What do you do when you stand in a queue at the airport, while waiting in line to get off the plane, waiting for your luggage or waiting for transport?
Many of us check email, answer texts and appear busy. But once you’ve done all that and the bags still haven’t come, what do you do? I sometimes use that time to “reset” my brain.
In the 1970s, a movement therapist named Thomas Hanna came up with a concept called “somatic exercises”. It goes like this: every time you get hurt, your body compensates. Let’s say that you banged your left shoulder on a door and it hurts. So, your body uses the muscles on the right shoulder to carry a bag or to push open a door, because the left shoulder is hurting.
The problem is that even after the left shoulder has healed, your brain continues to tell your body to depend on the right shoulder. The brain, like me, is looking for maximum benefit with minimum effort. The way that it does this is by making many instructions automatic: the right shoulder lifts the weight because the left side hurts.
The problem is that the brain forgets to reverse the instruction once the shoulder heals. You sprain your left leg; you hobble on your right leg. The sprain heals, but the brain still hasn’t told your right leg to stop bearing the load. Pretty soon, your body is tilted to one side because the right side is bearing the brunt of all your activities.
This, Hanna argued, is the beginning of chronic irregularities within the body which result in pain as you age.
How do you reset the brain? How do you make sure that it reverses certain commands that are unnecessary? According to Hanna, you do this through somatic exercises.
The literature on somatic exercises talks about the subcortical brain commanding the body to make certain movements automatic. The trick to preventing chronic pain is to override this automatic subcortical instruction. Movement therapists compare it to “clearing out the cache” of your brain so that your body is returned to its original state.
Hanna believed that several things were required for somatic exercises to work. The first is to prepare for the movement – which means that you pause, take a breath and perform the next movement with intent. The second is to do the movement very slowly. The third is to do it without effort or pain. You don’t push yourself; you don’t stretch more than you need to. It has to be effortless. The fourth is to breathe while doing this. The fifth is to reverse the movement and return the body to its original position.
It doesn’t matter what movement you do. If you follow the five steps, that is good enough.
Let us think of a simple movement. You are moving your head from left to right. In a normal stretch, you look to the left and push yourself. That is not a somatic stretch. The point is not to push yourself but to pay attention to the movement. Make it easy on your body, but force the brain to focus on the action.
I am doing a simple somatic exercise as I write these words. I am lifting my shoulders. That’s it. No effort; just a lift. But I’m paying attention to my body. As I lift my shoulders gently, I can feel a little constraint, a little pain in my right shoulder blade. Where did it come from? I don’t know. Perhaps it is an old injury. I’m just acknowledging the pain to allow my brain to reset.
Somatic exercises don’t take too much time and they don’t need too much effort. In fact, they should be effortless. The point is to do them often and intuitively, with attention. And the best part is that somatic exercises feel really good.
Shoba Narayan is the author of Return to India: a memoir
THE SPECS
Engine: 1.5-litre turbocharged four-cylinder
Transmission: Constant Variable (CVT)
Power: 141bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: Dh64,500
On sale: Now
Volvo ES90 Specs
Engine: Electric single motor (96kW), twin motor (106kW) and twin motor performance (106kW)
Power: 333hp, 449hp, 680hp
Torque: 480Nm, 670Nm, 870Nm
On sale: Later in 2025 or early 2026, depending on region
Price: Exact regional pricing TBA
SPECS
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At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Election pledges on migration
CDU: "Now is the time to control the German borders and enforce strict border rejections"
SPD: "Border closures and blanket rejections at internal borders contradict the spirit of a common area of freedom"
How to wear a kandura
Dos
- Wear the right fabric for the right season and occasion
- Always ask for the dress code if you don’t know
- Wear a white kandura, white ghutra / shemagh (headwear) and black shoes for work
- Wear 100 per cent cotton under the kandura as most fabrics are polyester
Don’ts
- Wear hamdania for work, always wear a ghutra and agal
- Buy a kandura only based on how it feels; ask questions about the fabric and understand what you are buying
SPECS
Toyota land Cruiser 2020 5.7L VXR
Engine: 5.7-litre V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 362hp
Torque: 530Nm
Price: Dh329,000 (base model 4.0L EXR Dh215,900)
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
Anghami
Started: December 2011
Co-founders: Elie Habib, Eddy Maroun
Based: Beirut and Dubai
Sector: Entertainment
Size: 85 employees
Stage: Series C
Investors: MEVP, du, Mobily, MBC, Samena Capital
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
UPI facts
More than 2.2 million Indian tourists arrived in UAE in 2023
More than 3.5 million Indians reside in UAE
Indian tourists can make purchases in UAE using rupee accounts in India through QR-code-based UPI real-time payment systems
Indian residents in UAE can use their non-resident NRO and NRE accounts held in Indian banks linked to a UAE mobile number for UPI transactions
THE%20SPECS
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UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Game Changer
Director: Shankar
Stars: Ram Charan, Kiara Advani, Anjali, S J Suryah, Jayaram
Rating: 2/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
ANDROID%20VERSION%20NAMES%2C%20IN%20ORDER
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Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
How to donate
Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
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