When it comes to working through many of the troubles that will bother your body, you may find that somatic therapy is a good choice to go with. For those who struggle with mental health conditions and trauma, somatic therapy is one of the best options to bring everything together and to help with healing.
While there are many different types of therapy that you can choose, many people turn to somatic therapy to give them some of the relief they need. There are many health benefits to choosing somatic therapy including:
Develop Bodily Awareness
Somatic therapy is going to work to bring more awareness to the mind and body. Traditional talk therapy will help people work through their emotional and mental issues, but somatic therapy will go a bit deeper and can help patients handle some of the trauma that is stored deep in the nervous system. There are several methods used to help with this including:
- Grounding: This encourages clients to anchor themselves in the here and now. It is a good option for those who struggle with flashbacks or anxiety because it relies on physical sensation to reduce the symptoms and brings the patient away from the trouble.
- Visualization: This method will help create a safe sensation for the mind when the patient is feeling distressed. They may think about a happy time, person, or place to help them feel more at ease.
- Body scans: These body scans will help you to take stock of the body and assess where the pain and tension is held. You can then work through to get the tension out of you, releasing it and feeling better overall.
Working with a therapist who practices somatic therapy and New York city stress therapy will be able to work with you to determine which method is going to be the best to assist you in feeling better.
Transform and Release the Trauma
Somatic therapy is able to help the patient to reconnect with their bodies, which is part of why it is great for managing symptoms of PTSD. This can be a challenging aspect of treatment for those who went through some kind of physical trauma, such as sexual or domestic violence.
Somatic therapy is beneficial because it is going to transform the dysregulation the patient has into regulation and it does this by working on the idea that all trauma is stored inside the body. Somatic therapy will bring awareness to how the body responds to different triggers and focuses on how your reactions and thoughts will affect it.
With this done, it is easier for the patient to get the right tools to release the tension and the trauma. This can be done through a variety of mindfulness exercises, including yoga or tai chi to name a few.
Build the Right Tools to Improve Yourself
Trauma is often strong enough to hold us back from the full and happy lives that we wish to have. But with the help of somatic therapy, we will have the tools that we need in order to improve our mental health and make sure that all of the physical, emotional, and mental blocks that prevent us from having that happy life are removed.
Though somatic experiencing is going to be a good tool to recognize how our body feels and where emotions are within the body, it will also provide the necessary tools to process and deal with them. Many somatic exercises can be done at home, allowing you to use them any time you need to self-soothe or you come across a trigger.
Release the Tension
One of the big goals of somatic experiencing is to allow the body a way to release the tension that you have stored up in the body due to trauma. Mindful somatic exercises will help out with this, bringing awareness to the body and allowing people to pinpoint any areas that are painful or tense.
Those who have gone through trauma in the past may have some issues with emotional dysregulation that will cause a good deal of tension in the body. Part of this will be the freeze response, which is kind of the alternative to fight or flight, where someone will freeze when they feel they are being threatened.
The brain struggles to realize that the patient is not in danger at the time and it will continue on with this freeze response, which can lead to confusion, difficulty with moving, and detachment to name a few. This trapped trauma is something that somatic therapy will be able to help by resetting and reconditioning the nervous system to not see a threat any longer.
Treat the Symptoms Effectively
One of the best things about choosing treatment with somatic therapy is that it is effective at treating a lot of different types of conditions. While it is very effective at helping out with PTSD, it can actually be used to help out with a wide range of conditions. Some of these include:
- Substance use disorders
- Chronic pain
- Depression
- Anxiety
As somatic therapy is able to focus on the different bodily sensations and on how to regulate the emotional system, it will teach the patient some healthier thinking patterns that will rewire the brain to create a more productive balance than before. Somatic therapy can do this in a safe and effective manner.
Overall, this form of therapy will provide the patient with greater awareness of their internal experiences, which would include emotions and sensations along the way. By combining a top-down approach with some of the right bottom-up methods, patients are better able to understand how the body is able to process trauma and release it.
Choosing Somatic Therapy
It is a great idea to choose somatic therapy to help you deal with your mental health conditions and trauma. Even if you have tired other forms of therapy in the past, you may find that somatic therapy will provide you with some of the relief that you need to feel better.
