Imagine your life without chronic aches and pains...

What is Hanna Somatic Education?
Hanna Somatic Education is a natural, gentle, experiential approach to reversing and preventing chronic aches and pains as you learn to sense and move your body the way nature intended. The movements are designed to override Sensory Motor Amnesia(SMA) by reawakening communication between the brain and the muscles. Everyone over the age of twenty has Sensory Motor Amnesia - a condition caused by our body's unconscious, involuntary muscular responses to our environment. The brain controls the muscles. The muscles move the bones. Our brain contracts our muscles in response to day-to-day stress, trauma, repeated movement patterns, and injury. When these muscle contractions become chronic, they cause back and joint stiffness, aches and pains, and exhaustion - the symptoms we have come to accept as the inevitable process of aging. This loss of comfort is not aging, it is contracted muscles, and it is both reversible and preventable through Hanna Somatic Education.

The body is self-sensing, self-adjusting, and self-correcting. Infants develop their sensory motor self-awareness as they learn to control their muscles. As children grow and life becomes busier, they become more focused on their external environment and they begin to lose this valuable sensory self-awareness, because it requires some attention in order to be maintained.  Most people lose significant sensory self-awareness by the time they are twenty years old, if not sooner. It is a slow, subtle process. The irony of Sensory Motor Amnesia is, unless you are already experiencing tension and pain, you can't know you have it, because the very nature of it is the absence of self-awareness. When you cannot sense your body from within, your body's ability to self-correct and move freely has been compromised.

Hanna Somatic Education identifies three major reflex patterns which can become habitually held in a state of contraction, and are at the root of most chronic aches and pains. Thomas Hanna, the founder of Hanna Somatics, named these patterns the Green Light Reflex, the Red Light Reflex, and the Trauma Reflex.

The Green Light Reflex contracts the muscles of the lower back, arching the back every time we have the intention of doing something or going some place.  This reflex is responsible for the prevalence of back aches and back pain in our culture. When these muscles become extremely chronically contracted, they pull the vertebrae of the spine together and cause "bulging,” “ slipped," and "herniated" discs. You can regain control of these habitually contracted muscles through Hanna Somatic Education, and learn a brief movement routine to remain pain-free on your own.

The Red Light Reflex contracts the large abdominal muscle in the front of the body in response to fear and apprehension. When this reflex becomes chronically contracted, it pulls the shoulders up and  forward distorting the posture, and it pulls the pelvis upward toward the ribcage, restricting the movement of the hips. In addition, it restricts the ability of the diaphragm to freely contract and relax, causing shallow breathing.  In a 1980 study of 153 heart attack patients in the coronary care unit of a Minneapolis St. Paul Hospital, all 153 patients were shallow breathers. You can learn to regain control of this habituated reflex pattern and breathe more fully through Hanna Somatic Education.

When both the Green Light Reflex, contracting the muscles of the back, and the Red Light Reflex, contracting the muscles of the stomach, are habitually contracted, it creates a condition Hanna likens to a "Dark Vise". This condition is most easily observed in elderly citizens who shuffle along as they walk, barely moving their arms and legs. Hanna Somatic Education can even bring relief to these extreme cases - it is never too late, or too early, to experience the benefits of reawakening the neuromuscular system.

The Trauma Reflex contracts the muscles of the side of the body in response to injury. When the muscles of the side waist become chronically contracted, it pulls the vertebrae together on that side, causing a curve in the spine that may be diagnosed as scoliosis. The more severe the contraction, the more likely the body is to compensate for the imbalance by tilting the head to the opposite side, causing an "S curve" scoliosis. Both conditions, when caused by trauma, as opposed to genetic scoliosis, are reversible through Hanna Somatic Education. Other symptoms of the habituated Trauma Reflex are one leg shorter than the other, walking with a limp, and one shoulder lower than the other. People with these symptoms have oftentimes broken a leg, or sprained an ankle at some point in their lives, and they shifted their weight to the opposite leg. Over time, it caused the muscles of that side to become chronically contracted. Common complaints caused by the habituated Trauma Reflex are painful shoulders, hips, knees, ankles and feet. These complaints are frequently diagnosed as structural problems requiring surgery, rather than functional problems requiring education.  Many of these complaints can be reversed when you release the contractions in the oblique muscles – the powerful muscles of the side waist.

Hanna Somatic Education is a natural approach to relieving and preventing chronic aches and pains through slow, gentle movements designed to stimulate the brain's release of muscular tightness.  Whereas most modalities of healing and exercise address these pains from the neck down, Hanna Somatics re-educates the brain. Even those without pain will feel more flexible, whole and alive with each Hanna Somatic Workshop, as they will literally sense more of themselves. In addition, participants of these workshops learn a 5 - 15 minute daily movement routine that will stimulate their neuromuscular system, enabling them to remain pain-free on their own. Hanna Somatic Education empowers each individual to be responsible for their own comfort and flexibility by developing sensory motor awareness and control.

The Study of Heart Attack patients:

Hymes, A., and Neurenberger, P. "Breathing patterns found in heart attack patients."
Research Bulletin of the Himalayan International Institute 2(2) (1980), pp. 10-12.

Four ways to combat the aches and pains caused by Sensory Motor Amnesia:

1. Private Sessions - This method achieves the fastest results, as the sessions are targeted to your specific needs.  Most individuals experience pain relief with five sessions.

2. Group Classes: This method provides an opportunity to meet new people.

3. Corporate Workshops: This method is the easiest to attend regularly, as the Workshops are given at the work site, during the work day. These Workshops have the additional benefit of reducing  health care costs, workmens comp cases, and pain-related absenteeism.

4. On your own using Where Comfort Hides by Noreen Owens.  Do the lessons in Part Two in accordance with the guidelines.  Then incorporate the 5 – 10 minute movement routine into your daily schedule, and you will maintain and improve your comfort and flexibility over time. This is the least expensive method, and you can progress at your own pace.

Whether you choose a private Somatic session, or participate in a Workshop, everyone will learn a brief movement routine that they can do anytime, anywhere, on their own, so they can remain pain free and continue to improve whatever comfort and flexibility they have achieved during the Session/Workshops.

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