We are often told to “just breathe” when we feel distressed, overreactive, overstimulated, hyper-vigilant, exhausted or digitally overloaded. Stress is a common consequence of modern life, and sometimes, a few deep breaths can provide relief. However, when stress becomes ever-present and deep-seated, we may need a bit more help to release the tension in our muscles and to lower our heightened blood pressure out of fight-flight-or-freeze mode.

Somatic healing practices can provide a reset through movement and body awareness. According to Gina Nick, Ph.D., a naturopathic physician with 25 years of experience and an integrative medical practice in Los Angeles, “Somatic therapies are designed to address physical tension and release the stored emotions and stressors housed in the body.” These practices—which can be performed at home or with the help of a professional—forge a healthy, fluent connection between the mind and body by creating heightened self-awareness and boosting recovery and resilience. The result is sustained calmness and an improved ability to achieve serenity, focus and cognitive clarity.

 

Noticing the Body’s Messages

“Chronic stress doesn’t just affect your thoughts. It changes your biology,” explains Daniel Amen, M.D., a double board-certified psychiatrist, neuroscientist and author of multiple national bestsellers, including Change Your Brain, Change Your Pain: Breaking the Doom Loop to Heal Chronic Physical and Emotional Pain. “When stress hormones stay elevated for too long, they increase muscle tension, fire up inflammation and contribute to chronic pain. They also disrupt sleep, impair digestion and can even reduce blood flow to the brain, making you feel anxious, exhausted or mentally foggy.”

Somatic therapy relies on interoception—awareness of body sensations—to identify and release stress and trauma. These sensations originate from the autonomic nervous system, which governs involuntary bodily functions like heart rate and digestion. Examples of negative body sensations include clenching muscles, racing pulse, stomach churning, temperature fluctuations, tightness around the chest and tingling.

Steven Bradshaw, a psychologist, somatic experiencing practitioner and founder of Beyond Psychology Center, in Los Angeles, explains that the autonomic nervous system features two sub-systems that regulate safety: the sympathetic nervous system that mobilizes the body for action in dangerous situations and the parasympathetic nervous system to promote calmness and recovery. Chronic stress or trauma can get stuck in the sympathetic nervous system, causing a state of constant alertness. “The body is safety for the mind,” he remarks. “I use a mind-body approach that engages your inner healer to move from states of anxiety, burnout, disconnection and pain into states of goodness, flow and a deep sense of belonging in your own body.”

Aimie Apigian, M.D., MS, MPH, founder of Trauma Healing Accelerated and author of The Biology of Trauma: How the Body Holds Fear, Pain, and Overwhelm, and How to Heal It explains, “Somatic therapies are body-based approaches that work at the level of sensation. Sometimes that means creating a sensation of safety in the body, and sometimes it means creating the sensation of overcoming a moment of powerlessness from the past, often through movement, by finally doing the self-defense movement you were not able to do when the real event happened. The benefit is that we uncouple a sensation from the meaning of danger it got paired with. That can be an internal sensation, like the twisting of your gut, or an external one, like a particular sight or smell. The sensation stops automatically signaling danger, and the body gets to learn a new response rather than only understanding the old one.”

 

Mind-Body Practices

“As anyone who has ever danced knows, our feelings can be more readily accessed through movement and getting in touch with our body’s sensations, which is what somatic therapy does,” says Jacob Teitelbaum, M.D., a board-certified internist specializing in chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia, sleep and pain, as well as the author of several books, including Pain Relief in 4 Simple Steps: Eliminating the Root Causes of Chronic Pain. While conventional talk therapy focuses on using the rational mind to release embedded stress, daily body-awareness activities can help people learn to process their tension while building emotional resilience.

Amen recommends starting with basic practices, including slow diaphragmatic breathing, daily body movements, good quality sleep and time spent in nature. One of his favorite calming strategies is the butterfly hug to soothe the brain and body. “Simply place your hands on your opposite shoulders and gently stroke them downward,” he explains.

Other self-somatic therapies can calm the body and mind, creating a sense of safety, which quiets racing thoughts and brightens the person’s outlook. “The aim of a daily practice is to create a sensation of internal safety or a felt sense of support in the body,” Apigian counsels.

Four-Count Breath: An excellent tension reliever and mental refresh, the four-count breath can be performed anywhere at any time. Inhale fully while counting to four, hold for four, exhale for four and pause for four. Repeat up to five times.

Body Scan: This exercise is all about interoception and is done by noticing sensations from head to toe while sitting or lying down comfortably.

Full-Body Shake: Standing up and shaking arms, legs and shoulders for 30 seconds not only loosen limbs but also relieves pent-up stress. Rolling the head in a circular motion can also release knotted tension at the base of the neck.

Humming: The vibrations from humming (either a tune or single note like an “Om”) physically calms the vagus nerve, which bidirectionally carries information via electrical and chemical messages to and from the brain. A 2023 study published in the medical journal Cureus involving 23 participants revealed that humming significantly lowered stress biomarkers compared to physical activity and sleep, with positive impacts on the parasympathetic nervous system to reduce the fight-or-flight response.

Mindful Movement: Moving with intention and body awareness can deepen in-the-moment joy and appreciation while also reducing anxiety, releasing tension and improving mood. Start with deep breathing, then turn attention inward for a head-to-toe body check while moving. This can be practiced while washing the dishes or participating in a fitness class.

Guided Imagery: A technique that can be performed alone or with a therapist, guided imagery utilizes breathwork and meditation while envisioning an object or scene, using all of the senses. Capitalizing on the mind-body connection, multi-sensory visualization reduces stress and relaxes muscles.

 

Guided Therapies

Long-term, somatic therapies with the help of expert practitioners can result in creating healthier habitual emotional patterns, which contribute to repairing mood imbalance and creating sustained well-being.

Craniosacral therapy is a gentle, hands-on approach that releases physical tension to enhance relaxation. It focuses on the skull, spine and craniosacral system, which includes the cerebrospinal fluid, fascia and soft tissues surrounding the central nervous system. A 2023 study published in Behavioral Sciences (Basel, Switzerland) involving male firefighter cadets found that five weekly sessions of craniosacral therapy significantly reduced cortisol levels, a primary stress hormone.

Rolfing somatic movement is a touch-based technique designed to unblock or release protective posture patterns such as shrugged shoulders, bent postures and clenched jawlines from unresolved stress, anxiety and trauma. According to the Dr. Ida Rolf Institute, Rolfing resets the body’s stress response by releasing restrictions in the fascia—the connective tissue network that surrounds, separates and holds together the body’s muscles, bones, organs, blood vessels and nerve fibers.

Trauma-sensitive yoga or trauma-informed yoga is designed to cultivate a compassionate awareness of what is happening in the body in the present moment and to develop the ability to take effective action based on that knowledge. It empowers individuals to reconnect with their bodies in a safe, non-judgmental environment and regulate the nervous system. A 2018 qualitative analysis published in International Journal of Stress Management identified key emotional themes that emerged from engaging in trauma-sensitive yoga, including gratitude, compassion, relatedness, acceptance, centeredness and empowerment.

Somatic experiencing is a specialized therapy designed to retrain the nervous system by processing trauma in small, manageable sessions. Instead of focusing on the story of the trauma, the therapist guides the client to notice physical sensations, while providing a feeling of safety and well-being. This treatment approach releases vestigial negativity and creates a new, intuitive, more deeply self-aware and empowered way of sustaining emotional well-being. A 2021 literature review published in European Journal of Psychotraumatology reported that somatic experiencing positively impacts symptoms related to post-traumatic stress disorder, notably reducing affective and somatic complaints while improving overall well-being.

 

Eye-Movement Therapies

Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) centers on moving the eyes in a specific manner while being guided to process traumatic or stressful memories, which are stored differently than normal or happy ones. Reprocessing helps to repair mind injury caused by the traumatic event.

Brainspotting (BSP), a newer neuro-based therapy, uses eye position or “brainspots” to access and release unresolved emotional energy stored in the limbic system and subcortical region of the brain. Compared to EMDR, BSP is more somatic and intuitive. In a 2022 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, just one 40-minute session of EMDR or BSP was found to have beneficial effects in processing distressing memories.

 

Finding Relief and Resolution

“Somatic therapies recognize that many emotional and physical symptoms are protective responses rather than a mental disorder, weakness or failure,” says Annie Wright, a licensed psychotherapist and relational trauma specialist. Acknowledging and observing our discomfort paves the way for a healing conversation with ourselves.

 

Sheldon C. Baker is a contributing editor to numerous health, wellness and lifestyle publications.

Related Articles: