Pandicular Reflex: How to release Your Tight Muscles by Yawning

​​

Have you ever noticed when your four-legged best friend gets up from a good long nap, it yawns and stretches out? Well, there is a name for that, it is called pandiculation. Pandiculation is a way your Fido instinctively resets his muscles after being still for a long time. So how does that help us? We can use this physiological reflex to release chronic tension in muscles like the lower back and in the shoulders or anywhere else on the body.

When we feel muscular tightness, our instinct is to stretch the tight area. When you do that however, although you might feel temporary relief, the stretched muscle frustratingly returns to its tightened state eventually. Counter-intuitively, the best fix is not to forcefully stretch the muscle but to contract that tight muscle. So what does this do? And how does this create lasting relief?

Developed by a philosopher named Thomas Hanna, Somatics is a system of simple exercises that takes advantage this reflex to reduce pain caused by chronic tightness (trigger points) and regain lost movement in our body. This process re-connects our brain to our muscular system and retrains them to  break the unconscious tension we have developed in our neck, shoulders, lower back, and hips. One of my favorite ways to release tension in my Quadrates lumborum (QL)–which causes my lower back area to tighten up–is the side lying head pull. 

If you were like me and frustrated for a long time and didn’t understand why stretching did not help my tightness, give Somatics a try. You won’t regret it.