How Somatic Healing Helps You Release Stress and Restore Inner Balance
- Brainz Magazine
- Nov 25
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 26
Alessandra Mantovanelli is a Sound Therapist and Integrative Coach, offering energy and somatic healing, mindful eating coaching, and Psych-K facilitation. She founded Waves for Thriving to help you shift from surviving to thriving by cultivating a heart-centered connection and coherence between your mind, body, and soul.
Somatic healing occurs when your body is fully acknowledged, felt, and safely allowed to express and release stuck emotions, and complete unfinished stress and trauma responses. By offering safety, support, movement, and compassionate witnessing, you can process unresolved trauma and free both body and mind. With renewed breath, posture, movement, and a sense of being at home in your body, you reconnect with your innate wisdom, unlocking greater vitality, aliveness, and freedom.
What is somatic healing?
Soma means “the living body.” It represents our aliveness and our capacity to experience life through the senses. Somatic healing employs several techniques that help us return to the experience of what is, and attune to being present in our bodies while becoming aware of bodily sensations. As we listen, acknowledge, and safely hold space for the body’s expression, stuck emotions, intrusive images and thoughts, tension, panic, despair, pain, and trauma can be released and resolved.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Our nervous system has many branches that connect the brain and the body, and it regulates our sensations and behaviour. Somatic healing approaches acknowledge this interconnection by drawing on principles such as applied polyvagal theory (the brain and body connection through the vagus nerve and regulation of the autonomic nervous system), neuroplasticity (which states that the brain is continuously changing, learning, and forming new neuronal connections), and interoception (the awareness of what is happening inside our bodies in relation to a given situation).[5] [6]
Somatic healing focuses mainly on the body, working “bottom-up” by addressing bodily sensations to help shift emotional states. Conversely, cognitive approaches work “top-down” by changing thoughts to influence emotions. When a person feels seen, acknowledged, and responded to by a trained somatic educator, it can safely release outdated and limiting patterns.[7]
Somatic techniques and core principles
Somatic healing applies various movement, breathing, body awareness, and vocalization techniques. Some well-known methods include Somatic Experiencing, developed by the pioneer Dr. Peter Levine, which focuses on resolving the symptoms of chronic stress and post-traumatic stress, eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, the Hakomi Method, Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT, tapping), Internal Family Systems (IFS), and others. Somatic healing uses similar core principles across these approaches.
A trauma-sensitive somatic educator invites the client to tune into their felt sense (for example, hot, cold, tingly, sharp, heavy, tight) and cultivate body awareness to uncover nuanced meaning associated with a particular experience,[8] which may still be triggering.
By resourcing, you anchor into safety, and you can start to deepen into the sensation and release the charge. Grounding is one of the basic resources used to calm the nervous system. You learn how to satisfy your own needs and develop boundaries that help you cope with future stressful situations before they trigger you.
Using a technique called titration, the somatic educator invites you to access small amounts of distress at a time, allowing tension to be gradually released by shifting attention between feeling the distress and feeling safe and calm (pendulation) without overwhelming.
Further, awareness slowly deepens by gently amplifying the sensations. As the somatic tension releases, various sensations and reactions may arise, including shaking, trembling, tears, feelings of lightness, and easier breathing. A sequencing reaction is common when the tension moves through different parts of the body before being released.
The body organically moves, gestures, and vocalises as an impulse for liberation. The body tells the story through sensations. For example, someone who feels attacked may spontaneously push away. By bringing attention to mindfully pushing away, a new instinct may emerge to brace in protection. By re-engaging these protective movements, resolution may arise, followed by a newfound sense of calm.
By releasing small pieces that you feel comfortable and safe to handle, you develop resilience and heal. Then, when you are ready, you can integrate this empowered sense of self into daily life.
All somatic practices are invitational. The fact that you can choose to explore different techniques empowers you to develop boundaries, remain in control, and feel safe. The somatic educator stays curious about the client’s experience, being descriptive rather than making interpretations.[9]
What are the benefits of somatic healing?
Somatic healing helps you unveil, read, and express your body wisdom, reaping several wellness benefits.[1] [5] [7] [9] [11]
Helps you feel relaxed, held, and safe.
Helps process past experiences that still trigger you while developing awareness of how they may influence your present perception.
Enhances emotional regulation, by moving the body and using other techniques to express emotions such as anger, sadness, or joy, you become conscious of your feelings and can release and express them.
Completes stress responses that were left unfinished, restoring regulation of the autonomic nervous system and thereby reducing chronic stress, anxiety, pain, and tension.
Teaches you how to tune in to your body’s sensations and understand your body’s wisdom, boosting self-awareness and self-compassion, and building a healthier relationship with yourself and the world.
Increases resilience to cope with life's challenges with strength and grace.
Repatterns maladaptive coping responses to traumatic experiences, helping build a coherent narrative, for instance, in the treatment of dissociative disorders.
Helps you integrate the left and right brain hemispheres.
Regulates the biodynamics, internal rhythms, and self-healing.
Improves spine mobility and body posture.
A simple somatic breath rhythm awareness practice
Hug your arms across your chest, fingers resting on the sides of your ribcage over your diaphragm. Connect with your breath and notice how your chest expands into your hands. Slow your breathing and observe the changes in your chest. Ask yourself: Can I receive my own touch? What happens when I bring attention to the rhythmic expansion and contraction of the diaphragm? Now breathe slowly as one continuous, gentle movement. What changes?[9]
Read more from Alessandra Mantovanelli
Alessandra Mantovanelli, Sound Therapy and Integrative Coaching
Alessandra uses a unique integrative approach to help people move from survival to thriving, integrating and harmonizing their body, mind, and soul in a freeing dance. She holds a Master’s in Sound Therapy along with certifications as a Mind-Body Eating Coach, Somatic Trauma Healing and Reiki Practitioner, and Psych-K® facilitator. By combining her knowledge of physics and wave frequencies with biofield and energy balance therapies, she bridges ancient healing techniques with modern science. As the founder of Waves for Thriving, Alessandra is dedicated to helping individuals embrace their healthiest, happiest, and most conscious selves, unlocking their highest potential.
References:
[1] Reuille-Dupont, S. (2021) ‘Applications of somatic psychology: Movement and body experience in the treatment of dissociative disorders’, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 16(2), pp. 105–119. doi:10.1080/17432979.2020.1844295.
[2] Meehan, E. and Carter, B. (2021) ‘Moving with pain: What principles from somatic practices can offer to people living with chronic pain’, Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 620381. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2020.620381.
[3] Patwari, P. and Vajpayee, A. (2023) ‘Harmonizing mind, body, and earth: Exploring the therapeutic synergy of dance movement therapy and ecopsychology’, Journal of Humanities, Music and Dance, 4(1), Dec 2023–Jan 2024.
[4] Shafir, T.B. (2015) ‘Bridging the trauma–adult attachment connection through somatic movement’, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 10(4), pp. 243–255. doi:10.1080/17432979.2015.1067256.
[5] Haeyen, S. (2024) ‘A theoretical exploration of polyvagal theory in creative arts and psychomotor therapies for emotion regulation in stress and trauma’, Frontiers in Psychology, 15, 1382007. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2024.1382007.
[6] Chen, W.G., Schloesser, D., Arensdorf, A.M., Simmons, J.M., Cui, C., Valentino, R., Gnadt, J.W., Nielsen, L., St. Hillaire-Clarke, C., Spruance, V., Horowitz, T.S., Vallejo, Y.F. and Langevin, H.M. (2021) ‘The emerging science of interoception: Sensing, integrating, interpreting, and regulating signals within the self’, Trends in Neurosciences, 44(1), pp. 3–16. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2020.11.007.
[7] Homann, K.B. (2010) ‘Embodied concepts of neurobiology in dance/movement therapy practice’, American Journal of Dance Therapy, 32(2), 61–77. doi:10.1007/s10465-010-9099-6.
[8] Núñez-Pacheco, C. and Loke, L. (2022) ‘Focusing for interaction design: An introspective somatic method’, Proceedings of the CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’22), New Orleans, LA, USA, 29 April–5 May 2022. ACM, New York, NY, USA, 18 pp. doi:10.1145/3491102.3501978.
[9] Mischke-Reeds, M. (2025) Trauma-sensitive movement: 96 somatic techniques to support nervous system regulation and embodied transformation in therapy. PESI Publishing, 229 pp.
[10] Eddy, M. (2009) ‘A brief history of somatic practices and dance: Historical development of the field of somatic education and its relationship to dance’, Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices, 1(1). doi:10.1386/jdsp.1.1.5/1.
[11] Lara, D.K., Hamel, K.A. and Anderson, D.I. (2025) ‘Somatic movement intervention among older adults to improve body awareness and spine mobility: A pilot study’, Journal of Bodywork & Movement Therapies, 42, pp. 319–330. doi:10.1016/j.jbmt.2024.12.025.
