don’t know about you, but that is not how I want to age.
Problems resulting from a habituated Red light reflex are increased anxiety, back pain (your back muscles are continually working to take the weight of your head. This also creates neck and shoulder tension and pain and additional pressure on knees as they bend. Issues such as TMJ, tinnitus, shallow breathing, abdominal discomfort and respiratory problems. A habituated Red Light Reflex rotates joints inwards, creating misalignments in hips, knees and shoulders.
Lots of New classes In the Library and No live classes the week of 7th March
As I’m away training there’s no live classes the week of the 7th March, so I’ve added two Zoom recordings, this one which is from last spring, a fun one that explores rolling over and into sitting with ease and last week’s class which is the super simple movements for shoulders and hips for free-er walking. Plus, there is a new class in the Short & Sweet library. And my Beginner’s Series is almost ready. The “pilot” is now in the Courses section and for Founder Members you can access it now. I have lots of tweaking yet to do, so it is not ready to share and promote to newbies. But please feel free to take a look, there are six short classes to follow in there, so you have plenty of classes to explore whilst I am away.
Keep practising and I’ll see your Soma soon.
With love
Liz 🙏🏻💕