Pandiculation is a way of moving the body that highlights and releases unconscious tension by gently contracting and then slowly releasing that contraction from muscles in the body. A great example of a pandiculation that we all do regularly is a yawn. Have you ever had a yawn that really moved you? If you, so were pandiculating. If you’ve ever watched a cat, dog or other animal “stretch” when it gets up from a nap, you’ve also seen pandiculation in action. We call what they do “stretching”, but technically that’s not what they are doing - they are contracting and then slowly releasing the contraction from muscles to return them to a relaxed set point. They pandiculate. Pandiculation is a response to a lack of movement or tension building up in tissues that allows them to return to conscious, voluntary control.

When we voluntarily pandiculate, as we do in our somatics practice, we are enhancing our body’s natural response to accumulated tension. As we develop more and more unconscious habits in the way we move, sit etc, our innate pandicular response can become limited and no longer able to fully reset our nervous system tension. The process of accumulating tension is often not linear. It comes with experience and repetition of the same movements and postures over time building a habit. That can happen in your teenage years or in your 70s, or anywhere in between. We all gradually are shaped by what we live through and how we process those experiences.

How do we pandiculate?

A pandiculation is a voluntary (concentric) contraction of the muscles, where the two ends of the muscle come closer together as the muscle shortens, followed by a release of that contraction under gentle load. This lengthening under load is called eccentric contraction. When these two actions are performed very slowly and consciously it creates a learning environment for the nervous system where it can sense and integrate the biofeedback of these two actions. In order for this learning to occur, the opposing muscles need to stay relaxed as the contraction is being released and the load that helps the mind sense the lengthening while working (eccentric) phase needs to be present throughout the full range of motion.

When working in-person with a practitioner, the practitioner assists in creating this learning environment for your nervous system by applying gentle pressure with their hands to both guide the muscle contraction and help to keep it working eccentrically on the release, aided by gravity. When working on your own, the only force that is adding load to the contracted muscle is gravity. For this reason working hands-on and in-person can deepen the biofeedback available to the nervous system and speed change. However change can only become permanent through regular, daily practice.

Do I Really Need to Practice Daily?

It took time for our minds and nervous systems to learn these patterns and it takes practice to unlearn them. The deepest change is the one that you create through connecting to your body and exploring the movements from the inside. Your mind, your nervous system, is the active agent in letting go, just as it was the active agent in bringing you to the place you are now.

No one can do this work for you. Only you can change your mind and the patterns it uses to operate your body. While massage, chiropractic care and many modalities can be effective ways to treat pain and do sometimes cause lasting change, for the most part you have to keep going back to prevent the pain from returning. The goal in our somatics work together will be to help your mind learn to let go of what it has stored and to learn a freer way of being on your body - to change the patterns that cause you pain at the root. This requires commitment, awareness and regular practice. But you learned the patterns that are currently boiling over into pain over time and you can learn to change them through regularly practicing a different way of being, feeling and understanding your body.

Working together you can learn to practice a foundational set of movements that, when practiced regularly over time, will help your brain and nervous system rebalance and reset so that you can be freer, more conscious and more alive in your body and your life.