Often, after a long workday, stress settles into the body, manifesting as a clenched jaw, hunched shoulders or shallow breathing. For many, sitting still to meditate or rest only makes the restlessness more pronounced. Thirty-one-year-old Divya Sharma, a consulting professional, recognised this pattern in herself. Meditation often amplified her restlessness until she discovered somatic movement. “I realised I had been carrying tension without even noticing it,” she says. Today, she takes micro-movement breaks to pause, shake off the tension and recalibrate.
Derived from the Greek word soma, or the body, somatic movement focuses on bodily sensations rather than trying to think stress away. Exercises can include shaking, tapping, swaying and breath-led movements. Psychotherapist Mansi Poddar explains, chronic stress can affect the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, the body’s central stress-response system. Prolonged stress may manifest as muscular tension, hypervigilance and dissociation, making everyday pressures harder to navigate.
For people experiencing trauma or severe anxiety, sitting still can sometimes heighten distress. Small movements, she says, can offer another way to engage with uncomfortable sensations. Clinical psychologist and somatic movement therapist Sophia Ali says the practice begins with noticing what is happening in the body. “It is not about doing a particular exercise correctly, but about creating an opportunity to notice, explore, and understand one’s experience.” This could mean recognising a tight chest, or feeling of numbness without immediately trying to change it.
For 36-year-old schoolteacher Meera Kanoi, the approach offered a new way to deal with persistent back pain. “I thought the point was to get rid of the pain. Instead, I learnt to listen to what my body was asking for,” she says. The practice helped ease her tension while teaching her to pay attention to her body’s signals rather than override them. There is no fixed sequence. A session might begin with observing the breath before moving on to a particular body part, gesture or posture. Even pausing during a hectic workday to notice one’s breathing can be a starting point.
Somatic wellness expert, Aparna Dalakoti says body awareness can be incorporated into everyday routines. However, she cautions, somatic movement is not a substitute for medical or psychological care.
In a culture that keeps the mind constantly occupied, somatic movement offers a simple reminder: sometimes, finding calm begins not with thinking harder, but with paying attention to the body.