What does somatics mean? The term “somatic” is derived from the Latin word SOMA, which means “the living body.” It is used today to describe movement of the body. The field of somatics was founded in the 1970s by Thomas Hanna, an American philosopher and pioneer of neurology who was trained by Moshe Feldenkrais, an engineer and physicist who created his own relearning method to explore brain-to-body communication. 

While there are multiple methods being used today, all somatic practices share one aim: to increase and develop awareness during movement that connects the mind and the body.

Practitioners of somatic movements believe that by connecting to our internal body through somatic movements we generate more self-awareness.

Teresa Fracasso, the co-founder of Plexus, a fitness centre in Rome, Italy, that focuses on a holistic and systematic approach to health through courses in Pilates, yoga, and the Plexus method, the centre’s signature exercise method that combines Pilates, yoga, and orthopaedic biomechanics, similarly believes that moving the body results in more mind and body awareness, leading to a feeling of greater overall mental and physical wellness. 

If one is feeling happy or sad at the start of a movement will the movement be affected? 

“One hundred percent,” states Fracasso. “But the movement is liberating and makes you feel better afterwards which will in turn change the emotion that a client was feeling on the onset. The truth is that moving our body makes us all feel better.”

Co-founder of Plexus Jonathan Medros explains what happens to your body from a scientific standpoint that generates well-being. 

“A lot of the diseases in the world have to do with cellular metabolism acting poorly,” he explains. “So, on an intracellular level, your mitochondria are supposed to be the battery that runs everything. If it's getting bad information, it's going to cause poor transcription, which means you will get poor cellular replication, resulting in sick cells. And when those replicate, again, they're doubling that sick cell process which results in disease.”

The reason, Medros says, that health and fitness are so interrelated is because “when you go through different phases of an exercise, you get to the point where your body can't produce enough oxygen to supply the cells, which leads to the creation of other fuel sources such as Adenosine triphosphate (ATP), Fatty Acids and Lactate which signals to your cells that there are other possibilities than just pure glucose as an energy source. 

Once one’s cells know that they can have multiple energy sources, they will become more dynamic and able to replicate into dynamic cells as opposed to dead cells. 

“This is crucial part about staying healthy from a medical chemical point of view,” says Medros.

Several centres in Dubai are now offering Somatic Movement classes. These include Isayogatherapy Studio, located in Meadows and Yoga House, which offers TRE® or Trauma and Tension Release Exercises, a somatic body-based practice to relieve stress, anxiety, trauma, or PTSD, among other locations. 

In his best-selling medical book The Body Keeps the Score, one of the most widely read medical books of the past decade, Psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk reminds us of the conceptual idea behind the complex interactions between physical and emotional wellbeing. 

Kolk writes how in his practice with clients he begins “by helping patients to first notice and then describe the feelings in their bodies — not emotions such as anger or anxiety or fear but the physical sensations beneath the emotions: pressure, heat, muscular tension, tingling, caving in, feeling hollow, and so on. I also work on identifying the sensations associated with relaxation or pleasure. I help them become aware of their breath, their gestures and movements.”

His book has been groundbreaking for opening the door to better understanding the role of movement in emotional wellbeing and importantly, assisting victims of trauma. By connecting physical sensations to psychological events, Kolk says of his clients, they can “slowly reconnect with themselves.”

No matter what an individual has transversed in his or her life, movement is a way to constantly return to one’s centre, sense of vitality and identity. As Kolk states: “Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”