Feeling our bodies can reduce anxiety and tight muscles

Call me a somatic movement nerd, but I get really excited when I hear someone who understands how a strong mind-body connection can help tackle life’s challenges. 

In a recent podcast, The anxiety you’re feeling? It’s a habit you can unlearn, Dr. Jud Brewer, a psychiatrist, professor at Brown University and director of research and innovation at the Mindfulness Center, touched on many of the concepts that we embrace in somatic movement. 

He recognizes the mind-body connection just isn’t that strong in our society. Many of us live in our minds 24/7 and our bodies take second place.

Dr. Brewer believes we’re trained as humans to use our thinking brains when trying to solve a behaviour or address a problem instead of first feeling and sensing the affect on our bodies. It’s that mind-body connection we’ve lost touch with and which is such a vital element in somatic movement.  Chronically tight muscles only start to lengthen and release when our brain notices, senses and feels the contraction and understands those same constricted muscles can also relax. 

Our body essentially reflects the state of the mind and it works the other way as well -- our mind reflects the state of our body. You cannot separate the two. A strong mind-body connection can help us regulate and change over time the affect of a behaviour or problem on our whole person.

An example that many of us may be able to relate to. A serious injury, medical problem and even a repetitive movement done long enough can cause such serious pain and discomfort in the body that our brain believes that’s the “new normal.” The brain, our mind, won’t let go of the tight muscles including any anxiety and pain associated with the condition even when the body starts to recover because it’s lost the ability to notice, sense and feel what’s really happening in the body.

Dr. Brewer brings this point up in the context of anxiety. 

“We’re trained to think using our thinking brains, really trying to think through things. Yet that’s not really what drives behaviour. It’s basically that I need to be paying attention to the part of worrying that feels bad physically, not ignoring that until finally I find an answer that makes me feel better physically…”

This may be a a bit of a deep dive into the whole mind-body connection, but it’s so darn important in somatic movement. We really can’t experience the full benefits of somatic movement unless we activate our ability to notice, sense and feel our body.

There’s lots more in this podcast that I plan to cover in another blog. You can also listen to the full interview here on the Ezra Klein Podcast, That Anxiety You’re Feeling? It’s a Habit You Can Unlearn.

A reminder that my next somatic movement classes start in early August. I’m offering basic somatic movement classes as well as twice-weekly classes for more experienced somatic movers.