The Somatic Movement | An All-Natural Healing Yoga Practice

The Somatic Movement | An All-Natural Healing Yoga Practice

  • Kathy Sexton
  • 01/4/25

The Somatic Movement | An All-Natural Healing Yoga Practice

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When Amy Wolff took one of her first yoga classes, it was only a few weeks after 9/11. “I had been going through some health challenges and with September 11, my nervous system was shot,” she says. “It was so dysregulating. I needed something to calm me down and a yoga studio had just opened in my town. So I decided to give it a try.” The fitness instructor became hooked, not only for the physical benefits the yoga classes provided but also the emotional and mental relief she found while practicing.

Today, Wolff is co-owner of The Yoga Post in Petaluma, California and teaches yoga classes regularly. One such practice she’s been incorporating into her daily sessions is somatics: a way to connect your emotions to how you feel physically. “It’s been around for a long time,” explains Wolff of the full-body awareness practice, which helps rewire the brain to allow muscles to fully relax and restart at their natural state. That resetting of the mind and body allows for a more relaxed state both mentally and physically.

Somatics and specifically somatic yoga are not new, but it has become a trending topic in the fitness world. “I would say it’s become a buzzword,” says Wolff. The premise is simple: somatic yoga aims to truly immerse your mind into every single movement so much so that you become more attuned to how you’re actually feeling. “You lean into very slow movements so that you can truly focus on what’s happening. If you were going to sit and close your eyes, can you imagine the space between your ears? Can you notice your breath? Where does the breath go into your body? Is it in your upper lungs? How deeply are you breathing? All of these things are what somatic movement is.”

Somatic yoga has shown to have great health benefits. One of the most significant is that somatic movement can potentially alleviate chronic pain according to a study in Frontiers in Psychology. Research also indicates that somatic movement such as somatic yoga can lessen feelings of anxiety as well as boost mood per a study in the journal Cell Reports Medicine. In fact, that same study found that somatic movement achieved these results more than traditional mindfulness meditation. “Somatic yoga really gives you an opportunity to rewrite and reprogram your body and mind and it releases old patterns, both physically and mentally, that need to be let go of,” says Wolff.

Today, Wolff incorporates somatics into every one of her classes. “I do it without the class even knowing,” she says. “I incorporate it by the cues I give. It really helps people slow down, which is what we need these days. We need to slow down and reconnect.”

Trauma Healing

Somatic movement can be truly healing when it comes to overcoming trauma. According to the European Journal of Psychotraumatology, somatic exercise can assist with overcoming post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). “With PTSD, you can become disassociated from your own body and nervous system,” explains Wolff. “People almost feel a numbness or disassociation from how they feel or their body, which happens often with trauma.” Somatic movement helps reconnect and address those unresolved feelings in a positive way.

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YHL Written by Blake Miller

Photography provided by miniseries/E+/Getty Images

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