Your hips are the bridge between your upper body and lower body. They are at the center of your body’s movement and directly affect your ability to move efficiently. Sitting within the well of your hip and lower spine is the Psoas major muscle, one of the two muscles that makes up the iliopsoas. It…

1. It’s named Vagus because it “wanders” around the body like a vagabond. Vagus means wander in latin. It is the longest of the cranial nerves, and operates a vast network of fibres stationed like a spider web around all your organs.  2. It serves as a two-way communication channel between the brain and the…

Conscious advice for people who weight train, from Ex Champion Athlete and Strength and Conditioning Coach. Danielle Hayes. She is the creator and founder of Firefly Somatics™, a Nervous System Specialist, with almost 20 years of experience in weight training, and 7 years professionally in health and fitness. 1. Carbs do not make you gain…

The neuroendocrine system is the body’s communication network. It is made up of specialised glands, which make and release hormones into the bloodstream, in response to different situations and signals, that can come from both inside and outside the body. These signals reach every organ and tissue in your body including the brain. A gland in the…

Do you ever find yourself battling with persistent skin issues like acne, eczema, dermatitis, or dry skin? Have you noticed that your skin seems to act up during particularly stressful periods? Research has increasingly highlighted the fascinating connection between our nervous system health and the health of our skin, a field known as psycho dermatology.…

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) is an emergent property of complex cardiac-brain interactions and non-linear autonomic nervous system (ANS) processes. It is a measure for the variation in inter-beat-intervals that reflects ANS function and is correlated to your allostatic load. While we have always been led to believe otherwise, a healthy heart is actually not a metronome;…

Scientific advancements have helped us better understand how the nervous system and brain work in conjunction with one another. Various research studies have given us greater insight into what’s happening in the brain and bodies of those who experience systematic overwhelm including all levels of traumatic occurrences The known fact that the brain is able…

If the Nervous System is chronically dysregulated, Vagal Tone is weak, Allostasis is low, and the Immune System is therefore comprised, your body is under constant states of arousal and alertness. If you are systematically stuck in cyclical episodes of emergency, your cells will feel like they are under attack and signal the release of various…

The vagus nerve signals the secretion of anti inflammatory hormones. It reduces glucocorticoids rushing around the brain, helping with healthy brain activity and promoting memory. This in turn deduces the activity of the amygdala in the brain, a gland that widens stress reaction and signals the nervous system to shift into mobilisation. In mobilisation the…

Struggling with low mood after Christmas is a common trend as “silly season” comes to an end. Christmas is a huge westernised social construct, a fantasy period made by man and fuelled by Capitalism. As you come out of this fantasy, and back into your normal reality, it is very normal to feel flat and…

My client Vikki had her most recent MRI scan today on her brain. The last one done 13th December 2022. She came to me in early November of 2022, suffering with chronic migraines, which she had coped with her whole life. She had been taking painkillers on a consistent basis for years. In December 2022,…

“Organic matter, especially nervous tissue, has a very extraordinary degree of plasticity…. The nervous system never stops changing in response to learning…. it has an amazing ability to change throughout the course of our life, allowing us to learn new things… the brain continues to create new neural pathways and alter existing ones in order…

“Traumatic experiences live on in somatic memory and can lead to shifts in the biological stress response. Damage to the stimulus filtering system results in difficulties distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant stimuli that can overwhelm a person’s coping mechanisms. This creates a breakdown in the homeostatic self-regulating systems, and can result in nervous system dysregulation……

Trauma is the experience of and emotional response to intense and severe psychological, neurobiological and physiological distress as a result of exposure to overwhelming experiences of (but also subject to witnessing) adverse and life-threatening incidents that feel beyond a person’s control. When we experience trauma, whether it is primary or secondary, type 1 or 2,…

When a traumatic event occurs, the nervous system initiates a fight-flight or freeze response, with the goal to keep us safe and out of danger. This is a normal, innate survival reaction that is activated when we feel under threat or unsafe. When trauma is intense or repeated, and the trauma cycle is not completed…

Neurogenic releasing is only a small part of the somatic healing process. There then is a discharge process post somatic release. Whatever is broken down on a cellular level, including imprints that are visceral, or energy that has been lying stagnant due to low allostasy (which affects immunity also), is processed and waste products are…

The human body is comprised of 4 cell types: • Epithelial Cells • Muscle Cells • Nerve Cells • Connective Tissue Cells (The Fascia) All cells have “traits”. Some of the characteristics that make a muscle cell unique are responsiveness, conductivity, contractility, extensibility, and elasticity. These traits are explained in further detail below: • Responsiveness:…

The autonomic nervous system is a component of the peripheral nervous system that regulates involuntary physiologic processes including heart rate, blood pressure, respiration, digestion, and sexual arousal. It contains three anatomically distinct divisions: sympathetic, parasympathetic, and enteric. The sympathetic nervous system is our UPPER. It’s more commonly known as our fight or flight response. When we…

Neurogenic shaking… What is this? Essentially, this is how we discharge the stress/pain energy induced within the nervous system and neuroendocrine system after experiencing a traumatic event that caused internal stress and a “shock to the system” Dr. PeterLevine (the founder of Somatic Experiencing) was inspired to study stress on the animal nervous system when…

Grief is a dense emotion and runs so deep. It triggers abandonment, a feeling of hopelessness and loneliness, spiralling into feeling frozen in time and a lack of motivation or willpower for life. Usually we don’t want to face the pain of loss, so we cognitively dissociate or numb out from it. We love so…