Hanna Somatic Education
®
pain management, injury prevention, performance enhancement
The more precise the clinical approach, the faster the improvement.
(click for article).
This website exists to introduce resources for improving physical well-being in tangible ways. Accordingly, some background is in order.
Major advances in health care have always come from unexpected sources and led in unexpected directions -- germ theory (Pasteur), hygiene (Lister), and immunization (Salk) are a few examples. They're accepted now; they were unexpected and unaccepted (and in fact ridiculed) when they first emerged.
In this case, the unexpected direction is into the learning and intelligence functions of the Central Nervous System involved in sensation and control of the muscular system. An entire field is developing whose methods can prevent or reverse certain effects of injury and poor aging -- including pain and stiffness due to injury or previously unidentified causes. The field is called, "clinical somatic education" -- where "somatic" refers to the body experienced and controlled "from within", and "education" means "awakening and gathering of ones faculties".
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A personal story:
I had hip surgery years ago and the docs said I would develop arthritis in my hip in "later" life...... well... later is now!! I used shark cartilage, gelatin, lots and lots of pain relievers but none of it helped very much.
I picked up the Hanna book on somatics... did the awareness of movement exercises and the hip stretching movement relieves the pain like magic. It stays gone for a long time -- I don't even take aspirin anymore. This somatics work is very powerful stuff!!!!
-- Patti M.: (PATTIMACK@aol.com)
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As a matter of record, many people come to a Hanna Somatic Educator discouraged, skeptical, and in dispair, having exhausting their other therapeutic options. Some come hoping to avoid surgery. Most of the time, they are successful. However, it is wiser to come as soon as they hear the words, "We don't know what's wrong with you," "We can't find anything wrong with you," "It's all in your head," "You're just getting older," "You'll just have to live with it," or words to that effect. It's also wise to come if you're not progressing well in your physical therapy.
Although the roots of somatic education can be traced back to ancient times (yoga), it has only recently developed into a form that meets clinical requirements for rapid and predictable results. Modern somatic education techniques rapidly and reliably relieve chronic pain, improve muscular control, and regenerate bodily functioning. The goal of Hanna Somatic Education practitioners is to bring rapid and lasting relief to their clients and to teach them how to prevent future recurrences of the problem,
while
increasing
their physical capacity for activity.
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Applications of this new discipline include:
The special virtue of this approach is that it improves the natural functioning of your body. You feel different -- and more like yourself.
The processes of somatic education are comfortable and gentle. For that reason, the results are commonly surprising to clients.
Somatic education accelerates the results of physical training and eliminates or reduces dependency on drugs or therapy for many types of physical problems. Surgery can sometimes be avoided and, in many cases, the results of an unsuccessful surgery can be improved, often substantially.
To see a partial list of pathological conditions
that can be cleared up or improved through somatic education, click "list".
To end chronic pain without surgery, pain meds, or muscle relaxants:
With decisive improvements after each session, the clinical methods of Hanna Somatic Education end chronic pain from injury, aging, and overuse. Hanna Somatic Education improves muscular control, freedom of movement, grace, strength, and overall health. It is common to regain much of the grace and flexibility typical of people ten to twenty years younger. How does it work?
This website provides explanations, abundant information, images, and access to resources and practitioners who practice this approach. Use the blue navigation bar at the top of the page to move from area to area of this website.
Improving Brain Functioning
To use the metaphor of computer hardware and software, the body is the hardware (or "wetware") and what the brain has learned is its software. (Reflexes and certain physiological functions are "hard wired" into the nervous system.) Somatic education upgrades brain and bodily functioning by upgrading the "software" (control faculties acquired by learning) with which your brain controls muscular control and coordination. You "install" such "software" in yourself by a learn-by-doing process (i.e., learning and practicing safe, self-controlled movement patterns). The sensations of the movement patterns enter your memory and serve as the approximate patterns by which you control your movements (adjusted to the needs of the moment). The improvements of body-awareness and control may seem somehow remarkable, and the relief of pain, miraculous, but are really the result of higher integration of your nervous and muscular systems. A series of sessions produces lasting and substantial improvements in physical comfort, flexibility, strength, and mobility.
The human brain is 90% dedicated to two classes of functioning: sensing and moving.
Of that 90%, it is said that people use only 5 - 10%. Somatic education substantially increases brain functioning by improving its degree of integration. These improvements affect multiple levels of the human being: attention and attention span, pattern recognition, exercise of intention, ability to convert ideas into tangible actualities, as well as the functioning of the physical body.
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Permit me, as your host, to introduce myself. My name is
Lawrence Gold.
I am one of the thirty-eight people Dr. Hanna trained in 1990 and among approximately one hundred people, worldwide, certified to practice Hanna Somatic Education.
Communicate with me:
click here
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Hanna Somatic Education ®
is a registered trademark of The Novato Institute for Somatic Research
and Training
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