Can I Exercise with Pain?

When I lived with fibromyalgia, exercising in pain seemed to be the norm until I learned that movement could release painful signals.



Learning self-awareness through movement is a brain event. When we imaginatively use the brain, our pain lessens and our body moves with a freedom we used to have.

What is Somatics?

Somatics is the term coined by Thomas Hanna to describe the body experienced from within.

The mind-body connection is alive when we learn how to wield our somatic nervous system.



When we use cortical inhibition to reset muscular tension levels, we're lowering output to the muscles.


With a lowered level, the stress we feel, lessens in its intensity.

Getting the brain to reset our muscles is what all healthy vertebrate naturally do to keep moving well. Mother nature provides us a path to keep the body experienced from within, an area we can self-modulate with a little somatics know-how.

Letting Go of Tight, Stiff, Locked Muscles

When our muscles are ratcheted up and we feel that gnawing tension, it's easier said to "just let it go".

BUT... if we use the brain in a direct manner, the brain will send the message to the muscles to let go... and it'll remember with a kind reminder.

Thomas Hanna proposed the idea of sensory-motor amnesia. Our muscles in effect forget how to let go and they remain rigid or held in high states of contraction.



Using the brain and body with somatics exercises re-rights us and gets us back on track to easy, comfortable feelings in our muscles.