I would like to recommend a book to the forum that has been helpful and informative for me. The title is Somatics | reawakening the mind's control of movement, flexibility and health by Thomas Hanna.
The primary intended audience of the book is people who are suffering from what our society considers to be the normal "symptoms of age - stiffness, bad back, chronic pain, fatigue, and, at times, even high blood pressure", so basically everyone I know who is over 50. Hanna insists that many of these symptoms are part of the "traditional myth of aging: that increasing age should mean decreasing physical activity." He does not deny the fact that "as we get older, we usually become stiff," but he asks "why this degeneration should occur... what happens during aging to account for this decline?" I know from my readings on the forum that many members suffer from chronic fatigue and pain, I hope that this book might help someone.
The book was recommended to me by a friend, who is a massage therapist, several years ago after I injured my neck and shoulder in a bad fall. Even after my neck and shoulder healed I was suffering from "frozen shoulder" and my back was kinked up in an S shape. Massages and the chiropractor helped somewhat, but it was by practicing the exercises in this book that I eventually regained full movement in my neck and shoulder. I am in my twenties, so I am not yet experiencing the symptoms of aging, but I have found the exercises very helpful for dealing with stress and imbalance in my body.
Hanna's theory is that our "sensory-motor systems", our body and the parts of our mind that feel and control muscle movements,
[quote author=Thomas Hanna]"respond to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes. These reflexes, repeatedly triggered, create habitual muscular conditions, which we cannot - voluntarily - relax. These muscular contractions have become so deeply involuntary and unconscious that, eventually, we no longer remember how to move about freely. The result is stiffness, soreness, and a restricted range of movement. This habituated state of forgetfulness is called sensory-motor amnesia... And, because this occurs within the central nervous system, we are not aware of it, yet it affects us to our very core."[/quote]
The "exercises" in the book are actually low impact movements that are designed to reawaken your mind's conscious control of muscle tension. To quote Hanna: "This program consists not of physical exercises but of Somatic Exercises; it offers specific procedures for making changes in the sensory-motor area of the brain in order to maintain internal control of the muscle system." He recommends that you first study "the nature of sensory-motor amnesia, how it occurs in your brain, and where it occurs in your body" by reading the first two parts of the book. Your primary task when practicing the exercises is to focus your attention on the internal sensations of the movements. The exercises are always done slowly, with gentle movements and the least possible effort. They should not be painful and are not intended to be stretches, so they are designed so that anyone should be able to do them.
I hope that my description of this book has been informative and may pique someone's interest. Hanna's research and case studies are very interesting, and the exercises are simple and they have been very effective for me. If anyone has any questions about what I've written I would be glad to expand on my description.
Seamas
The primary intended audience of the book is people who are suffering from what our society considers to be the normal "symptoms of age - stiffness, bad back, chronic pain, fatigue, and, at times, even high blood pressure", so basically everyone I know who is over 50. Hanna insists that many of these symptoms are part of the "traditional myth of aging: that increasing age should mean decreasing physical activity." He does not deny the fact that "as we get older, we usually become stiff," but he asks "why this degeneration should occur... what happens during aging to account for this decline?" I know from my readings on the forum that many members suffer from chronic fatigue and pain, I hope that this book might help someone.
The book was recommended to me by a friend, who is a massage therapist, several years ago after I injured my neck and shoulder in a bad fall. Even after my neck and shoulder healed I was suffering from "frozen shoulder" and my back was kinked up in an S shape. Massages and the chiropractor helped somewhat, but it was by practicing the exercises in this book that I eventually regained full movement in my neck and shoulder. I am in my twenties, so I am not yet experiencing the symptoms of aging, but I have found the exercises very helpful for dealing with stress and imbalance in my body.
Hanna's theory is that our "sensory-motor systems", our body and the parts of our mind that feel and control muscle movements,
[quote author=Thomas Hanna]"respond to daily stresses and traumas with specific muscular reflexes. These reflexes, repeatedly triggered, create habitual muscular conditions, which we cannot - voluntarily - relax. These muscular contractions have become so deeply involuntary and unconscious that, eventually, we no longer remember how to move about freely. The result is stiffness, soreness, and a restricted range of movement. This habituated state of forgetfulness is called sensory-motor amnesia... And, because this occurs within the central nervous system, we are not aware of it, yet it affects us to our very core."[/quote]
The "exercises" in the book are actually low impact movements that are designed to reawaken your mind's conscious control of muscle tension. To quote Hanna: "This program consists not of physical exercises but of Somatic Exercises; it offers specific procedures for making changes in the sensory-motor area of the brain in order to maintain internal control of the muscle system." He recommends that you first study "the nature of sensory-motor amnesia, how it occurs in your brain, and where it occurs in your body" by reading the first two parts of the book. Your primary task when practicing the exercises is to focus your attention on the internal sensations of the movements. The exercises are always done slowly, with gentle movements and the least possible effort. They should not be painful and are not intended to be stretches, so they are designed so that anyone should be able to do them.
I hope that my description of this book has been informative and may pique someone's interest. Hanna's research and case studies are very interesting, and the exercises are simple and they have been very effective for me. If anyone has any questions about what I've written I would be glad to expand on my description.
Seamas
