• Effectiveness

  Major (for Improve flexibility/strength)
• Effectiveness

  Major (for General health)
• Side effects

  None (for Overall)
• Adherence

  Always
• Burden

  Not at all hard to take

Dosage: 2 Daily

Advice & Tips: What works for one... doesn't work for all. I'm not too sure about that statement. Breathing well, works for everyone. Eating well, works for everyone. Thinking well, for eveyrone. And being in good relationships works too. So how about moving well? All healthy vertebrate animals do an act known as a pandiculation. What appears to be stretching... is not. An animal voluntarily contracts itself with awareness and then releases itself to reset its nervous system... end result... less muscle stiffness and the muscle is ready to be used. This natural reset is done 7-10x in the morning and periodically throughout the course of the day. These pandiculations have been systematized as the process of pandiculation was recognized by Thomas Hanna, the author or Somatics and the creator of Hanna Somatic Education. Somatics exercises are taught to be easy, simple, and most of all effortless ways to reset the brain so that the muscles can relax & reset their way back into function. The good news is, you don't even have to do them... just vividly imagine them and the brain will take care of the rest. Of course, moving well has to be practiced and this is what animals are doing... they are setting up the muscles to be lengthened naturally with awareness so they are ready to be used. After all, why are they so agile, flexible and have great mobility. Since all healthy vertebrate animal use this natural process, then it makes sense that the "human" animal use this very process. In fact, as babies we did this in our mother's womb. Most of us did it as children and then we forgot about it. These types of exercises, that I call un-exercises, target the brain's motor cortex so it can change the resting level of the muscles. So rather than stretching... which the research now proves is "bad for us". Animals know to contract with awareness along an entire chain of muscles and then release them self with awareness. Then the brain send the necessary chemicals of relaxation so the reset causes the muscle to be in neutral... ready to be used and ready to calm the heck down afterwards. Movement is learned and movement can re-learned and this is why animals re-adjust everyday... so do I since once the get the hang of the process... it's like a faded memory of our childhood when we could move with ease and confidence. Just like a computer which needs to be updated, so can our brain clear out the bugs and reset the nervous system to update our movement software. It's really so too simple that our cats and dogs have been showing this to us but no one is paying. So what works for cats and dogs... works for me and maybe you too. So each morning I merely spend a few minutes pandiculating or doing somatics exercises to ready my muscles for the day. Then if I have any upcoming athletic activity or have a lot of physical work or stress that I can see coming... I spend a little more time preparing my body... then at night if I need to take out any of the stress... I can do so easily. Yet since I've been practicing, my body naturally self-corrects throughout the day and when it feels necessary. My motto, better Now than later so I can keep on going longer and with greater ease. This movement practice actually allowed me to win 2 silver medals playing soccer in the national soccer championships for the over 40's and 45's. 9 games of soccer in 5 days - no flares, no fog, no hot tubs, no massage needed... just a little work after my head met another's head going for a ball... but that was easily remedied since my body understands now how to more quickly reach states of relaxation - as I said, it's a learning process and the nervous system can go there... if only we do. The day I realized I was getting out of FM, it made such an impact that I now help people find a way to live a more comfortable life. As to how I got to Somatics, that's a whole 'nother story yet this is what I teach and live since now I can go comfortably skiing with our 3 children.

Cost: < $25 monthly