Somatic Practices for Relieving Stress & Anxiety

Somatic Practices for Relieving Stress & Anxiety

This post includes excerpts from a paper I wrote about using body-based practices for relieving stress & anxiety. It explains how anxiety can be held in the body and how somatic, or body-based modalities can help. Given that anxiety disorders have an unconscious component, and that the emotions associated with these disorders can be held in the body, this paper argues for the use of body-based practices to help treat anxiety disorders, which circumvent the intellectual processes of the brain that are unable to address the root of the anxiety.

Mental stress affects the central and autonomic nervous systems, which affects the functioning of the respiratory, circulatory, skeletomuscular, and endocrine systems, including the organs of the entire body. We can use the study of Somatology to provide insight into how to treat disorders related to mental stress. Somatology is the holistic science of human experience and behavior (Hartley, 2004). Its root word, Soma, is a Greek word meaning ‘the body experienced from within.’ Somatology works toward a model of the whole person, integrating mind and body rather than splitting it. Somatology asserts that mind and body are a unified whole and that changes at any level will affect all others. It suggests that the body holds the seeds of healing and growth and it is a source of wisdom that we can learn from and be with rather than try to ignore, deny, and control. 

Willhelm Reich offers an understanding of how the body holds anxiety in the body. He believed that the breath and bodily tensions hold anxiety in a person (Mijares, 2009). His theory proclaims that the body holds tension in the muscles, which is a form of protection from unwanted emotions, and that the client’s breathing style reflects that inner tension. He believed that the way a person breathed served to bind these repressed anxieties, and that the burden of repressed feelings is carried in the body. His theory asserts that techniques that deepen the breath allow access to the anxiety, and that continuing to breathe through that anxiety opens up the blocked affect (usually sadness, anger, fear, or longing). When the client allowed the expression of that affect, they felt relief and their natural breath was restored. However, when under stress, they returned to their restricted breathing and holding patterns. 

We can turn now to a discussion of the neuroscience that is involved in the prevalence of anxiety disorders. Two of the main structures of the brain that play a role in anxiety disorders are the amygdala and the hippocampus (Hartley, 2004). The amygdala is akin to the brain’s alarm system, and it mediates implicit emotional memory, which is memory that is held in the body and unable to be articulated with language. The amygdala triggers the body’s physiological responses to perceived threats, which prepares the body for a fight, flight, or freeze response. 

The hippocampus mediates explicit memory, which is memory that can be accessed with the language and reasoning regions of our minds. The amygdala will cause a series of physiological events which we may not be aware of until a split second later, when the hippocampus is able to perceive and modulate the event. According to Khalsa et. al. (2016), mindfulness and meditative practices are interventions that can create effective change in these regions of the brain, which allows us to have a greater ability to modulate these experiences. 

In terms of our discussion on anxiety disorders, it is important to mention that when threats are unpredictable or happen repeatedly over a long period of time, our amygdala starts firing constantly, and we become unable to distinguish between what is or isn’t a genuine threat. We become trapped in a perpetual state of hypervigilance (Hanson, n.d.). This unconscious, maladaptive activity of the brain’s stress response system is at the root of many anxiety and chronic stress disorders, such as PTSD (Hartley, 2004). It’s also important to mention that because these responses are unconscious, we are often unable to access them with interventions that employ the language and analytical parts of the brain (Hartley 2004). In other words, talk therapies or cognitive behavioral therapies may be ineffective or incomplete when we are trying to treat anxiety and chronic stress disorders (Hartley 2004; CenterScene, 2015). 

Fortunately, we can use body-based approaches, such as yoga and breathing techniques, to bypass the intellectual parts of the mind and repair cognitive functioning through interoceptive avenues (Khalsa et al., 2016).  The physical postures and breath control employed in the practice of yoga affect the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) through the interoceptive pathways through the viscera and the vagus nerves. The PNS is the part of our autonomic nervous system (ANS) that enables us to rest, digest, and engage in restorative activities such as healing. Yogic practices also influence our sympathetic nervous system (SNS), the part of the ANS that is responsible for the flight, fight, or freeze response, via the locus coeruleus (another structure in the brain). Through the influence of these physiological systems in the body, yoga and breathwork are able to strengthen the ability of the “higher” reasoning and analytical parts of the mind to mediate the “lower” fearful and emotional responses. 

Body-based practices such as yoga, breathwork, and mindfulness can help access and regulate these deeper physiological patterns. By working directly with the body and nervous system, these practices may support healing, reduce anxiety, and strengthen the brain's ability to respond more effectively to stress.

References 

CenterScene. (2015, May 22). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma [Video]. YouTube.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53RX2ESIqsM 

Hanson, R. (n.d.). Dealing with anxiety [MOOC]. https://rickhanson.com/online-courses/dealing-with-anxiety/

Hartley, L. (2004). Somatic psychology: Body, mind and meaning. Whurr Publishers, Ltd.

Khalsa, S., Cohen, L., McCall, T., & Telles, S. (Eds.). (2016). Principles and practice of yoga in health care. ‎ Handspring Publishing.

Mijares, S. (2009). The revelation of the breath: A tribute to its wisdom, power and beauty. State University of New York Press

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