Somatic Resources

This is very much an in-progress post. I continue to test out new somatic resources all the time. As I find more that seem to work, I'll add them here. You can also check these posts on grounding strategies, activating the vagus nerve, and managing chronic pain for ideas.

Vagus Nerve Reset

This is the Basic Exercise described in Stanley Rosenberg's book, Accessing the Healing Power of the Vagus Nerve. He is a body-oriented therapist and cranial osteopath who works from a Polyvagal Theory (PVT) orientation. He reports having incredible results from this simple sequence, which he attributes to the fact that it increases blood flow to the #brainstem where the ventral #vagus and the other four cranial nerves involved in social engagement all originate.* Increasing the functioning of these nerves helps to restore a calm-alive state and get you out of a chronic stressed-out sympathetic state or a numbed out shutdown/overwhelm state.

1. Lying on your back, evaluate how freely your head and neck are functioning. Rotate your head to the right as far as it comfortably goes, and then repeat on your left. Notice any stiffness or tension.

2. Next, weave the fingers of one hand together with the other hand and put your hands behind the back of your head, so that the head rests comfortably in your interlaced fingers. (See picture.)

3. Keeping your head still (facing forward), look to the right as far as you comfortably can, moving only your eyes. Do not move your head or neck, just your eyeballs.

4. Keep your eyes looking to the right for up to 60 secs, or until you swallow, yawn, or sigh.

5. Bring your eyes back to neutral, looking straight ahead.

6. Repeat, this time moving your eyes to the left and holding for up to 60 seconds or until the spontaneous swallow, yawn, or sigh arrives.

7. Now that you've completed the exercise, Rosenberg suggests repeating step 1 to evaluate the functioning of the neck. He finds many see improvement even after just doing the exercise once.

This technique specifically activates the ventral vagus nerve fibers, which are the ones associated with an engaged, present, content state. The author suggests that it helps whether you're in a #sympathetic stress/anxious state or in a dorsal vagal collapsed/shutdown state. However, I've found that sometimes other vagus nerve activation strategies can be too much for someone in a dorsal vagal collapse (who instead might benefit from some sympathetic activation). So experiment and pay attention to what helps you most - everyone responds differently.

*While increased blood flow certainly can't hurt, I think there are more interesting reasons why this technique works. When I have a moment, I'll explain the physiology because it's pretty cool. But in general, eyes lock and focus in when we're under threat, but when we're safe, we can scan the environment and gaze off into the distance. In fact, shifting/softening your gaze (e.g., by looking off to the (imagined) horizon) is another way to reduce sympathetic activation.

Containment & Compression Strategies

These techniques are useful when you need to calm your nervous system and remind yourself that - in this moment - you are safe. They seem to be particularly useful when you're dealing with an excess of sympathetic activation like #anxiety or a #panic attack, although they also help many poeple snap out of #flashbacks and #dissociation, too. However, some of these exercises may be triggering for those who've experienced trauma. That doesn't mean all of them will be - it just means you may need to think outside the box.*

Self-hug: Place your left hand under your right armpit and your right hand on top of your shoulder or around your upper arm. Hang out there for a second and pay attention to how you feel inside. For most, this helps to shift the nervous system in a way that you can feel. Hugging a safe other is also a great option, if you have one available. There's no shame in asking for a hug! Hugging a pet is another excellent alternative.

• Gently and slowly stroking down both arms while in this position (and then circling outward and up to repeat (see image)) is a key aspect of "self-havening," which is a somatic technique developed by Ronald Ruden to "de-traumatize" memories and "remove from both the psyche and the body the emotional memory of a traumatic or stressful life event." I don't know about all that (have to read more), but the slow, gentle stroking does activate a specific kind of nerve fiber (c-fiber) that is critically involved in sensing and maintaining our internal well-being. The gentle stroking is characteristic of soothing affiliative behaviors (think Mom calming baby), which essentially sends physiological signals of safety (effectively the opposite of pain signals, which convey danger - also by way of c-fibers). Given how important a felt sense of safety is to nervous system functioning, this exercise certainly seems worth a shot.

• Another option is the "butterfly hug," which #EMDR folks also often teach - it involves the same basic position as above, but instead of squeezing or stroking, you slowly alternate tapping each upper arm. The bilateral stimulation seems to be particularly effective for some.

Thumb hold: Hold left hand up with thumb out, wrap right hand around the thumb, and then fold the left hand over the right hand to hold it. Gently rest your hands in your lap and see what you notice. Try the other thumb - many people have a preference. You can even do the double thumb hold by just folding your thumb up and folding your fingers over (i.e., containing your thumbs in your fists). My physiology really responds to this one, but it doesn’t work for everyone - and that’s okay.

Eyeball compression: Close your eyes and gently press on your eyeballs. The "ocularcardiac reflex" activates the vagus nerve in response, resulting in a drop in heart rate and often an increased sense of calm. (Other ways to activate the vagus nerve.)

Weighted blankets: If your body responds favorably to being swaddled - take advantage of it and get a weighted blanket. Find what weight suits and soothes you, and play around with how and when you use it. If a weighted blanket feels stifling, try a weighted pillow or a weighted stuffed animal. Or my personal favorite variation is to use my dog as a weighted blanket. :)

Head hold: Many people respond to pressure against their skull. Sounds weird, but you can play around with squeezing your head and see if you can find something your nervous system responds to. Gentle pressure on the top of the skull (e.g., by pushing the top of your head into a headboard on a bed) can also be soothing for some - but please be gentle. Often it takes some time to find the "right" spot.

I learned several of these strategies from Linda Thai and she does a great job of explaining many of them in this video.

Body Pretzel: You might need to see this one to understand it, but here goes: Reach arms and hands out straight with palm facing palm. Now cross your left arm over your right so that the back of your hands are facing each other. Rotate both hands down 180 degrees so that you’re grasping your palms together with your wrists crossed. Pull your interlocked hands towards your chest so you can rest your chin on your hands. Cross your ankles. Settle there for a few moments and breathe. (Linda shows this one at about 6:10 in the video.)

Hoodie! This one requires an assistant, unfortunately. Put a hoodie on over your head without putting your arms in the arm holes. Cross your arms and rest your elbows so that the hoodie supports them - hands can be free out the neck hole, if you're worried about feeling trapped. Have a friend come tie the (empty) hoodie arms snugly around your arms to help support them. They should be able to pull the arms underneath the elbows to really make things secure. Hang out in snug peace for as long as you like. Onesies, hooded blankets, slankets, etc. are all excellent alternatives that don't require an assistant. I think there are even some swaddles sacks now advertised for this purpose - but you can definitely create your own.

*Knowing why containment strategies work may help you come up with some of your own ideas. One of the reasons appears to be because it engages our #proprioceptive sense. Broadly speaking, our proprioceptive sensory system is responsible for relaying information to the brain about the position, balance, and movement of our musculoskeletal system (i.e., conveying where our body is in space). Activating or augmenting this sense (e.g., with pressure or movement) often helps to calm an #autonomic nervous system freakout and ground you in your body and in the present. I plan to nerd out about the science of proprioception in a blog post at some point, and will add that here when I do, but for now, knowing that these exercises seem to help because they remind your body of its boundaries and positioning may help you to experiment and find a variation that works for you.

Noticing and Gentle Activation Exercises

Most of these next techniques come out of PVT, Sensorimotor Psychotherapy, or Somatic Experiencing. They're especially useful if you find yourself dissociating or otherwise struggling to stay grounded (in polyvagal jargon, these are good for when you find yourself in "dorsal vagal collapse"). The goal of these techniques is to begin to build a sense of safety and agency in your body - to remind yourself that you have a body and that you have control over it.

Pendulation & Body Scan: Often dissociation is a (conscious or unconscious) strategy for escaping one's body, so the idea of coming back into the body may be terrifying or even completely foreign for someone who is used to operating entirely in their head. Pendulation can help - it involves gently bringing your attention into the body, then shifting focus to a safe or neutral object or topic, alternating slowly to build up tolerance for any distress.

• Pendulation requires you identify a safety resource that can reliably calm your nervous system. It can be an object, a memory, a photo, a smell. For me, a photo of my dogs is typically effective, but it’s important to find something that works well for YOU. Ideally something you can access pretty easily regardless of where you are.

  
  

• Then the idea is to gently alternate between paying attention to distressing material (in this case, the sensations in your body) with the calming object or content. Like a clock pendulum, you swing back and forth between the distress (body) and the calm (safety object). This helps the nervous system to recognize it doesn’t have to get stuck in one state.

  
  

• You should always try to end by spending some time with the safety object. Throwing in some breathing exercises along with that also can be helpful. In addition, making sure you have some effective grounding strategies in your back pocket is a good idea in case being in your body gets too distressing and you land back in dissociation.

• There's a variation of this which involves alternating between a place in your body where you feel awful feelings (e.g., grief, shame, fear) and/or physical pain with a place in your body where you feel calm, or at least neutral. This can help you to learn to tolerate your pain, regardless of its source. It's one of many techniques that can help with both emotional and physical pain. In general, somatic therapies emphasize the importance of unlearning fear of pain as key to healing, and that seems to be true whether that pain is felt in the mind or the body.

  
  

Once it feels okay to be in your body for a sustained period of time, body scans with curiosity can be helpful. You're probably familiar with these - but the general idea is to focus attention on each body part in a sequential order, noting sensations without judgment. If there are areas you can’t feel at all - it can be useful to squeeze them (or something similar) until you can. Doing this kind of scan with a therapist is often the best bet for those who don’t spend a lot of time in their body. I'll add some guided audio options here when I have the chance. In the meantime, some of the exercises below also can be helpful for increasing body awareness and getting you out of your head. But go slow, and be kind to yourself.

Simple touch: Squeeze up and down one arm with the opposite hand, experimenting with the pressure, speed, and type of touch. Notice the different sensations. (Different kinds of touch actually activate different receptors and nerve fibers, so it's worth experimenting to see what is most helpful for your body.) After you have gone up and down the same arm a few times, pause and feel the contrast between the sensations in the arm that you squeezed and the arm you didn’t squeeze. Repeat with the other arm. Modify as needed to accommodate for injury or trauma.

Body boundaries: This comes from Somatic Experiencing. Peter Levine argues that healing from trauma requires learning how to safely come back into our bodies and feel it as a container for our sensations and feelings. To that end, he has a variety of exercises that involve invoking sensations along the entire boundary of the body (e.g., tapping and then pausing) so that you can feel sensation in each part. For the numbed out parts, it may take repetition or pressure to get there. Along the way he suggests affirming "this is my [body part] and it belongs to me" or whatever feels right to you. Having a therapist facilitate this process can be helpful, and is a frequently used technique in Sensorimotor Psychotherapy.

Push against the wall: Kinda self-explanatory. Gently press your hands into the wall, table, or your thighs. Pay attention to what it feels like to make contact, to push, and to resist. See if you can notice any energy building or movement inside as you push. (You can do something similar with reaching out and pulling your arm back to your chest - pay attention to what it feels like to reach, and to pull towards you.)

Pretzel squeeze: While sitting, lean over and put your elbows inside your knees. You can cross your arms and put them on opposite shoulders or whatever feels best. Squeeze your thighs at the same time as you push outward with your arms - basically engage in a battle of will between your thigh muscles and your arm/shoulder muscles as hard as you can. Many people feel this helps to activate their core and feels reinvigorating.

Pandiculation: Pandiculation refers specifically to intentional, slow, controlled stretching and contracting that all animals (including humans) do to recalibrate muscle tension. Think of the big streeeeetch a cat or dog does when they first wake up. To do these for yourself, you can start by finding a contraction in your body - maybe curling your entire body into a ball as tight as you can. Take a couple of breaths here. Then reach and expand away from your center in any way that feels natural to you and take a couple of breaths there. Now modify things to contract on one side at a time, or play around with contracting and expanding different parts of your body.

Seated spine lengthening: While seated, slowly lengthen the spine upward as if being pulled by a string connected to the top of your head. Pay attention to any shifts you feel in your body while you do so. Just sitting tall rather than in a slumped position can help cue our nervous system that we're in control.

Bottom line: The more you’re able to restore and reset your nervous system on your own, the better able you will be to handle all that the world throws at you when you’re out and about without having to resort to freeze/dissociation to cope or landing yourself in panic mode. So experiment and see what strategies work for you. The more resources you have in your toolbox, the better. You may even already have some that you don't realize you do - so pay attention to what soothes you, and then start to use it purposefully when you notice you need it - ideally before all hell breaks loose.

Late updated: 12/15/25.