Episode 552: Liz Tenuto: Why Stress Gets "Stuck" In The Body, The Science of Somatics, & How to Finally Let It Go

The field of somatics has one uncomfortable truth most people aren't ready to hear: you cannot think your way out of trauma or chronic stress. If the stress response of the body never gets discharged through physical movement, your body stays on high alert. Some people still write somatics off as "woo-woo". That gap between what the science actually says and what people assume is exactly why I wanted to go deeper with Liz Tenuto, better known as The Workout Witch. Liz holds a degree in Psychology from UC Santa Barbara, is certified in Pilates and Reiki, and spent six years being mentored in the Feldenkrais Method under Augusta Moore. She got herself off beta blockers for anxiety using the same somatic exercises she now teaches. In part two of this three-part Fitness Friday series with Liz, she breaks down the actual science, Polyvagal Theory, the psoas muscle, why betrayal trauma has a biological address in your body, and why your nervous system is still running an operating system designed for surviving predators, not inbox anxiety. If you have ever felt stuck in stress no matter what you try, this is the episode that explains exactly why. What's Discussed: (0:00) How Liz grew to 4.8 million followers and who her audience really is. (1:01) Why somatics bridges the gap where doctors just tell you it's stress. (1:48) How Liz got off beta blockers for anxiety using somatic exercises. (3:12) What somatics can actually help with and how it works for sleep. (9:11) The science behind somatics and how your body stores stress physically (13:33) How trauma gets stored as subconscious muscle tension and shows up as pain. (16:52) Liz's personal story: how quitting dance made her chronic pain worse, not better. (27:05) Sleep positions that reveal your stress state: T-REX ARMS, mountain climber, extreme fetal. (33:21) The psoas muscle: the muscle of the soul and its role as a first responder in fight or flight. (35:13) The gentle 18-day protocol Liz uses before ever touching the psoas. Thank You to Our Sponsors! AirDoctor: Head to AirDoctorPro.com http://airdoctorpro.com/ and use promo code HUSTLE to get up to $300 OFF today! AirDoctor comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, plus a 3-year warranty (an $84 value) FREE! Kion: Visit getkion.com/habits http://getkion.com/habits or 20% OFF Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com http://livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% OFF your first subscription. Therasage: Visit therasage.com http://therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% OFF your order. Your skin deserves this level of care. Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen http://www.magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% OFF sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN https://prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use the code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Rho Nutrition: Go to RhoNutrition.com http://rhonutrition.com and try Rho's Liposomal Glutathione. Use code JEN20 for 20% OFF sitewide. Manna Vitality: Try it now by using the code Jennifer20 at mannavitality.com http://mannavitality.com. Find more from Jen Cohen: Website: www.jennifercohen.com https://jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen http://instagram.com/therealjencohen Books: www.jennifercohen.com/books https://jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: www.jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more from Liz Tenuto: Website: theworkoutwitch.com/ https://theworkoutwitch.com/ Instagram: @theworkoutwitch https://www.instagram.com/theworkoutwitch_ TikTok: @theworkoutwitch https://www.tiktok.com/@theworkoutwitch YouTube: @theworkoutwitch https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjq8zR8uB_FUaOc4oZRgmfw Threads: @theworkoutwitch https://www.threads.com/@theworkoutwitch_ Facebook:The Workout Witch https://www.facebook.com/theworkoutwitch/ Embody App: theworkoutwitch.com/products/embody https://theworkoutwitch.com/products/embody When The Body Speaks Book: theworkoutwitch.com/pages/book https://theworkoutwitch.com/pages/book

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hi guys, this is Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

• 0:07Jen Cohen?

  Hey friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle Podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self. So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

• 0:29Speaker 02

  And during COVID, I really started posting it online and people, people became, people became, I thought it was going to be very niche, but now I have like 4.8 million followers across platforms.

• 0:40Jen Cohen?

  That is crazy.

• 0:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 0:41Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. Like, how many you have on Instagram alone, doing this?

• 0:44Speaker 02

  Uh, 1.9 million.

• 0:46Jen Cohen?

  And like, you have basically 2 million people who then, and who's your audience, really?

• 0:52Speaker 02

  My audience generally is like 30 to 60.

• 0:58Jen Cohen?

  That's a big demo.

• 0:59Speaker 02

  Big demo, tends to be high achieving people. My audience specifically is more women than men, but it works for all genders. Yeah, folks who are really high achieving, who have a lot of responsibilities, but also perhaps have sleep issues, or, you know, perhaps like, when they get home at night, they're kind of silently struggling with something, whether it's lower back pain that won't go away, or they're going to a doctor for their gut issues, but they can't really figure out what's going on. Like, SoMaddix is really good at bridging the gap where doctors, you'll go to the doctor and the doctor will say, "It's stress." And you can't necessarily like change your whole life, you can't quit your job, you can't like not have a kid, you can't be like, "Bye, and I'm going to

• 1:44Speaker 02

  be a monk and go live, you know, on a hill."

• 1:46Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  So SoMaddix is really good at, at reducing all of those stress symptoms and giving you immediate relief from those symptoms. And over time, as you continue to do them, you can, you can actually, you know, for me, I really did get rid of my insomnia and my gut issues and my anxiety through doing them.

• 2:06Jen Cohen?

  So you did get, you got rid of insomnia, gut issues, and anxiety?

• 2:09Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:11Jen Cohen?

  So if someone is, were you on medication prior to this, or?

• 2:15Speaker 02

  I was on beta blockers for anxiety and panic.

• 2:20Jen Cohen?

  And now you are still, or not?

• 2:21Speaker 02

  No.

• 2:23Jen Cohen?

  Because of this?

• 2:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:24Jen Cohen?

  So- Wow. And because I know that you just said something I didn't even real. Tapping is part of the somatic, under the somatic umbrella. Tapping, I've that, I, I know that works well. I've seen people who are, are like, just like me, like not woo woo at all. Who swear by tapping.

• 2:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:45Jen Cohen?

  So that's a form of somatic. So what, is that what we just did on our forehead? Was that, would that be considered tapping? Because you are touching and pressing your, your head.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Tapping is more like tap, tap, tap like this. So the one that we did with the forehead is a somatic exercise that, which is what I teach. Um, so it's just a, kind of like a different dialect. I'm not certified in tapping, so I, I know it, but I wouldn't really feel great.

• 3:12Jen Cohen?

  So if it, if it's, if it's under the somatic umbrella, though, it's another form though. You, you need to get certified in each one of these, like specialties, basically.

• 3:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:24Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:24Speaker 02

  I, I think so.

• 3:25Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 3:26Speaker 02

  Some people don't, but I, I, I personally think that, you know, to be responsible and to like, have the most impact with your students, you want to really know the technique and have studied it.

• 3:36Jen Cohen?

  Absolutely.

• 3:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 3:37Jen Cohen?

  Okay. So let's get into some of the things that it can be helpful for and like, how is it helpful? Okay. So things, well, you, you first actually said like sleep issues, right? So if you are, if you are having insomnia or really bad sleep issues, like even hormone, you know, when you're, with your hormones, you, you have this like surge of cortisol and you can't sleep. I don't know if you're there yet, but I sure am.

• 4:00Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:00Jen Cohen?

  How, how can like, what can you do for it? And how does it help you?

• 4:05Speaker 02

  There is, there are some rocking exercises that I teach that you can do before bed.

• 4:10Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 4:11Speaker 02

  And you can do them in bed and they take like five minutes maximum, but they release tension and stress out of your body. They immediately start to lower your cortisol and they relax you so much that you just kind of like, fall asleep. We used to say like, oh, it's, it's a, you know, you're winning if you fall asleep during a somatics class.

• 4:32Jen Cohen?

  Wow.

• 4:33Speaker 02

  That's success.

• 4:33Jen Cohen?

  It is.

• 4:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 4:34Jen Cohen?

  But then, don't you wake up? Again, or is that the other thing, right?

• 4:37Speaker 02

  Like, people with high cortisol like tend to wake up at like 3 a.m. Covered in sweat.

• 4:42Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, I don't just not the sweat part, but 3 a.m.

• 4:45Speaker 02

  3 a.m.

• 4:46Jen Cohen?

  That's the killer.

• 4:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, because you're essentially, it's normal for your cortisol to be higher in the morning. And then if you have, if you're more regulated and you're not living in chronic stress, your cortisol is supposed to go down. And then by the end of the day, it's supposed to be pretty low.

• 5:00Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  People who have high cortisol or people who have hormonal issues or hormonal changes and are in that phase of their life can, their cortisol spikes too early in the morning. So instead of it spiking around 6 a.m., it'll spike around 3 a.m. And then rather than it going down throughout the day, it'll stay pretty high throughout the day. And then it can even like stay high when you're about to go to bed. And that's why a lot of people who live with chronic stress have a hard time falling asleep. Your body essentially can't unwind.

• 5:32Jen Cohen?

  Right, right.

• 5:33Speaker 02

  Because of those hormonal issues, it's not your fault. And I think that that's, you know, I think that's something that like in the past, people have always felt really bad. Like, oh, this is my fault. Like, I need to, you know, I need to be better. Or like, I need to do more meditation or like a thousand, you know, wellness things every day. And I'm like, no, just, just like go like this for a minute and then pass out.

• 5:56Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. That really was actually very helpful.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 5:59Jen Cohen?

  So, okay, so then basically you, you think this could be helpful with sleep? Like, you wrote a whole book about this, When the Body Speaks. So in the book, are you telling people, are you kind of giving people a playbook of ways that they can actually help each ailment?

• 6:16Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. The last part of the book, the book is split into three sections. And the third section in the back are mini routines with three lessons each for different ailments. So there's anger release, sleep issues, stress release, gut issues, cognitive issues. So if you have a hard time remembering things or you have brain fog.

• 6:36Jen Cohen?

  Yes.

• 6:37Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 6:38Jen Cohen?

  Can you give me one for brain fog?

• 6:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. I'm like, I think we would have to lay down.

• 6:44Jen Cohen?

  I know. This is the thing I didn't realize. This is more of a visual podcast than a verbal podcast, right? Because everything you do is like, everything you're gonna have to show me, an actual exercise to help with it, right?

• 7:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, the, we could, you know, I think what helps people a lot is talking through kind of like the science behind it because it does seem counterintuitive. That moving your body would help you with brain fog, for example.

• 7:15Jen Cohen?

  It doesn't, it actually does not sound counterintuitive to me.

• 7:18Speaker 02

  Oh, great.

• 7:18Jen Cohen?

  Because I think you need to have blood circulation.

• 7:22Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:22Jen Cohen?

  For you to kind of, kind of clear your, your mind. I mean, to me, my form of meditation is I need to run every day, even though it's terrible for my joints and I'm like breaking down physically. It's the best thing that I can do for my mental health.

• 7:38Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 7:39Jen Cohen?

  And my productivity.

• 7:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:41Jen Cohen?

  So no matter how tired I am, if I, if I run or do my, like, do my little cardio in the morning, that just gets me on point. Like, that keeps my brain super, like, on point, much more productive. I get way more, all my ideas flow. It's that flowing that is so important. So I actually do believe that you need to move to order to be for the other stuff.

• 8:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  Absolutely. I love that you're tapped into that.

• 8:09Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, it's really important. I mean, this is what I do. Like, the fitness stuff is very big in my life. I think it's, I think overall fitness is a gateway drug to success.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  I do too.

• 8:19Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 8:19Speaker 02

  Every successful entrepreneur I've ever met, maybe they have a different flavor of fitness than what I do, but they're all, you know, they're all active.

• 8:28Jen Cohen?

  They're all doing something. That's why there's, you know, was it like 90 or 95% of all CEOs, like of like Fortune 500 companies, something like that. I don't remember what the exact stat is, don't quote me. Were all former college athletes.

• 8:43Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 8:43Jen Cohen?

  Because they were taught, number one, it gave them the, like, the discipline and consistency, the mindset. But hopefully it stays with you. That habitual thing of exercise and working out and keeping your body in motion is so important for success in all areas of your life.

• 9:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:03Jen Cohen?

  Right? So it's not just the physical that it helps. It helps like everything, all the other, the mental, emotional, all the things, you know? And that's why this is the one area, somatic, that I'm, you know, if that can help people, if they can integrate a portion of that, an elevator kind of optimized in the way that they never thought, it's super interesting for me.

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 9:25Jen Cohen?

  You know?

• 9:25Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 9:26Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. So the science behind, so what is the science behind most, besides what we just said? Like when you're saying things like, you know, teeth grinding, like all these other things, waking in the middle of the night, or staying on the sleep for a second, tossing and turning, what, covered in sweat? How could somatic help you? Are you retraining your brain? Or you're, or I guess you're retraining your, your body?

• 9:51Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. There's such a deep connection between mental, emotional and physical. And Western medicine kind of looks at physical as by itself. You know, and even talk therapy, talk therapy does acknowledge how important somatics is. And, and a lot of talk therapists are also trained in somatics as well. But it's, it's a newer discussion. It's, it historically hasn't been discussed as much. And actually, in terms of our emotions, our emotions first occur as physical sensations. And then that sends, those physical sensations get sent up to the brain. And then we label that as an emotion.

• 10:35Speaker 02

  So for example, the way the nervous system works is you can go into fight or flight.

• 10:43Speaker 02

  So if you see, or if you get an email that's really stressful, it can kind of immediately cue your fight or flight response. That will contract your jaw muscles, your masseter, your psoas muscle, which is a deep muscle that connects your upper body to your lower body. It's in the stomach and then connects down into your greater trochanter at the base of your pelvis. And those are, these are like immediate kind of evolutionary reactions that we can't really control. They just happen. And the reason why they happen is because we're still on an old operating system with our body. Our, our nervous system hasn't quite caught up to modern society. So we received this email. We think it's like a bear.

• 11:27Speaker 02

  And those muscles contract to either help us fight or help us flee. The way your biological stress response works because of that evolutionary programming is that we have to have some sort of physical discharge to kind of come back to homeostasis. But so many of us don't ever do that physical discharge because it's not a bear. It's an email or it's a conversation with a client, you know? Or it's like your flight getting canceled last minute. And so it would look weird to suddenly start like running around in the airport.

• 12:08Jen Cohen?

  It would feel kind of weird. Not to say we haven't, yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying.

• 12:11Speaker 02

  Yeah. So, so what I teach are these really simple, easy, effective ways to finalize your body's biological stress response as well. So that can look like chopping a pillow. That can look like-

• 12:26Jen Cohen?

  Chopping a pillow?

• 12:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:28Jen Cohen?

  What do you mean?

• 12:29Speaker 02

  Like you just have a pillow in front of you and you're chopping it with your hands.

• 12:34Jen Cohen?

  And what does that do?

• 12:35Speaker 02

  It releases stress and tension and pent up anger out of your body. And it's just really important for us to have like healthy containers for anger release because it is actually quite a physical thing. But we don't have the tools to physicalize it. So to put it into, because, because we're having all these bodily sensations. And then if we just sit in the anger, you just kind of store the anger and over time that changes you hormonally. You're, you're going to be running more on cortisol and adrenaline. That leads to inflammatory responses in the body and over time that can cause a lot of,

• 13:18Speaker 02

  or contribute to a lot of health issues or exacerbate a lot of health issues. So really, if you're in the, in the practice of releasing different emotions or releasing stress out of your body physically, it's really good for your health long term.

• 13:35Jen Cohen?

  To like, let it go.

• 13:36Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 13:37Jen Cohen?

  Right. And also, I would, I would imagine you're storing a lot of, could you be storing anger or trauma in your body? Like, I always hear people talk about that. So what does that mean?

• 13:50Speaker 02

  Essentially, when we say storing, it gets stored as tension in your body, kind of like subconscious tension. And people will be like, oh, I have lower back pain or, oh, I grind my teeth. They're like, oh, I need to get a new mattress or I need to get a new chair. And then you do that and you're like, oh, it's still there. You know, what's going on? And

• 14:12Jen Cohen?

  Hence, I'm sitting on this thing right now.

• 14:13Speaker 02

  Yeah. Is that a warm, is that warming?

• 14:17Jen Cohen?

  This is a PEMF mat. Have you seen that before?

• 14:19Speaker 02

  I have seen that. Yeah. What does it do?

• 14:21Jen Cohen?

  It's really supposed to be great for like overall, like inflammation, pain, chronic pain, overall circulation. They're really popular in like that wellness space. And I have like a little bit of sciatica, so I sit on it. But yeah, it's really good. I love it. It's by a company called Therasage. This is a Therapro. And also it's good for like, there's all these other modalities. I don't even know what else. I use it for my sciatica and also they say it's really good just to sit on it for, like I said, for healing. I, someone in my life broke their neck.

• 14:54Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 14:55Jen Cohen?

  Yeah, horrible.

• 14:56Speaker 02

  Are they okay?

• 14:57Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. And they're fine. And they sat on this thing for like three hours a day, four hours. I don't like to say the mat was the only Thing, but

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:03Jen Cohen?

  It's supposed to be really healing.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  I love that.

• 15:05Jen Cohen?

  Yeah. You've never seen it one?

• 15:06Speaker 02

  I have seen them. I have seen them.

• 15:09Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 15:09Speaker 02

  I just have never used one.

• 15:10Jen Cohen?

  Oh my God, do you want to use this? I'll give you.

• 15:13Jen Cohen?

  You can borrow mine. Yes. Yeah. So yeah, that's why I love it. But so sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off or talk about this, but you were saying that it comes up in like pain or whatever in your body unless you get it out. And so I was saying I have sciatica. Does that mean that I'm storing something? But isn't it also, that was my point. When is something just a physically?

• 15:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:35Jen Cohen?

  A physical illness from, for example, my sciatica, I run all the time, like I said. So when is it because I'm actually hard on my body?

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:44Jen Cohen?

  Versus I'm just dealing with something emotionally.

• 15:48Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you definitely want to first go to the doctor. Like go to the doctor, get checked out and make sure it's not anything medical. Yeah, I do.

• 15:57Jen Cohen?

  You don't, you don't need to say that.

• 15:58Speaker 02

  You can include that or not.

• 16:00Jen Cohen?

  It's also like, oh duh. Okay. Yes. Like you don't have to go. You don't have to give me all these caveats.

• 16:04Speaker 02

  Okay, great. Okay, great. No disclaimer.

• 16:06Jen Cohen?

  So now you go to a doctor and yes, you have inflammation. Now what? Yeah.

• 16:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. So you know, you definitely want to.

• 16:13Jen Cohen?

  You're so funny.

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Figure.

• 16:15Jen Cohen?

  Cause people do that all the time, right? I'm like, what's going to happen? They're going to sue you because they, they then what? You know, they went to do somatic and they did, you know what I mean? Like.

• 16:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:24Jen Cohen?

  But I know in today's time, you have to like protect yourself.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Yes, we are in a highly litigious California.

• 16:30Jen Cohen?

  We are in California. It's like God forbid you like, someone blames you. Like everyone blames everybody else instead of taking ownership for their life. This is, maybe if they took ownership, they wouldn't have some of the pain.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 16:41Jen Cohen?

  You know?

• 16:42Speaker 02

  So I'll tell you my personal story and then I'm going to connect it back to you.

• 16:44Jen Cohen?

  Yes, absolutely.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  So I was a dancer. I was a ballet dancer and I was also very hard on my body. And so when I started having chronic pain, I was like, obviously it's from dance.

• 16:55Jen Cohen?

  Right.

• 16:55Speaker 02

  Right? Like this is just chronic pain. I'm on my feet all day. I'm a ballet dancer. It just like felt like it would go hand in hand.

• 17:03Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 17:04Speaker 02

  So I quit dancing for two years during college. I studied psychology and my chronic pain actually got worse. And I was like, interesting. And as I was studying psychology, it was like, oh, you know, movement helps with pain. I was like, oh, interesting. So I started dancing again in my twenties and. My pain, especially once I started somatics, got significantly, you know, it went away. My chronic pain went away. And for me, it was emotional. It was like a hundred percent emotional. I first discovered somatics in 2008. And the conversation around physical health and mental health and emotional health being connected

• 17:47Speaker 02

  was not really happening at that time, even within therapy. It wasn't, it wasn't a conversation yet. And so I had to discover this all on my own. And that's why I'm so vocal about my own journey, because I think a lot of people will try a lot of different things for the physical and it still doesn't work. And what I say is like, if you've had pain for longer than three months and it's not connected to like an accident, a fall, an injury, something like that, you go to the doctor and you get the, you get cleared, it's generally emotional.

• 18:27Jen Cohen?

  So what about like massages? Does that help?

• 18:29Speaker 02

  Massages are great, short term.

• 18:32Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  And, you know, I love massage. The thing with massage is that you're like completely passive on the table and you're not really involved. You're just like, do it to me.

• 18:45Jen Cohen?

  Exactly. You're not involved at all. That's why it's great. You know what I mean?

• 18:48Speaker 02

  And that is why it's great.

• 18:49Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 18:49Speaker 02

  In terms of long-term healing though, you will get relief for, you know, a day, three days. So I tell people like, if they have a TED Talk or something, like get massage and you're in pain, get massage, get acupuncture, you're gonna feel better for tomorrow. Yes.

• 19:03Jen Cohen?

  Well, when I did my TED Talk, I didn't have, didn't it make me feel better?

• 19:06Speaker 02

  No.

• 19:07Jen Cohen?

  No. But I'm just kinda teasing for not really.

• 19:10Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 19:11Jen Cohen?

  It's sciatica.

• 19:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Sciatica is really painful.

• 19:16Speaker 02

  But long term, in terms of like long term healing, you do need to be a little involved, but you can be pretty passive. So you can be really lazy, you can be in bed, doing these tiny movements, but, but when you're a little bit involved, that is what builds new neural pathways. So you're building new neural pathways out of the pain cycle and into,

• 19:38Jen Cohen?

  Oh.

• 19:39Speaker 02

  Into, back into homeostasis where your nervous system is regulated and, and your body feels safe again. And then all of those pain markers start to go away.

• 19:50Jen Cohen?

  Wow. Okay. So people like, I mean, I, I can't really ask you about the success rate because you, you wouldn't.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  I do have success rate.

• 19:58Jen Cohen?

  You do?

• 19:58Speaker 02

  I have a, with my courses and my app, I have a 99% success rate. And we, we have 240,000 students in five years. And we judge it based, we have a money back guarantee. So we just judge it based on how many.

• 20:11Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 20:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:13Jen Cohen?

  Okay. So when they say the word psychosomatic though, what do they mean? Because if it's psychosomatic, if you think it's working because it's psychosomatic, it works, right? So is that from somatic, like somatic healing?

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Um, that's kind of like the placebo effect, right? Like if you take a pill and they tell you it's,

• 20:31Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 20:31Speaker 02

  It'll like, you know, reduce inflammation.

• 20:34Jen Cohen?

  Exactly.

• 20:34Speaker 02

  And it's just like a sugar pill. There, there definitely is something about the mind.

• 20:40Jen Cohen?

  And who cares if it works?

• 20:41Speaker 02

  Yeah. But I have had so many students, especially when I was teaching one-on-one, who were like totally not open to it and they were like super skeptical.

• 20:50Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 20:51Speaker 02

  And I was too, you know? There is something just about it feeling better in your body. And then you being like, huh, I'm going to just keep trying this.

• 21:00Jen Cohen?

  Really?

• 21:01Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 21:01Jen Cohen?

  So does some people just have to stay with it? Like just the consistency? Cause it doesn't always, like you said, it happened for you when you went to that one person's class or something and you started crying in the bathroom?

• 21:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, I started crying in the bathroom the first lesson. So for me, with my students, people tend to feel better within three days. A lot of people feel better on day one, but I don't want to like guarantee that.

• 21:22Jen Cohen?

  Really? How? Like can you walk me through what would, one of your students? So they would have, would they come to you and say, would they come to you and say, I have a chronic X pain, like physically? Or do they say, I'm dealing with anxiety, I'm dealing with sleep? Like which one is it? Are people coming to you because of the physical ailment or because of the mental and emotional issue?

• 21:43Speaker 02

  Now, both.

• 21:45Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 21:46Speaker 02

  When I was teaching one-on-one lessons, it was more the physical. So I would have people who were healing post-surgery, maybe an ACL tear, or I would have people who had frozen shoulder.

• 21:58Jen Cohen?

  Oh, I had that one.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, people who, it's very painful. People who have lower back pain that won't go away. People who have sciatica, people who have foot pain and they can like, every time they stand up, they can, you know, it really hurts or they have plantar fasciitis in their feet. And really, I think the, the beauty of the work that I do is the exercises just like do it for me. I don't really have to do that much convincing. So if they're, if they're already in front of me and they're already like down to lay down and, and do some stuff with me, then that's all I have to do. The exercises do everything else and they, they generally feel much better by the end.

• 22:39Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I got another question for you. Because I understand that it is, a lot of it is, there is science backing it. What is the science that really backs it?

• 22:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:50Jen Cohen?

  Um, like, do you have some other data? Besides this, you're saying people who use your app and, or on your, um, who use your courses, there's a very, very few people ask for their free money back guarantee.

• 23:02Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 23:02Jen Cohen?

  What is the data? Like, can you give me some science-backed data on just somatic healing in general?

• 23:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, let me think about, um, so, you know, there's a lot of researchers like Dr. Peter Levine, Dr. Gabor Maté. Um, essentially neuroscience is the field that is substantiating the mind-body connection and the nervous system. There's a theory called polyvagal theory, which explains the fight-flight-freeze response in the nervous system. And there's a lot of different kind of studies that have been done. But, you know, certain studies on the vagus nerve and how re-stimulating the vagus nerve can help get you out of freeze response. Or there's sympathetic activation of your nervous system, which

• 23:53Speaker 02

  Is when your nervous system gets stuck in fight flight. So it's essentially like your nervous system gets stuck in its on position. And you feel restless and anxious and you have a hard time falling asleep. And you feel easily irritated. Then there's parasympathetic activation, which is more associated with freeze response. And that's when your nervous system is kind of stuck in its off position. And you'll feel exhausted all the time, numb. You'll have a hard time getting out of bed. Maybe you can't feel your emotions. You have a hard time crying. You don't want to talk that much. You lose your, you don't really want to socialize that much. You're like not responding to text messages.

• 24:34Speaker 02

  You're kind of like letting tasks that aren't necessary kind of like fall by the wayside. So there's a lot of research into the different states of the nervous system. And somatic healing and somatic exercises largely works with the nervous system to provide relief for people.

• 24:54Jen Cohen?

  Hmm, I know there's a lot of people, I I've heard a lot about the parasympathetic and the sympathetic. So if you're some endovagus nerve, there's a lot of people, that is kind of becoming much more mainstream. You never really talked, never really heard of that like 15 years ago.

• 25:09Speaker 02

  Right.

• 25:10Jen Cohen?

  How did that become more popular? Like, where did it come from? Like, how did that become like more part of the, I guess, in in the ethos or in in the ether of what people know about now?

• 25:23Speaker 02

  My theory is that, you know, in 2020, during the pandemic, therapy, talk therapy became a lot more popular. At the same time, a lot of us came much more online to live. And through social media, a lot more of us were talking about different things. We were spending a lot more time on social media during the pandemic. And a lot of us absorbed a lot of new information. Not to brag, but I really think that I have really helped popularize the nervous system healing. Not that I started it, not that it's not, you know, like nothing like that.

• 26:01Jen Cohen?

  No, brag the way I like bragging people, go ahead.

• 26:03Speaker 02

  But you know, a lot of my posts have gone like mega viral and

• 26:08Jen Cohen?

  How viral are we talking?

• 26:09Speaker 02

  Fifty two million is my biggest.

• 26:12Jen Cohen?

  Oh, that's it? Nothing. What do you, what was, what was that video on?

• 26:17Speaker 02

  It was about sleep and being stuck in your stress response while you're asleep and what that looks like.

• 26:24Jen Cohen?

  Tell us, I want to know.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Jock lunging, it's waking up with pain, it's sleeping with T-Rex arms, which is where your

• 26:33Speaker 02

  hands are kind of like curled in underneath your chest like this. Sleeping in an extreme fetal position, grinding your teeth or TMJ, sleepwalking, sleep talking, having a hard time falling asleep, waking up to any like minor sound in the room, waking up at three AM, waking up covered in sweat, waking up with like a lot of hair loss on your pillow. It was just illustrating what that looks like, but I think what was so shocking for people was people didn't realize that you could still be stressed out during sleep.

• 27:07Jen Cohen?

  Yeah.

• 27:07Speaker 02

  You think like sleep is restorative, is stressful, but your body can still be stuck in its stress response while you're asleep.

• 27:14Jen Cohen?

  And those are the signs that it is. What are the signs that you are, I mean, what kind of sleep patterns or I guess, positions would indicate that you're not under stress when you're sleeping?

• 27:27Speaker 02

  Sleeping on your back with your arms down by your side and your legs long.

• 27:34Speaker 02

  Or sleeping on one of your sides, but not in an extreme fetal position, so not with your knees tucked in. Are both signs that you're not in your stress response while you're asleep. But a lot of people will sleep in what I call the mountain climber position, which is like on your stomach with one knee bent and your head turned towards that knee.

• 27:55Speaker 02

  If you're in that position, you're like ready to go, like you're ready to jump up and just like.

• 27:59Jen Cohen?

  So that's a stress response. If you're sleeping on your stomach with your knee kind of jived up a little bit, like mountain climber wise, that means that you are sleeping, like you're stressful sleeping.

• 28:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, you're, you're kind of, when you're in that position, yeah, when you're in that position, there's mild activation in your stomach muscles, your body can't fully relax. A lot of really high achieving people sleep in that position. And I joke with people because I'm like, you're just like ready to go at any moment, like anytime, you're just like, I got this.

• 28:30Jen Cohen?

  Totally. I think I sleep like that. Wow.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 28:35Jen Cohen?

  That's so interesting.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  It's shocking for people and I think that that shock value is kind of what what made it so viral.

• 28:42Jen Cohen?

  Right. And so is that the one thing that kind of puts you kind of that gave you momentum during COVID? And kept on was it did the did it keep on happening because of that one post?

• 28:54Speaker 02

  I would say trauma release is

• 28:56Jen Cohen?

  That's a big one.

• 28:57Speaker 02

  What initially made me go viral during COVID. But the sleep positions kind of took it and the sleep behaviors kind of took it to a different level. I also have posted a lot about how stress changes the way you look and that attracted like a whole. Yeah, because like I'm like, I'm kind of vain. And so once I learned like, oh, if I release stress out of my body, like I'll look better.

• 29:24Jen Cohen?

  We need to talk about this.

• 29:25Speaker 02

  And so that brought in like a whole new. Yeah, it brought in like a whole new audience to me.

• 29:30Jen Cohen?

  Okay, ladies, that's that's interesting. No, it's true because if you look, look at every president who's ever

• 29:36Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:36Jen Cohen?

  Been in office.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 29:38Jen Cohen?

  How they looked before they started versus how they looked when they finished. They look like a they look like a walk like they look totally different.

• 29:45Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 29:46Jen Cohen?

  They look they look like they've aged a hundred years.

• 29:49Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:49Jen Cohen?

  Not eight years or four years.

• 29:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:52Jen Cohen?

  Because of the stress.

• 29:53Speaker 02

  Because of the stress.

• 29:54Jen Cohen?

  So how do we release the stress so we can be our most attractive?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  Most beautiful selves.

• 30:00Jen Cohen?

  Most beautiful, physically beautiful selves. Yes.

• 30:03Speaker 02

  Somatic. Yeah, somatic exercises are are the way.

• 30:07Jen Cohen?

  Okay.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  So essentially, when you're really stressed, your, for example, a lot of people experience bloating when they're stressed because your body retains more fluid. A lot of people can't lose belly weight when they're stressed because what happens is your body stores calories as visceral fat to save for a survival situation. And then even if you're eating well and exercising, even if you're doing a bunch of sit ups to target that area, a lot of people will still have stubborn belly weight. And they don't realize that when your body is in its stress response, it literally won't lose that visceral fat until you get it out of its stress response. So all the sit ups, you don't need to do that first later, yes.

• 30:52Speaker 02

  But the first thing you need to do is get your body out of its stress response. So it stops storing extra calories as visceral fat. Get rid of the bloating, get your body out of the stress response, get rid of the bloating, and then you'll be able to lose belly weight successfully and easily.

• 31:07Jen Cohen?

  Okay, I got a few things to say about that. Um, it's hard to spot reduce anyway.

• 31:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:12Jen Cohen?

  Secondly, that's also because when you're highly stressed, your cortisol, yet again, gets spiked and elevated, which is, you know, why people are holding on to fat.

• 31:23Speaker 02

  Mm hmm. We call it cortisol belly.

• 31:25Jen Cohen?

  Right, cortisol belly. So that's definitely one thing that's not super attractive.

• 31:30Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 31:31Jen Cohen?

  So, because let's, I want to really talk a little bit more about the traumat- trauma, because I know that's a big reason why people even like contact you or what, like I've heard um, for somatic. So what about like betrayal?

• 31:44Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 31:44Jen Cohen?

  Is there like betrayal trauma, I would say would be a big one?

• 31:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 31:48Jen Cohen?

  Is there a series or how does somatic, like how does the modality of somatic healing really help someone who feels super betrayed?

• 31:58Speaker 02

  We work largely with the hips and the pelvis when people have experienced betrayal trauma. So betrayal trauma happens when someone that is close to you, whether it's a romantic partner, or it could be a parent, or even like an institution like work, betrays you in some way. And the trauma of itself is really hard, but the aftermath of it is also quite difficult for people because it really is shocking. And because of that, it can really take people's bodies into fight or flight. And I mentioned this muscle earlier in the podcast, but there's a muscle called your psoas muscle, which starts at the base of your diaphragm, behind your rib cage, wraps around the front of your body

• 32:40Speaker 02

  and connects into your lower trochanter, which is at the base of your pelvis down here. It connects your upper body to your lower body. It's a deep, deep muscle in your abdomen, lovingly called the muscle of the soul. It's one of the muscular first responders when you're in fight or flight and people who have experienced betrayal often will have a really tight psoas.

• 32:59Jen Cohen?

  Oh my, the tightest psoas in the world.

• 33:02Speaker 02

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 33:03Jen Cohen?

  I mean, maybe that's why I have sciatica.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  It is, it contributes to sciatica as well. And so. When the, the interesting thing about the psoas muscle is, once it's contracted, it tends to stay contracted until you manually release it. And your body has a built in mechanism for the manual release, which is part of what I teach as well. But a lot of people will go to like a massage therapist and they'll try to get their psoas released. And if you do that, it will work, it will release your psoas muscle, but it's also incredibly painful.

• 33:35Jen Cohen?

  Oh, the worst.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  It's so, so painful.

• 33:39Jen Cohen?

  It is the worst. It's so sensitive and you, you'll like, you'll jump to the roof. There's no way, I mean, if anyone has ever gotten their psoas released at a massage person or a bodywork person or whatever, a physical therapist, it's impossible, it's horrible.

• 33:56Speaker 02

  It's really bad. Yeah. So.

• 33:58Jen Cohen?

  Why is it so bad though? It's just the idea of it is so creepy.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 34:03Jen Cohen?

  Like to push into your psoas.

• 34:04Speaker 02

  I know, I know. It's such a, I mean, it's such a deep internal muscle. It's so connected to your fight, flight responses, so connected to your emotional responses that that's why it's so painful for people. And so I, I really teach a way to release it that's gentle and not painful. But it takes, I don't teach it until like day 18 of the sessions that I teach. I will not start, we will not start with a psoas release. You have to release some superficial muscles first.

• 34:34Jen Cohen?

  So then if someone has betrayal trauma that they're coming to you and you're not going to do the psoas until 18, what do you do between one and 18?

• 34:41Speaker 02

  I start with releasing superficial muscle tension. So muscles on, in, at the, in your back, muscles in your pelvis.

• 34:53Jen Cohen?

  I'm curious.

• 34:54Speaker 02

  Yes. I'll show you after, I'll show you the laying down version because it's quite nice. And you know, jaw muscles and shoulder muscles and you know, your trapezius. And we start with the superficial muscles to just release habitual tension. And then we go deeper into the psoas muscle. And after that, we go into the nervous system, regulate the nervous system. And then at the end, we do integration so that you're not just like, I'm not just like, we just had this huge experience.

• 35:23Jen Cohen?

  Bye.