09 Oct 5 Simple Exercises from Peter Levine to Soothe Your Nervous System
Peter Levine is known for his work on healing trauma. He has two doctorates in the fields of medical biophysics and psychology. Levine created a method called Somatic Experiencing. This method helps people release stress from their bodies. It’s based on managing physical responses to trauma.
His book, “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma”, is well-known. It talks about understanding and healing trauma through the body. Therapists and healers worldwide use his ideas. His work helps people navigate and understand trauma better.
The following exercises are offered as effective ways to help calm your nervous system during daily life.
While they may seem very simple, they are underpinned by a growing body of research, into understanding the body and how to engage the parasympathetic nervous system.
Exercise 1: Giving yourself a gentle hug to create a container
Take your right hand and put it under your left arm on the side of the heart. And put the other hand on the shoulder. This is just to get the feeling of what this sensation is like, not just of your hands but of what is going on inside of your body.
This can create a settling and help us become aware of our body as the container of all our sensations and feelings. When we can feel our body as the container, then the emotions and the sensations do not feel as overwhelming – they’re being contained.
Exercise 2 - Placing One Hand on Your Forehead
Put one hand on the forehead and the other on the upper chest. And just wait, with eyes open or closed as feels comfortable. Then just feel what goes on between the hands. Do for a few seconds or even a few minutes.
And then take the upper hand and place it on the belly (keeping the other hand still on the chest). And again, just wait until there might be a shift or a sense of flow.
Exercise 3 – Tapping the skin all over
Allow yourself to tap the skin all over so you get a sense of the boundary. This again can help with dealing with the sensations in the body and whatever may be arising.
Alternatively you can also squeeze the muscles in your arms to get a sense of the boundaries.
Exercise 4 - “Voo” Vagus Nerve Exercise
Take an easy full breath and on the exhalation make the sound “Vooo”, coming from the belly and sustaining the sound and the vu. Letting the breath and the sound go all the way out.
Then allowing the new breath to come in, filling the belly and the chest, and then rest and notice any sensations, feelings, thoughts and images and then returning again to the body sensation.
Exercise 5 – Overcoming Toxic Shame in the Body
This gentle but powerful exercise invites us to embody what the experience of shame feels like in the body.
Typically as a looking away and down, with shoulders rounded and slightly folded forward.
The invitation is then to slowly, slowly, straighten and lengthen the spine vertebrae by vertebrae, and then notice the sensations in the body including in the chest and the belly.
There is often a sense of opening up in the chest and expansion, which can create a embodied feeling of healthy dignity and authentic pride, which in turn can bring a sense of healing.
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