Somatic Exercises for Anxiety - The Workout Witch anyone?

[PurplePansy05]

Hi! I've been reading a lot about somatic exercises and how they can help with anxiety and trauma. Full disclosure, I am diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder and I also suffered from PTSD. Both are much, much better now after a lot of work I've put in over the last 2 years.

Anxiety however still features in my life more than I want it to and I do feel tense quite regularly. I went through CBT, medication, hypnotherapy (best thing for me), I am pretty active generally and I do a fair bit of yoga as well. Eating and sleeping could be better, alas I'm a toddler mum so these two might have to be improved gradually.

I bit the bullet and bought The Workout Witch Stress and Trauma Release course on offer, only just started and I'm enjoying it so far. I know there's some free somatic content online but I like the structured approach and the fact I have access to the full course for life. I'm the last person ever to be influenced, but what she posts on Instagram has convinced me, it's a story of my life and symptoms. I spent months debating if it's worth spending money on it, but so far I'm glad I did.

Is anyone else doing it? I'd love to chat about your experiences, especially if you're further into the course or completed it already 😊

I paid £39 on sale, full price is £46 I think?

Confession, I paused because I had a bad cold and was super busy in work. So am restarting now if you want to follow my journey again 😂👍

I'm a somatic practitioner - not for this program (which I haven't come across).

Just checking with you about that "big release" - do you have support in place for if it happens? Because if it's the sort of thing I'm imagining, you do well to not be trying to cope with it without support in place.

Embodiment work on trauma can go DEEP, suddenly.

Have a look for TRE, (Trauma Releasing Exercises) see if you can find a video guiding you how to do that, online. That's a safe one you can regulate yourself with easily.

I've had therapy for complex trauma and obviously when you're dealing with traumatic memories you feel emotional and may cry.

If you release trauma using TRE do you feel emotional in the same way?
Do you just feel the release of the emotion or is it accompanied by some sort of awareness of what caused the trauma?

Somatic just means 'of the body' so these are bodily exercises as absolutely all physical exercise is! Yoga is somatic exercise, so is Tai Chi, so is dance, bootcamp, walking, calisthenics etc.

Yoga, Pilates and Tai Chi all use breath control very consciously to enhance the power of the exercise.

Breathing techniques are known to be the quickest way to reduce immediate feelings of anxiety and stress/

What is being claimed as different from these known practices?

Sorry to slightly derail the thread but do you have any links to anything that explain this more fully? As it sounds really interesting! Thanks 🙏

I follow her, and was about to buy until I googled her and saw a lot of negative stuff, and she deletes any negative comments on her page.

I do trauma informed/somatic yoga on YouTube now for free - Hannah Uiri. It’s working for me!

Yes, I saw the negative stuff and was hesitant, but I quite enjoy the exercises so far.

Re any movement can help - yes and no. When you're in the state of high, chronic anxiety and trauma response, exercises increasing cortisol aren't the most helpful. In my experience, gentler exercises aimed at trauma/grief/stress release are a starting point before other exercises can be done and fully benefitted from. That's certainly the case for me.

Breathing techniques are helpful too, yes. Anything activating parasympathetic nervous system when you're in that state is good.

Some types of yoga are better than other to deal with anxiety and/or trauma, this is personal preference, but I would anticipate for most people Yin yoga and pranayama exercises would be more helpful than e.g.: vinyasa to begin with. I say this as someone who's tried quite a lot of different exercises and I still felt there was a gap in specifically targeting the anxiety and trauma tension that I felt all over my body and that was making me pretty much frozen at times.

Thank you re TRE mentions, I will have a look into this. I feel I have a good support network in place now, unlike few years ago. The release is an interesting one, I haven't got far enough with the course yet, however on day 7 I had what I thought was an interesting reaction. Suddenly I thought about something forming part of my trauma which I buried and didn't want to go back to. I haven't thought about it in a long time, and not in that way which was a surprise. My thoughts were actually positive, however it made me cry and I spent about 20 mins sobbing in the shower. I felt good after. I thought at the time that maybe it was to do with these exercises, but it's too early to say. As I'm restarting the course now, I'll try to add more updates in the next few weeks.

I’m glad you’re enjoying them, I’ll be following and may even purchase myself - it’s good to get an honest review.

Which course/bundle did you go for?

Is there anything different or special on the video that you can't get from the free videos on YouTube?

I'm not sure which free videos you're referring to @CeleryCeller? I did a week of the course so far as well, so I'm not in a position to say yet.

@DrunkenElephant I have the Release Stress and Stored Trauma course. I didn't know which one would be best for me because they all seemed relevant! I also wasn't prepared to spend too much buying a bundle in case I don't like it. There's an option to answer some questions on the website which I did and the recommendation was to choose this individual course, not a bundle, so I gladly went with it.

It varies. I've had tears but not known why because I don't "feel upset" iykwim. I've felt emotional. I've felt nothing. I've felt "better". Tired. Energised.

It hasn't tended to bring back specific memories for me, no. In my general experience with somatic stuff it tends to bring back the memory of the feeling, not the trauma.

For the person asking for recommendations: Bessel Van de Kolk, The Body Keeps The Score is one of the primary texts underlying somatics and trauma. Start there :)

Definitely a conspiracy theorist, I reported your post. If you have nothing to add, move to a different thread.

@PurplePansy05 - interesting that I get reported and other people with similar thoughts don't. Also interesting that you get quite cross about it - you are after all just sharing your own experience. However it is quite an expensive course, trauma release should not be taken lightly and people need properly supporting. For anyone genuinely thinking of buying this course I would suggest having a look at the thread on reddit first.

What is her background/training in trauma healing? A lot of people claim to be trauma informed when they are not, or not enough for what they are doing.

I'm fed up with Mumsnet sofa detectives like you, it's my prerogative to report or not as it's my thread. Kindly please leave it as you're continuously derailing it for no reason.

MN verified my thread so you can sleep peacefully now.

I've also been REALLY interested in this. My SM is flooded with people selling packages. But I can't find out much about (by way of general research and also not parting with money) it in general by googling.

@PurplePansy05 Sorry but I am really not an armchair detective and do not think that I should be subjected to your vitriol when others saying similar as me have been left alone. Also, surely this is a thread for everyone it's not simply 'your thread'.
However more importantly these online courses, heavily marketed on social media should be treated with caution, especially those promising trauma release. We should in a sense all be armchair detectives and look for qualifications and balanced reviews which is why I pointed out the reddit thread -to give a different view point.

Mixed, mostly negative reviews on Reddit. If you want to regulate your nervous system, try yoga, walks in nature and breathwork - free and on YouTube

@IfOnlyOurEyesSawSouls if you have time please can you share some "above board" information/links on this subject? Maybe not as specialist/deep as "trauma release" which I think should be done with support.

Greedy Witch stole 119.40$ from my after I made an honest mistake at the checkout. Contacted her a minute later but refused to reimburse me. I was already paying 200$ and was a returning customer, but Greedy Liz wanted more and even wanted me to pay over 83$ for no reason in particular over the 276$ I was paying. Not in the mood to do any of her workouts anymore. Some help, some do not. Now, hearing her voice gets on my nerves. No more Greedy Witch. (Note I did not even create an account to go see the content, so she knows I had no watched it. Plus, I contacted her one minute after the mistake)

I have done the hip release several times over a few years and have not noticed a difference. I see all her positive reviews and how beautiful her life is now and say to myself that I am going to try it again. I have been considering purchasing more of her courses thinking that I need more "support". After reading through comments and seeing the receipts of interactions I am repulsed by her. I found free TRE Training and I am looking forward to starting it. Being a HOT Boss Babe, means being Honest, Open, Transparent. Deleting "negative" reviews, victim shaming, and hiding correspondence that does not fit into your higher-than-god persona is the exact opposite of being a HOT Bass Babe. Liz Tenuto has now started a teacher training course. Teaching her toxic ways of hiding, shaming, and blaming.