There is a function in The Feldenkrais Method^R that allows sleep to come to many who have difficulty sleeping. Micheal Krugman, a Guild Certified Feldenkrias Practitioner, acknowledged this function and combined it with his extensive experience in yoga, and quigong to develop The Sounder Sleep System^TM. Sandy has a certification in The Sounder Sleep System^TM and can lead students in the practice of finding better sleep.

As many may be aware the human nervous system is responsible for our every move. It’s responsible for the function of every cell in our bodies. We have 2 main parts to our nervous system; the somatic nervous system, our voluntary movement system and our autonomic nervous system, the automatic functions in ourselves. We often take for granted our automatic functions like digestion, circulating blood, storing calories for later use, releasing calories for use moment to moment, breathing, repairing tissues that need to be repaired, eliminating waste, and filtering the blood. As you can probably tell, the autonomic nervous system supports the somatic nervous system and visa versa.

As we go about the business of our lives the autonomic nervous system is constantly sliding between a highly alert state (fight, flight, freeze) and a resting recovery state (rest, digest, and recover/repair) to coordinate all of those automatic activities and even send information to our somatic nervous system so we can do the things we want to do. If you imagine something like an abacus bead sliding from one end to the other along a sturdy wire our human action state slides between deep sleep and urgent speedy activity. When we can fluently slide along the continuum from one end to the other pausing where ever it best suites our chosen activity we can be very efficient in our actions.

The inability to fully pause and remain at the rest and recovery end of the scale is what creates interference with our sleep. By engaging our somatic nervous system, or voluntary movement, with our autonomic function, demonstrated in the natural breath, we begin to learn the sensation of rest and teach the nervous system how to enter into and return to a restful state. By repeated practice of this sensation the body learns to follow and extend the sliding motion of the bead along the abacus wire. Eventually we learn how to arrive in a fully rested peaceful state to allow sleep easily. We may even get the perk of finding that we are more activated for fully active functions too.

Ask Sandy about The Sounder Sleep System^TM and how it might help you.