How to Ease Anxiety and PTSD: 3 Somatic Exercises to Try -

“The body knows how to heal. It just needs the proper conditions.” ~Peter Levine

After ten major reconstructive hip surgeries and almost six cumulative years in a full body cast, I emerged from childhood into my teenage years. My start in life was quite different from those around me. My body would never be like everyone else’s, and I was living in the aftermath of trauma.

I not only had a slew of trauma symptoms but was also deeply wrestling with my identity and had massive amounts of shame, depression, and social anxiety. As you can imagine, I had a hard time fitting in and connecting with others. Feeling comfortable in my own skin was something I never knew.

The discomfort I felt was unbearable, and I knew the only way to feel better in life was to try to figure out how to heal and get to the other side. I held on strongly to the belief that healing was possible, so naturally I started with talk therapy.

Therapy is great, don’t get me wrong, but it wasn’t providing the relief I was searching for. I quickly realized that talking about my experiences helped to broaden and balance my perspective on things, but it wasn’t changing how I felt in my day-to-day life. So I went on a journey exploring and studying many forms of healing. I delved into energy healing, breathwork, art therapy, tantra, and Yamuna body rolling and finally found somatic experiencing.

With much trial and error, I found my way. Some things worked and others didn’t. I learned that there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to healing.

Anxiety and PTSD symptoms are never fun, and they show up in very specific and different ways for each person. I’ve learned that anxiety is energy that is deeply held in the body, and the way most people try and manage it is to brace their body to try and stop it from happening. This pushes it deeper into the body.

It’s important to slowly allow this energy to move. To do so, we need to soften the body and open the energy channels.

I have found these three somatic tools to be quite effective. Maybe they will be for you as well.

Before starting each exercise, I highly recommend you ask yourself, “On a scale of one to ten, how anxious am I?” Give yourself a number, and then at the end of the exercise see if the number has decreased.

1. Slowly articulating the joint

Starting with one foot, slowly move your foot in a circle ten times in one direction. Really focus your mind on the feeling of the ankle joint moving. Then switch directions.

Do this for the other foot and ankle.

If you are lying down on your back, you can do this again for the knee as you hold your thigh, slowly moving your lower leg in a circle ten times before switching directions. Then repeat on the other leg.

If you are standing, you can place your hands on your knees and together slowly move your knees in circles.

Again, remember to give your mind the job of focusing on the knee joints and feeling them move. This helps give the mind something to do while the body can move the energy that has been trapped inside of it.

If standing, you will do this again, making hip circles ten times in both directions.

After this, pause and notice how the lower body feels in comparison to the upper body. It’s crazy the difference you will feel.

Next, you will do this with your wrists, making circles with your hands. You can do this one at a time or both hands—whatever you prefer.

Then your elbows.

And then your shoulders, continuing to do ten circles in one direction and then ten in the other.

Lastly, you will do head circles in both directions.

2. Deep breathing with a voo exhale

A voo exhale? What is that?

That is exactly what I would be asking.

Deep breathing is sometimes helpful, and sometimes it isn’t. But if you try making a voo sound for the entirety of the exhale, it can smooth the chest and abdomen, where most of the anxiety is felt.

So, for this exercise, you will place one hand over your heart and one hand over your belly and take a deep breath. On the exhale you will make a voo sound, all the way to the end of the exhale, similar to saying om in a yoga class. As you do this, think about making the voo sound from your abdomen, not from your throat.

This is an indigenous practice that actually has scientific effects in calming the vagus nerve and the sympathetic nervous system. It moves people into their parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest part of your nervous system. Making different sounds has different effects on the nervous system, and for anxiety and PTSD, the voo sound is the most effective.

Go ahead and try this for five cycles and see how this is for you. It can be really calming.

3. Visual resourcing

Resourcing is anything that is calming, supportive, or comforting for a person, and it can be done through many avenues. This includes things like talking to a caring, supportive friend, taking a hot bath, or using a weighted blanket.

Visual resourcing is focusing on something visually pleasant. For some people this can be a sparkly or shiny object, and for others it can be watching the leaves gently blow in the breeze.

Note that for some people, if they look off in the distance, it has an even greater calming effect, and that others might prefer looking at objects that are closer to them.

Go ahead and look around you and find the most pleasant and pleasing thing to look at. Then hold your gaze here and notice the effects this has for you.

This somatic tool can easily be combined with the prior tool listed above.

In Conclusion

When we experience trauma and are wrestling in the aftermath of symptoms, life can feel daunting. Many people feel very discouraged and overwhelmed with where and how to start healing. But try and find the courage to get to the other side. Healing is possible, and it could be one of the most beautiful and sacred journeys you choose to go down.

Trauma symptoms always have psychological and physiological components that happen simultaneously. So, if some of the mindfulness practices don’t work, see if you can find some relief and stabilization with somatic body-based tools.

Wishing you so much love and grace on your journey to recovery.