Hanna Somatics: How it Works

The Myth of Aging Wendell Hanna, Ph.D.

Published previously in Somatics (2013), Volume XVII, No. 1.

The Riddle of the Sphinx beautifully illustrates the “Myth of Aging.”  “Who is the one,” the riddle asks, “that begins with one voice, becomes four-footed, two footed, and finally three-footed?” Oedipus, according to Greek mythology, provided the correct answer: “A human being.”  We begin as a crying infant, we become a toddler crawling on four legs, we learn to walk on two legs, and in old age, alas, and we once again become a feeble creature, hobbling on three “legs” with the use of a cane.  Thomas Hanna, the founder of the field of somatics, insisted that this “riddle” of aging is a myth and that at least fifty percent of the cases of chronic pain can be attributed to what he called “sensory-motor amnesia” (SMA).  Hanna created a clinical field of bodywork called “Hanna Somatics” based on the concept of SMA.  Further, Hanna believed that if we can understand ourselves somatically (subjectively from within) and as well as scientifically (objectively and clinically), we could age gracefully without unnecessary pain.  In this piece I will discuss, from a neurophysiologic point of view: 1) why certain environmental cues create chronic stress in our bodies and minds, 2) how the autonomic nervous system can chronically react to perceived fear and how this can negatively affect homeostasis, and 3) how SMA can be overcome through three specific techniques in used in Hanna Somatic work.

The “Fight or Flight” Response

Fear is a good thing.  Fear helps us make decisions about our actions via a special “survival instinct” pathway. If you are walking in the woods and hear an unexpected sound, your immediate reflex will be to turn and see what was making the noise.   This is done completely without thinking.  After all, if it is a grizzly bear and if you take more time to analyze the source of the sound, you might end up being his unwitting, but delicious lunch. All animals, not only humans, respond to potentially threatening situations by turning to face a potential threat. Once you are facing your threat, again without thinking, you have a natural instinct to protect yourself, either by a direct attack or by quickly running away. This instinct is referred to as the “flight-or-fight” response. The part of your brain that is making these life and death decisions is called the amygdala. The amygdala is a small, almond-shaped nucleus in the limbic system that processes sensory information in terms of emotional significance, coordinates the action of systems to allow for appropriate responses, and aids in our emotional memory.  The reason the amygdala is important is that it has “special privileges” within the brain; it can act alone, completely bypassing the higher processing systems in the cerebrum as well as having widespread and reciprocal connections to many areas of the brain. As a matter of fact, not just the amygdala, but also the other areas of limbic system are important in understanding the myth of aging.

The Limbic System

The limbic system also includes the hippocampus (where we learn to fear), the reticular formation (where we shift attention to areas of need), and the prefrontal cortex (where we can both learn and unlearn). Unlearning fear is a part of the work that psychologists do with people who have disorders such as posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD).  The limbic system uses emotions, memory, and learning to make important decisions regarding our safety and well-being and gives us the holistic sense of self that engages with the outside world. The limbic system has many complex circuits that feedback on themselves, each monitoring our feelings and our moods moment-to-moment.  Each instant in which we are connecting our inner sensations and perceptions with our outer environment in an organic and personally meaningful way, it is through this area.  The limbic system, with its widespread ability to communicate with all parts of the brain, allows us to perceive ourselves as unique individuals and helps us relate to the world around us.

The amygdala’s main duty in the limbic system is to respond to acute threats to our safety. We often react, however, to non-threatening stimuli as if they were life threatening. If we lose our keys, we panic; if we are late for an appointment, we stress out; if we have a disagreement with a loved one, we feel angry or sad and may feel sick.  The stressful event is not what does the damage; it is how we respond to the event that causes stress-related physical and emotional issues. Our repeated reactions to stress trigger the chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system.  Our bodies and minds were not designed to operate under constant duress.  Unfortunately, in our 24/7 lifestyles, the limbic system will often respond to these everyday stresses as a survival mechanism that was only evolved to be used for very short, start-then-stop periods of time. If this mechanism is chronically activated, it can have very serious consequences on our body.

The Autonomic Nervous System

The autonomic nervous system consists of reciprocal organizations: the sympathetic and the parasympathetic systems.  The sympathetic nervous system gets activated first by the amygdala, which then sends a message to the hypothalamus to prepare for “fight or flight.”  The hypothalamus releases adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH) from the anterior part of the pituitary into the nervous system and in response, the adrenal glands, above the kidney, respond by releasing catecholamine and corticoid into the bloodstream, which alerts and stimulates the muscles to get ready to meet extraordinary challenges.  When the life-threatening emergency is over, the parasympathetic nervous system will restore the body to normal levels through its reciprocal “rest and digest” process. The parasympathetic nervous system slows heart rate, lowers blood pressure, opens blood vessels to the skin and organs, and stimulates smooth muscles of the gastrointestinal system, enhancing digestion and elimination. The balancing between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic results in desired “homeostasis” of the body.

How we interpret and experience the world emotionally has a profound effect on our physical and mental health.  The autonomic nervous system, however, was designed for quick starts and stops, not for long periods of extended stress. When we interpret modern-day stresses in a fearful way, there are negative physiological consequences to our bodies that we mistakenly attribute to the effects of stress.  Our backs and bodies ache, our immune and cardiovascular systems decline, and we often feel unmotivated and depressed. When stress reactions are ongoing and chronic, we never have a chance to activate our parasympathetic systems enough to go back to true homeostasis. Damage to our immune system can occur through high cortical levels and this can also decrease natural immune responses and effect DNA repair mechanisms (cancer risk) and increase autoimmune mechanisms (raising multiple sclerosis and lupus risk). Damage to our cardiovascular system can cause non-ischemic damage to the heart muscle as well as ischemic damage (blockage) through plaque buildup in the vessel wall.  Damage to our brain can even occur because of high levels of cortisol that can induce neuron death in the hippocampus.   None of these things need to happen, however, if we interpret and respond appropriately to the stimuli we perceive.  Learned fear can be unlearned, and homeostasis of the body can be returned if we interpret and react appropriately to stimuli in our environment; this is key to a young mind and body regardless of age.  

Psychologists will tell you that fearful emotional reactions to particular stimuli can be “unlearned” through cognitive and behavior therapy.  The limbic system’s reciprocal relationship with the prefrontal areas of the cortex can allow us to unlearn fear response.   The brain’s plasticity is amazing and our ability to both learn and unlearn is a fantastic part of being human.  Unlearning muscular reactions to stress, however, involves a different part of the brain: the sensory-motor system located in the cerebrum.

The Cerebrum

The main difference between humans and animals is that we have a cerebrum and they do not. Animals experience emotion, like us, and can learn, have memories, and even dream.  But only humans have a specialized “new” brain that is capable of voluntary thought and action.  Our sensory cortex takes in information about the world around us through the sensory percepts of sight, sound, smell, and taste.  Our somatosensory system gives us information about the world inside us through “proprioception” and we can feel how our limbs move in space, and the afferent sensations of fine touch, temperature, and pain. This sensory information is kept separate as it travels up to the brain and no information is ever lost.  The brain can use this rich data set to create complex personal meaning and new connections for learning.  Long-term chronic muscular contractions, however, are often felt as generalized pain in the body because the sensory-motor neurons of the voluntary motor cortex have lost some portion of their ability to sense and we may be unable to control some of the muscles of our body. Thomas Hanna called this condition “sensory-motor amnesia” (SMA). It is a terrible feeling to have some parts of your body not under your control, as if they belong to different person, or have fallen asleep completely. Traditional medicine has by and large accepted the notion that long-term muscular contractions are a normal part of the aging process. Back pain, arthritis, sciatica, scoliosis, tendonitis, TMJ, and many other chronic conditions are actually caused by the accumulated physical stress residuals held by the body during “fight-or-flight” episodes.  When incidents of physical trauma, such as broken bones, whiplash, and invasive surgeries occur, the body will tend to “protect” these areas by non-use, which may also result in sensory-motor amnesia.

Our human brain is highly complex and beautifully interconnected.  But in order to run smoothly and efficiently, it must be economical in the prioritization of the sensory and motor information it receives.  The first priority of information is to react to anything that might be threatening to our well-being.  That is why all sensory/motor information is sent directly to the amygdala and to the thalamus (“ante-room”), where it is monitored and assessed for its level of importance before being sent to the cerebrum. The cerebrum has specific areas for planning and executing messages to the peripheral nervous system, which does the actual moving of the muscles and limbs in space.  In order to plan and execute smooth movement, the motor cortex receives some special help from the cerebellum (“little cerebrum”). The cerebellum is a part of our brain that specializes in the timing of learned skilled motor movement, equilibrium, posture, and correction of errors in movement.  Our cerebellum is a neuronal machine, of sorts, in that half of the 100 billion neurons in our brains are located in our little fist-sized cerebellum. All skilled, learned movement, like riding a bicycle, typing on a computer, or dancing the Macarena, has its own orchestrated program, in place, ready to go. Our cerebellum, however, cannot act on these programs directly and, like a library, it stores these programs for our motor cortex to use as it wishes.  Most often our motor cortex chooses to use these programs because it is more efficient, smooth, and easy to do so than to create a new motor program. Our brains are capable of learning amazing things, but survival and efficiency temper most all of our actions. However, if we want to overcome sensory-motor amnesia, instead of using ingrained programs from the cerebellum, we need to create new motor programs.

Overcoming Sensory-motor Amnesia

Sensory-motor amnesia can be cured.   We must work, however, only within our corticospinal pathway and not rely on learned motor programs. By consciously using the voluntary sensory-motor cortex, we can learn to sense and move what has been forgotten. This takes some real mental effort on our part; we have to relearn something that has been forgotten and not rely on already known programs. If we are not careful, we can easily relax into an old, default motor program.  This is what “somatic learning” is about: It is slow, deliberate, conscious work, done primarily through the cerebrum.  Somatic learning is concerned with using the sensory-motor feedback loop and slowly and deliberately reprogramming the functional systems of the body. Unlike learning a highly skilled motor movement, such as playing an instrument or training for the Olympics, somatic learning is not a rote method; we do not want to memorize our movements so we can do them without thinking, we want to consciously experience every aspect of the movement in the moment. In order to overcome SMA, somatic learning occurs through direct and indirect corticospinal messages that will either excite or inhibit motor neurons, and in turn, create an effect on the muscles.  A Hanna Somatics practitioner can guide you to lengthen and relax overly contracted muscles. You are an active player in the somatic learning process and in understanding what is happening neurologically in your body, you will get better results with Somatic exercises.

Our muscles are mere servants of our brain and have no will of their own. The corticospinal motor tracts running up and down the brain stem tell the muscles how to act.  Excitation and inhibition messages are relayed via alpha motor neurons (which extend from spinal cord to out to the muscles) and gamma motor neurons (which stay within the spinal cord and tell the muscles to get ready to stretch).  Motor neurons have a program for a default resting level of muscle contraction. In SMA, even if the resting level is painfully high, we may not be able to relax it. We might be able to relax the muscle a little, but it still stays near its given set point of tonus. When we are stuck in sensory-motor amnesia, what we need is to receive strong and true sensory feedback from the muscle cells to inform the neurons that a normal ratio of muscle origin to muscle insertion has been exceeded.  When this happens, like a thermostat that has sensed that the ambient temperature has exceeded its set point, the motor neurons stop firing and the muscle begins to relax. There are three ways Hanna Somatics can do this: "means whereby," “kinetic mirroring,” and “pandiculation”.

Three Techniques of Hanna Somatics

Means whereby is a technique that was first discovered by F. Matthias Alexander, father of the Alexander Technique. Alexander found that by "inhibiting" the "end" and focusing proprioceptively on the "means whereby," he was able to teach himself to control the muscles of his upper trunk and achieve an almost perfect posture. Instead of focusing on the goal of having a perfectly erect posture, Alexander concentrated his proprioceptive attention on sensing how his neck, shoulders, chest, and head moved together.  Hanna Somatics uses this technique in a similar way that gives moment-to-moment sensory feedback to the motor cortex as it is planning and executing its voluntary movement messages to the muscles. By means of new sensory information, what was habitually unconscious is now made conscious.

Kinetic mirroring originated from bodywork done by Moshe Feldenkrais. Feldenkrais was an electrical engineer, a research scientist, and a black belt in Judoka who created a hands-on somatic work called “Functional Integration.”  Thomas Hanna was the first person to bring Feldenkrais to the United States and was personally trained by him in his Functional Integration system.  Hanna was fascinated in particular with a phenomenon he later termed “kinetic mirroring.” 

Rather than trying to force a contracted muscle to stretch, Feldenkrais discovered that if you moved the muscle in the direction of the contraction itself instead of away from it, the muscle would relax. "If you do the work of a muscle” Feldenkrais explained, “it ceases to do its own work." Stretching techniques often used in bodywork and by chiropractors actually cause the “stretch-reflex,” which in actuality brings the muscle back to its original constricted set point. In contrast, kinetic mirroring is a technique used in Hanna Somatics that is very useful because it allows the muscle to stop firing and shut off temporarily and relax. Kinetic mirroring only goes so far, however, in reprogramming the resting level of the muscle.  Pandiculation, in contrast, differs from the techniques used in Feldenkrais and is considered the most powerful technique in Hanna Somatics in that it can both awaken the mind and body out of SMA and reprogram the resting level of the muscles.

Pandiculation can be seen in animals when they naturally stretch and yawn upon wakening.  Pandiculation is a sensory-motor action that arouses the voluntary cortex via a strong muscle contraction that feeds back an equally strong sensory stimulation to motor neurons. It is a way of "waking up" our sensory-motor cortex. Unlike kinetic mirroring, where the client is passive, pandiculation actively engages with the contracted muscles and slowly inhibits their contraction rate at the same time. According to Hanna (1990), “Perhaps the client cannot relax the muscles below forty percent, but he can voluntarily contract them above that ratio--say, seventy percent. This voluntary contraction, if both strong and prolonged, creates exactly the sensory feedback the cortex is lacking. If this strong contraction is released very slowly, the sensory arousal of the motor neurons is such that, when the muscles are released to the point of their original contractile rate, they continue to release below that rate--to thirty percent, then twenty percent, then ten percent, until the ideal state of zero involuntary stimuli in the muscle is reached.”

Pandiculation done correctly is hard work for the brain. It is easy to know that you are actually pandiculating if you experience jerks or starts and stops in a movement. This is because the motor cortex does not “do” smooth movements very well; that is not its job, that is the job of the cerebellum.  Somatic learning happens when the motor cortex is re-learning how to inhibit the neurons from over-firing, while at the same time the primary sensory areas are continuing to bring in proprioception information from the Golgi tendon organs, spinals, and joint kinesthetic receptors.  Pandiculation is like learning to drive a stick shift in a car with a clutch. You must relax the clutch while maintaining just the right amount of gas; this can be tricky at first and it is expected that there will be a few lurches here and there.  During each somatic pandiculation, you are voluntarily decreasing the motor output to the muscles while lengthening the contraction. There is a holding of the contraction, while at the same time you are consciously decreasing the amount of motor units that are firing. The contraction and the inhibition are both being run by the motor cortex and the result is a permanent, functional change and the regaining of voluntary control of the muscles.

The myth of aging wants us to believe that as we grow old, we also become less able to feel, enjoy, and move freely in the world.  That is simply not true.  We have it in our power to affect our own health and happiness.  By understanding the techniques in Hanna Somatics, from an objective neurophysiologic, as well as a subjective first-person point of view, we are more empowered to enjoy the process of aging.

Reference

Hanna, T. (1990). Clinical somatic education: A new discipline in the field of health care. Somatics: Magazine-Journal of the Bodily Arts and Sciences, VIII(1).