The science behind somatic exersices: 

How Do Somatic Exercises Work? 

Somatic movement relies on three neurological processes: proprioception, interoception, and exteroception.
Each process handles a different type of sensory processing relating to the nervous system and wider body. Somatic exercise uses these processes to draw awareness to the body through movement. 

Proprioception – or the "position sense" – is how someone senses their body's position, movements, force, and pressure. It relies on the proprioceptive system in the muscles and joints. There are four key components to the proprioceptive system which help the brain to organize and compile relevant information: 

• Striated muscle and muscle spindles: The striated muscle controls movement while the muscle spindles react to how tense the muscle is. The nervous system uses this to calculate the amount of force needed for physical actions. 

• Receptors: They relay information to the brain about a limb's placement and position, which can be found inside and around joints in the limbs like the elbow or knee.

• Golgi tendon organs: This is a sensory receptor sitting between the muscles, tendons, and joints. They are reactive to how tense a tendon is.

• The inner ear: The semicircular anterior, posterior, and lateral canals of the inner ear detect the head's movements and position. Interoception, on the other hand, is a sensory system that processes internal signals.

It communicates information from many different physiological systems, like heart rate, using a complex set of neural pathways. The spinothalamic tract, vagal sensory nerves, and the nucleus of the solitary tract in the brainstem are all thought to play important roles.

While interoception handles internal processes, exteroception processes the external world. Exteroception covers the five traditional sensory processes – vision, hearing, taste, touch, and smell – alongside some others. Information is received from environmental stimuli, like light or sound, through specialized sensors called exteroceptors.
 

These three principles of sensory processing combine to give insight into many aspects of someone's body, including how it moves, feels, and relates to the wider environment. In turn, this information is hugely significant to somatic exercise and the mind-body connection. 

Benefits of Somatic Exercise 

Somatic movement is designed to enhance bodily awareness and improve physical function through mindful movement. Here are several key objectives of somatic practices: 

• Increase Bodily Awareness: Somatic exercises help individuals become more aware of their bodily sensations, movements, and positions. This heightened awareness can lead to a better understanding of one’s own body, how it functions, and how it responds to stress, tension, and relaxation.

• Release Muscle Tension: Through gentle, controlled movements, somatic exercises aim to release chronic muscle tension that may be contributing to pain, discomfort, or limited mobility. This is often achieved by re-educating the nervous system to stop sending signals that keep muscles tight, allowing for relaxation and ease of movement.

• Improve Movement Efficiency: By focusing on the quality of movement rather than the quantity, somatic exercises encourage more efficient, fluid, and graceful movements. This can lead to improved performance in physical activities, reduced effort in daily tasks, and a decreased risk of injury.

• Enhance Mind-Body Integration: Somatic exercises promote a deeper connection between the mind and the body, helping individuals to integrate their mental and physical experiences and connect more deeply with their internal self. This improved integration can enhance overall health, reduce stress levels, and increase resilience to physical and emotional challenges.

• Facilitate Healing and Recovery: For those recovering from injury or dealing with chronic pain, somatic exercises offer a gentle and effective approach to facilitate healing. By focusing on gentle movements that respect the body’s limits, these exercises can help restore function and reduce pain without causing further harm.

• Promote Relaxation and Stress Reduction: The mindful and introspective nature of somatic exercises can have a calming effect on the nervous system. By helping you become more aware of and at peace with your own emotions, it promotes relaxation and a decrease in stress on the body and mind. The mental benefits are just as valuable as the physical. 

Somatic Exercises Education

Somatic movement education is usually referred to just as somatic education. This term was coined by Thomas Hanna, who was a student of Moshe Feldenkrais. The Feldenkrais Method is probably the most well-known method of somatic education. Other methods of somatic education are the Alexander Technique and Clinical Somatic Education (which was developed by Thomas Hanna, and is also known as Hanna Somatic Education). 

Thomas Hanna used the term somatic education to describe methods of sensorimotor education that use somatic movement to improve motor control and sensation and change learned muscular patterns. A simpler way to say this, and some people will argue that this is oversimplified, is that somatic education allows you to retrain your muscle memory, or your learned motor patterns. 
The benefit of retraining your muscle memory is that you can release your chronic muscle tension, relieve your chronic pain, improve your posture and movement, and recover from many common musculoskeletal conditions. 
Different methods of somatic education teach somatic movements in different ways to address patterns of tension, pain, and postural misalignment. They may use both hands-on movements, which are guided by a certified educator, and self-care movements, which are practiced by the student on their own at home. 
One of the tenets of all forms of somatic education is that students should be responsible for their own health and learning.